Facing Cancer as a Parent
- Romance novelist Elin Hilderbrand says her stage one breast cancer diagnosis changed her “entire perspective.” She underwent a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgeries after finding a lump in her breast in 2014. She continued working, went through a divorce, and was a dedicated mom to her three kids through it all.
- Stage one breast cancers are relatively small; they either have not spread to the lymph nodes or only a small area of cancer has spread to the sentinel lymph node.
- Anyone battling cancer may find telling their children about their diagnosis to be a really difficult task. You want to be honest with them and you want them to be prepared for what might happen, but at the same time you want to protect them, and be as gentle as possible.
- “Having these conversations may bring up deep emotions you may have stowed away. There is nothing wrong with showing our emotions to children as long as we can remain calm and give them a sense of safety,” Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin said.
- Facing cancer as a parent can be an incredibly difficult task. But having children who depend on you can also provide another reason to fight the disease with everything you’ve got.
The 55-year-old mom of three, who was famously dubbed as “The Queen of Beach Reads” New York Magazine in 2019, told The Washington Post in a recent interview that getting diagnosed with cancer and undergoing a double mastectomy, as well as reconstructive surgeries.
Read MoreHilderbrand was diagnosed with breast cancer in the spring of 2014 after discovering a lump in her left breast, she perviously explained to Mass General Brigham Nantucket Cottage Hospital.
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“Thanks to speedy and effective imaging at NCH, I was diagnosed with Stage One breast cancer. Although this diagnosis was nothing short of devastating, I was impressed with the ease that I was set up with an incredible surgical team at Mass General,” she said.
“The transition to care at Mass General, which included a double mastectomy, was seamless, and at a time of tremendous anxiety, the health professionals at NCH made my life easier.”
Expert Resources on Mastectomies
Hilderbrand said her double mastectomy, the surgical removal of both breasts, took six hours long, and the surgeries didn’t end there as she underwent multiple breast reconstruction procedures afterward.
When The Washington Post pointed out how Hilderbrand once described her battle with disease as “solitary confinement,” she replied, “One of the things going through my cancer journey taught me is that we’re all alone in our bodies.”
Hilderbrand, who often transports her readers to the beaches of Nantucket in Massachusetts, as 27 of her novels are based on or around that island, explained, “I also came to realize how desperately people who are sick want to go somewhere else in their minds. Escapism is real!
“That I have been able to provide a mental vacation to people who are undergoing treatment has given me a different way of thinking about the purpose of a ‘beach read.'”
She also looked back on how her son Dawson shaved his head while she was going though chemotherapy and wrote on social media, “Mom is strong,” something which inspired her youngest child Shelby to often use the phrase “mamastrong.”
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Hilderbrand ultimately created the #mamastrong initiative and had her books sent to cancer treatment centers, adding, “I have heard from many, many women who have chosen to read my novels while sitting in the chemo chair, which is both humbling and an incredible honor.”
As for how Hilderbrand balanced her busy life of being a mom, releasing a book, breast cancer treatment, and even going through divorce, she told The Post it didn’t come easy.
“I guess my best piece of advice is: Don’t be stubborn about accepting help. At the time of my cancer diagnosis, I was newly divorced, but my ex-husband was a huge support. My friends and community all showed up in a big way … my friends dropped off meals and boxes of my favorite macarons,” she said.
“My surgery was scheduled for the same night as my son Maxx’s eighth-grade dance, his first formal. My friends sent an album of pictures that I was able to look at in the recovery room. Thinking about this makes me cry now.”
She added, “The other important thing to remember is ‘this too shall pass.’ Ten years later, I doubt my kids ever think about that time. We are all far too busy dealing with the challenges and joys of the present.”
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We’re delighted to see Hilderbrand prioritizing her children, even as they become adults, after battling breast cancer when they were just ages 8, 12, and 14.
“When I look back, I think: How on earth did we make it through all that? But now, it’s 5+ years later, my ex-husband and I are great friends and I’m healthy,” she previously told the South Shore Moms Club.
“I will also say that traveling when the kids were younger was very difficult. There’s a saying about working moms: When you’re at work, you feel like you should be with the kids. When you’re with the kids, you feel like you should be at work. That is my life.”
Understand Breast Cancer Symptoms
It’s always a good idea to be familiar with your own breasts, so you can learn what’s normal for you, and how to spot any changes worth mentioning to your doctor, like Hilderbrand did. For this reason, SurvivorNet’s experts recommend that you do regular breast self-exams.
Dr. Comen shares how self-exams can help you learn what’s normal and what’s not for your breasts.
You don’t need to have an MD after your name to know whether a lump is new, or your breast is changing in appearance. Your goal in performing self-exams is to see whether anything about your breasts is different than usual.
