Firefly Sisterhood is grateful to partner with Angel Foundation, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing financial, emotional and educational support to adults with cancer and their families. We’re delighted to share a guest blog from Heidi Johnson, Marketing and Events Manager, in which she highlights some of the dynamics within families that can result from a cancer diagnosis, including both challenges and positive outcomes.
Without a doubt, a cancer diagnosis impacts the entire family: the patient, spouse or partner, parents, uncles and aunts, and especially children. The way families choose to handle the cancer experience varies greatly and depends largely on the family dynamic before cancer, not to mention the age, personality and temperament of the people involved. Angel Foundation Facing Cancer Together. Program Director, Melissa Turgeon, works with parents on how best to communicate with their kids about cancer. While every family is different, here is some general advice she shares with every parent:
- Remember that children are resilient. Young ones can handle information about your diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis with surprising strength.
- Provide children with simple, honest, and age-appropriate information. The more information you give them, the better you can help alleviate their uncertainty and anxiety. Giving children accurate information they can understand will also create a sense of trust and safety.
- Work to build a foundation of trust throughout your treatment. This strong foundation will give you the opportunity to prepare and update children if treatment or prognosis changes. Relationships built on trust can thrive through uncomfortable and difficult conversations and might open the door for deeper relationships that may not have existed prior to cancer.
- Breathe. Take one day at time. Let your family help you. Include your children in your experience.
There is always a “before cancer” and an “after cancer.” Life inevitably changes, but families have the power to determine how those changes will affect their lives long-term. Sometimes relationships do suffer because of cancer. Children pull away as a way to handle their fear. Parents overcompensate in trying to “protect” their children, which can create unwanted distance between the two. No one is perfect, and life is sometimes just hard.
On the flip side, parents might be surprised at how cancer changes the family dynamic for the better: parents and children become more affectionate, more compassionate, more understanding or more patient. Parents can use the experience to demonstrate to their children what support and love look like in real terms, when the going gets rough. Children gain a new sense of appreciation for their parents. Families can grow together, not apart. It happens every day!
Angel Foundation’s Facing Cancer Together programs are provided to adults with cancer and their families when cancer strikes. Support is provided during new diagnosis, survivorship and end-of-life. Year-round groups, programs, events and resources are provided at no cost. These programs include: Education and Support Series, Parenting Through Cancer Groups, Advanced Cancer Groups, Camp Angel and fun social, community events. The purpose of the Angel Foundation’s Facing Cancer Together program is to meet a unique psychosocial need in the adult oncology population. These programs support the whole family: children, teens, young adults, patients and caregivers. The purpose is to let families know they are not alone.
This Is Living With Cancer