Telling The Family

If we go back to my earlier blog “My Diagnosis” I discussed how I was not ready at that point to tell my family….

My dad died on the 16^th August 1991 from Cancer at St Gemma’s Hospice Leeds and to try and explain to my mum 20 years later that her son now has the disease that her husband died from was not going to be an easy feat.

Its now the middle of April 2010 and my plan for treatment is complete. On the 30^th April I am going to commence 25 sessions of Radio/Chemo at St James Hospital Leeds. I will then have a rest period of a month before I undergo a second round of CT & MRI scans to view how affective the treatment has been in reducing the size of the tumour.

Then its off to The Hampshire Clinic in Basingstoke for a 2 week period where invasive surgery will be undertaken by Mr Moran and his team to remove the tumour and for a period of approximately 7 months leave me with a Ileostomy (My new friend).

Now that I have the plan and can now talk to my family. It’s a Saturday and I have been up for hours going through my speech in my head. I have been rehearsing it for weeks and just needed to walk through it one more time. The nerves kick in and I have the sick feeling but I really need to do this today. Mum and my sister are in the back room and I sit down and 15 minutes later it’s all done.

There were questions and concerns but I had all of the answers and was able to reassure them, as over the last 6 weeks since diagnosis a lot has happened from a research and a planning perspective and I am glad in a way that I decided on delaying telling them, because at least now they had the answers and knew that I was not going to die and that my Cancer was treatable.

I left to see Jo and Sean in Wakefield and as I drove it was like a huge weight off my shoulders…. having to have keep this a secret for such a long period of time was difficult as there was a loot of up’s and downs along the way, but on reflection I still feel that it was the right decision.

Back at work Helen askes me how I am going to approach my colleagues and that was one answer that I did not have. We chatted at length about how and why. As to why Helen mentioned that if I didn’t then colleagues would be wondering as to why I was going a lot of time off and possibly coming into work looking unwell. 

Then there was approach…should I get them all into a room or do it via 121 sessions…….I decided against the room idea and chose my moments to take colleagues off for a Coffee…..lets say lots of coffee and tea were consumed over the next few weeks.

It was quite hard for me to tell colleagues about my illness….as well as colleagues I also see them as friends as most of us have worked together or alongside each other for 6 years.

I remember on my trip to Harley Street, I bumped into Bob Davidson from work who was on his way to our offices in London. He asked if I was heading to our offices too…..and in a split second of deciding whether to lie or tell the truth, I went with the truth.

My friends and colleagues were shocked with the news but were extremely supportive and over during my treatment period they were always there to listen and offer support were needed.

One of the most difficult situations was explaining to my new line manager of 2 days over the phone that I was looking forward to working with him but that I was going to need quite a bit of time off in the future. Brendan was great and only now having known him just over two years he is a true friends and always been there 24/7 for me over this difficult time in my life.  His support and words of encouragement to beat this illness was amazing and that combined with my positivity to succeed was a recipe for success.

My final disclosure was to colleagues who I may not see on a day-to-day basis and I decided to pen an email. It took me days to hit the send button and one afternoon whilst hovering the mouse over it…..off it went by accident…oops…but so glad I had done it.