Look for changes like:
- A new breast lump
- New swelling in one breast
- Changes in the nipple (such as puckering)
- Redness or flaking in the breast or nipple
- Discharge (including blood) from the nipple
- Pain in the breast
- Bring symptoms like these to your doctor’s attention.
Getting a Diagnosis
Your mammogram or self-exam results may lead your doctor to recommend further testing with a diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). If these tests suggest changes that might be cancer, you’ll need a biopsy–a test in which your doctor removes a small sample of tissue and has it checked for cancer in a lab. Only a biopsy can confirm or rule out whether you have breast cancer.
Although it can be frightening to go through breast cancer testing, SurvivorNet’s doctors advise that you try not to get ahead of yourself. It’s very possible for a biopsy to find that a lump is benign (not cancer).
If you do receive a breast cancer diagnosis, you’ll get a lot more information along with it, such as the type and stage of the disease. The stage means how far in your body the cancer has spread.
Though most breast cancers are not linked to inherited genetic mutations, knowing whether you have a mutation could affect the type of treatment you get. Therefore, it’s recommended that all women who are diagnosed with breast cancer be given genetic testing.
Do you need genetic testing? The answer, according to Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Director of the High-Risk Cancer Program at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, depends on your family history of cancer.
Based on your test results, preferences, and personal circumstances (such as your age), you and your doctor will make decisions about how to proceed with treatment.
There are different types of breast cancer, and determining what type you have will help your doctor choose the best treatment option for you.
The links below will take you to simple guides SurvivorNet created to explain treatment options for different types of breast cancer.
- Living With ‘HER2-Low’ Breast Cancer
- Living With HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
- Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer
- Living With HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
- Living With HR-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
Coping With a Diagnosis
Coping with a diagnosis involves a range of emotions from anger to sadness and everything in between. Sarah Stapleton, a licensed clinical social worker, encourages cancer warriors and their families to be “patient with your emotions.”
It’s also important that you understand how you communicate with your providers, but also with your loved ones,” Stapleton said. “We can’t always assume that people know what we need at a given time, and there are going to be times when you don’t want to speak about your diagnosis and you don’t want to speak about cancer.
Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik previously explained to SurvivorNet some tips for cancer warriors and their caregivers for managing emotions after a diagnosis. She emphasized getting extra support from loved ones.
“Some people don’t need to go outside of their family and friend circle. They feel like they have enough support there,” Dr. Plutchik said. “But for people who feel like they need a little bit more, it is important to reach out to a mental health professional.”
“Patients who have just been diagnosed with cancer sometimes wonder how they are going to handle the diagnosis of the cancer in social situations,” Dr. Plutchik added. “How much information they should share and with whom they should share the information, everybody is different.”
Ultimately it comes down to what feels right. Loved ones supporting a cancer warrior are encouraged to respect the wishes of the cancer patient when it comes to disclosing their diagnosis.
Battling Cancer as a Parent
Opening up about cancer diagnosis with children can be really difficult task. You want to be honest with them and you want them to be prepared for what might happen, but at the same time you want to protect them, and be as gentle as possible.
John Duberstein, who lost his wife Nina to cancer, explains that he and his wife tried to take a progressive approach and be as open with their kids as possible. But as honest as they were, they ran into some issues with their kids understanding the disease. When Nina started to look healthier, for example, the kids assumed she was getting better, but that wasn’t the case.
Talking to Kids About Cancer: Be Open as Much as You Can
“It was a real eye-opening moment for two people who felt like they were dealing really head-on with this stuff, talking to the kids,” Duberstein told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview.
“So I think it’s important to be open with the kids as much as you can, as much as you feel like they can handle. But it’s also important to revisit it and not make assumptions. At the end of the night, what Nina had to tell them was, ‘I’m not ever going to get better. My cancer is not ever going to go away,’ it was hard for them to hear even though they’d already been prepared.”
Obviously, not every parent feels comfortable sharing so much about their diagnosis with their children. Some survivors have even told us that they were afraid to tell their family members, but as for Duberstein, de Givenchy, and Lorenzo, honesty was the best policy.
Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin encourages people with sick parents “to talk about your feelings with your immediate family as well as your parents.” She’s previously talked about the importance of expressing your feelings in her advice column for SurvivorNet.
“Talking about difficult things does not cause more anxiety,” Dr. Strongin said. “It is NOT talking about the very thing that we are all afraid or worried about that causes our body to feel dysregulated (unable to manage emotional responses or keep them within an acceptable range of typical emotional reactions) and anxious.”
Specifically, with patients who may be scared to talk to their children about a diagnosis, Strongin said children can pick up on their emotions, so it may help to check in with yourself beforehand.
“Having these conversations may bring up deep emotions you may have stowed away. There is nothing wrong with showing our emotions to children as long as we can remain calm and give them a sense of safety,” Dr. Strongin said.
Facing a Cancer Diagnosis as a Single Parent: “I Knew I Had to Fight for My Life”
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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