Coping With Cancer as a Family

Being diagnosed with cancer is always shocking and often seems unreal, for both the patients and their families. It's OK for people facing cancer diagnosis to take time to adjust to the news and prepare to make treatment decisions. Parents often hesitate to tell their children about family members having cancer. According to Steven Applebaum, M.D., kids are smarter then we think, and are emotionally able to handle an age-appropriate amount of information. Children are also very sensitive to adults, and will often sense when important news is being hidden from them. Applebaum also suggest allowing children to be a part of the patient's support system; they can really rise to the occasion and offer powerful love and affection to the patient. I feel you know your child, and should make the decision on how involved you want him or her to be in that support system.