My husband was diagnosed with cancer at the end of July. We told some trusted friends (friends we’ve known since he was 16 and I was 18 and we’re almost 40 now) with strict wishes not to tell anyone else as we were in shock and so much to process. He had the affected organ removed in the second week of September. We have two young children who know daddy had a poorly organ and needed an operation to remove it. We didn’t mention cancer as our 8 year old understands what it is and there’s a slim chance my husband may not need further treatment. We wanted to hold off having that difficult conversation if it may not be needed. We won’t find out pathology for 6-8 weeks and until the tumour is finally graded and the suspected lymph nodes biopsied.
The issue - the friends we told, who have been great with childcare, emotional support and bringing food etc chose to tell their sister (and dad, so the family has discussed it and they are a close family who hang out all the time). The sister’s kid is best friends with our 8 year old - they hang out every day in school and sit on the same table. We are worried kids may overhear things and then pass things to ours when we are not ready to tell them.
I guess I am hurt and pissed off they told their sister when we specifically told them not to. They asked a couple of times if they wanted us to tell people (close mutual friends) and we repeatedly said no. They said they wouldn’t.
My husband was not ready to tell a lot of people - it’s been such a rollercoaster since finding out to trying to understand staging and grading and different opinions from surgeons and oncology. We’ve gone from it’s not curable, only treatable, to it may be curative to remove the organ, let’s have the surgery and see. We’ve been navigating summer holidays and managing our emotions without it affecting our children, who are our biggest concern. We desperately don’t want to cast a dark shadow over them and their childhood when 6 weeks since diagnosis, there’s a small chance this surgery may be curative. We will have the conversation with them and I think that’s what’s so upsetting, feeling forced to have that chat with our children before we wanted to. Terrified they’ll hear something from someone at school and we will then lose trust between us and create other issues.
Our deepest darkest moments feel like gossip they’ve shared. The friend and her sister’s mum also had cancer of the same organ so it’s a trauma that will bring up bad memories for our friend but we very clearly stated we didn’t want anyone else knowing. The friend could have talked to her partner about it, it wasn’t as she didn’t have anyone to talk to.
We feel upset and disrespected and almost now forced into telling and worrying our kids to protect them from hearing anything on the playground they weren’t prepared to hear.
I know they’re capable of keeping medical things private - they kept a close mutual friend’s fertility issues to themselves for years. I have no issue that this mutual friend didn’t want to share with me - I’m old enough to respect people’s wishes and understand that I’ll know if I’m supposed to. (I know now because this mutual friend has now told me btw and yay, she now has a beautiful baby). So I feel even more upset they’ve been so loosey goosey with us.
What do I do? Confront them?
Sorry this post is so long and rambling, I’ve been quite upset by it and slept on it, and still feel so angry. Why do we have this on top of everything else, feel like I can’t trust people we love and relied on.