Effect On The Family

Hello

    I was recently diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. The news has as most of you know, is a life changing event. I am only 46 and have a wife and three children 9 - 14. The news and the treatment I can handle fairly well. It is the effect this has on the family that is tearing me up. I believe in telling the kids everything (kind of hard not to they can see that my wife and I are upset), After the first notification we cried then started to get onn with the procedures. It hit me one day that the kids were having a hard time.  While eating out after church, I was jocking with my older son about teaching him to drive soon, when my 9 year old daughter started to cry. Whn asked what was wrong she asked if I would be around to teach her to drive. I could not help but cry, not for me but for her. Thinking about them with out a father is the hardest thing to deal with.

    I believe that my long term prognosis is good but it is hard to convey that to the kids.  Anyone have any ideas or things that have worked in your family?

                                                     Robert W. 

Most cancer treatment centers have support groups both for the patient and for the family.  I strongly recommend you contact your cancer center and get you and your family in a support group. 

My prayers are with you and your family.

We were in church on Sunday and a couple was celebrating their 50th.  I was so happy for them, yet bawling my eyes out wondering if my husband and I will get there.  We have been married 18 wonderful years.  My daughters at home are 13 and 9.  They, too, wonder if dad will be around to teach them those things.  They are also in the very immature stage of the world revolving around them and very much living in the moment.  When my husband wants to do something together, they look at their schedules instead of jumping up and saying YEAH!

I think part of it is that they are still in denial.  If they don't think about it, it isn't really happening.  We believe with being honest with them as well.  They know almost as much as we do.  How much they UNDERSTAND, though, is different.

This is round two for him.  As of yesterday it is deemed a local recurrence, small bowel area.  That is the good news, that it hasn't spread to distant areas yet.  HIs CEA levels have not been reliable in monitoring or diagnosing.  We expect two phases of treatment, phase 1 being Chemo/Radiation combination.  Phase 2 is chemo alone to get the remnants.

The way I figure it, tommorow is promised to none of us, Any of us could pull out of the driveway & be hit by a truck and that's it.

If you've decided to live, and believe you'll be cured, that's a huge part of the solution. You can share that belief with your family.

I have stage 4 inoperable colon cancer & have been in Chemo for 13 months. I've seen my CEA counts (which correspond to the scans) go from 307 to 6.8 to 17.1 and now down to 9.0. I took a 3 month mini-vacation from Chemo (kept on with Avastin only) when I had a PET scan last October that showed no cancer. I was sure this was the permanent cure I'd been waiting for. But a scan in March showed it was back, still covering the same local area (outside of large & small intestines) but no measurable tumors. So I went on FOLFIRI (I'd had 12 rounds of FOLFOX).

I was 54 when diagnosed, my three children were all in their 20's and my first reaction was: "I've had a good life, no regrets, I'm ready to meet my maker". But when I talked to my wife & children I realized they weren't ready to let go of me. I prayed about it and specifically to be cancer free by the holidays so I could enjoy Christmas. Well that prayer was answered. Two big tumors went away and at Christmas I believed I was cancer free. Now I know that until it's been years and years you really don't know, even people that have been cancer free for 20 years still get tested and are permanently changed by it.

Spending time sitting in the Chemo chair I talked with lots of people who had stage 3 colon cancer, all had had operations to remove the tumor and were going though 12 cycles of Avastin + FOLFOX. As far as I know, all were successfully cured.

So my advice is always be truthful but positive around your children. Tell your wife everything in private (she wants to know). And take it one day at a time.

Robert,

I too was recently diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. I feel your pain, the hardest part for me is seeing my daughters struggle so with my diagnosis. I am a 45 year old Mother of three daughters. My girls are older than yours but it is never easy telling your kids you have cancer and seeing the scared look on their faces. My youngest daughter who is sixteen wrote on her myspace blog please God don't take my best friend from me. I want to do all the things with my Mom that all girls want to do like preparing for the prom, seeing the smile on my Mom face as I accepted my diploma at graduation, and shopping for a wedding dress and watching my Mom hold her grandchild for the first time. I felt so bad for her because I can't promise I will be there for any of which she dreams about. What has helped was our church offers counceling for children and teens who are dealing with a terminal ill parent. They have benefited from talking to professionals who are trained in this type of therapy. I also have a personal therapist that has helped me cope better. I know it is hard and I know you can't promise anyone what the future holds for you but just live life and love those precious children. When you have energy spend some one on one with each child building memories. They will love the special time with you and cherish the memories no matter what happens to you. I will pray for you and your family.

God Bless,

Sheryl

On 6/10/2008 Robert W. wrote:

Hello

    I was recently diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. The news has as most of you know, is a life changing event. I am only 46 and have a wife and three children 9 - 14. The news and the treatment I can handle fairly well. It is the effect this has on the family that is tearing me up. I believe in telling the kids everything (kind of hard not to they can see that my wife and I are upset), After the first notification we cried then started to get onn with the procedures. It hit me one day that the kids were having a hard time.  While eating out after church, I was jocking with my older son about teaching him to drive soon, when my 9 year old daughter started to cry. Whn asked what was wrong she asked if I would be around to teach her to drive. I could not help but cry, not for me but for her. Thinking about them with out a father is the hardest thing to deal with.

    I believe that my long term prognosis is good but it is hard to convey that to the kids.  Anyone have any ideas or things that have worked in your family?

 

                                                     Robert W. 

Hi there, Robert.

My husband was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer with liver mets on July 26. 2005. At first we kept things very sketchy with our children. They knew that this was bad but we NEVER said that there was no cure. They watched their father, asked a few questions here and there. One year later all 3 of them (20, 17 ,15) came and point blank asked if he was going to make it. He has had 2 reoccurances in his liver and we had been to 3 or more different oncologists for opinions. They knew that I spent many hours researching things so I looked them straight in the eye and said that right now, although there is no definite cure for Dad's cancer they had our word that we would go to the ends of the earth to find treatment for him. We told them that Dad had made up his mind that he was not going to die, that he was going to live. You should have seen the look of relief on their faces. We finished by saying that everyday new treatments are being researched and that we were going to keep going until every possible treatment, procedure etc was exhausted. I tried to interest them in some support group but my kids are not interested. They deal with this within themselves, just as my husband does. My advice to you is that they need to be reassured that you are doing everything possible, that you will continue to do everything possible and that you will never give up. They will take their cue from you and your wife.

God Bless,

Carol