How do I tell my kids about my mum's cancer?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

Kids are 5 and 12, 12yo DD is having a really hard time with school at the moment. She's struggling so much MH wise and I'm extremely concerned that the news of my mum will mess her up even more.

Mum has been struggling all year with heart problems, and a chest pain that they've been telling her for months was something called costochondritis. Last week she found out that the chest pain was actually cancer on her lung, and it had spread from her breast. It's also spread to her spine. She's had a biopsy and we won't know exactly what we're dealing with until she gets the results after Christmas.

I don't think we're going to tell the kids until we have the biopsy results but HOW the hell do I tell them??

hardest thing i ever did was tell my children their dad was dying! the one thing i learned was to be honest, as hard as it was, they wanted to know everything and didnt want any secrets.

but wait until you have something to tell them..

@AintNobodyHereButUsChickens

I 🤔 think you need to be honest in an age appropriate way,
saying Gran or Nana health is not as good as used to be,
she is doing everything to try and get better but it hangs in the balance at the moment,
ect

Honesty is best. She is ill and the doctors are looking after her. Sometimes dr's can make people well and sometimes they can't.

Honesty, but I would wait until the biopsy result is in because then there will hopefully be a treatment plan in place. Tell the 12 year old she has cancer and that they are going to do X to treat it. Tell the 5 year old she is poorly but they are giving her medicine to hopefully help her get better.

Remember your 12 year old can google. I wouldn't tell her anything about what stage cancer it is or where it is unless she specifically asks. I would also tell school too so they know to support her. But also that your Mum might not want everything shared with everyone, it is her private health information and you can use that line too with your eldest.

I hope your Mum recovers, cancer treatment is not easy so remember to look after yourself too. Plus if she loses her hair it will be obvious she has had chemotherapy. Both my Mum and MIL lost their hair.

Take loads of photos and videos of her this Christmas, videos especially so you can get her voice and her chatting away.

I got very sick when DS was 14, my cancer was fixable (I lost a year of my life and his little life to it) but as soon as I had a diagnosis I told him.

He dealt with it admirably.

I realised he needed to know, when my DB said to me he knows that something is up and he is filling that vacuum of ignorance with far worse than you are about to tell him.

Tell them keep it cancer lite, and drip in what you need to drip in, in time.

With the 12 year old, go with complete honesty. Grandmas got cancer, its spread from one place to another, so is unlikely to be curable, however people can live a long time with cancer that can't be cured. You can talk about the various treatments, that they'll be likely to make her feel ill etc. I wouldn't get caught up in timescales until you know its likely to be weeks rather than months. As a PP said, 12 year olds can google, but I don't think thats a reason to keep things from them, but rather a reason to have those conversations with her yourself, rather than letting her find things out via google. At 12, she's capable of understanding pretty much anything an adult can, but she'll need help dealing with the emotions of it.

With the 5 year old, I'd just go with "Granny is ill right now, so won't be able to play with you so much, and might be hurting, so be gentle with her" You don't need to talk about anything longer term than that until she becomes seriously ill.