Children and dealing with their Mom's diagnosis

 One of the toughest parts for me is knowing the difficulty and sadness my diagnosis has brought to my precious family.  Our 3 daughters have to live with this daily as well and that's a tough pill to swallow.

Being a teen is difficult enough these days, but add your Mom's cancer diagnosis to the twist and that makes dealing with life more complicated. I'm can't lie, we have some cranky teens on the best of days. They are amazing humans and I love them more than life itself. But a 15 and 18 year old have a lot going on.  

When they found out about my diagnosis, I remember anticipating lots of questions and discussion but there really wasn't much. We sat down and talked about the reality of this disease and we were pretty straight forward about outcomes.  It was a difficult discussion and I expected more shock from them, but I soon realized  that they had already googled it and probably knew more info than I cared to know.  

As the weeks went on, they watched my hair fall out and even helped shave my head. But they continued to be themselves, they went out with friends, we fought over clean bedrooms and laundry, and they spent a lot of time in their rooms. Pretty much the same old lifestyle. I felt frustrated with the fact that they spent a lot of time in their rooms. But soon realized, they too were dealing with my diagnosis in their own way.  Teens have different ways managing through stress and they can appear self absorbed, which in fact they can be at times. I want them to live their normal teen life as much as possible. Thankfully, they have but I've learned that it doesn't mean they don't care, they care so much. I know this hurts them and if they can hang on to any teenage drama through this, I have learned to be thankful for it.  It took me sometime to figure out.

Our youngest daughter will be 8 soon, so discussions about my cancer have been different. We haven't explained everything in as much detail, but she knows this isn't a good thing.  She is very aware of my health and has an inquisitive  personality.  She knows what days I get blood work and when I go to chemo.  She prays for me every night and wishes cancer didn't exist. She asked me one night as I was putting her to bed "What happens if you go to the hospital and they can't make you better Mommy?"  Oh, how I tried to avoid answering that question. But she wouldn't take a non answer.  You can almost see the cogs churning in her brilliant little brain. 

I am so thankful for my beautiful children and am very proud of their strength and courage. They are kind and caring girls and while we have our battles, I know my family is a strong unit and maybe even stronger because of this journey.

This past summer our oldest graduated from high school and got her first job, and she starts university this week! Our middle, heads to grade 11 and went away on a 3 week hiking and canoeing leadership course over the summer, she'd never tented (outside our yard) a night in her life before.  Our youngest keeps us on our toes and loves telling jokes to make us laugh, she's excited to be heading to grade 3 this week!

Thankful and blessed. Thanks for reading.