BREAST CANCER/PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: ADULT CHILDREN
The impact of your cancer on your grown children will be significant. Frequently young adult children—that is to say, those college age or slightly older—may seem quite unconcerned about your diagnosis. This is usually perplexing and even hurtful to the mother, but it may help to know that it is normal. Their apparent nonchalance masks very real worry. They are trying to learn how to be independent of you; this sometimes makes it too difficult to let you know how frightened they are. If this is the case with your children, know that sooner or later, they will express the true depth of their concern for you.
Daughters worry both about you and about themselves; their risk of breast cancer does increase a little with your diagnosis, and they will need to be extra careful about monthly breast self-exams, and, after the age of thirty-five, about mammograms. As mothers, we may find it painful to face the fact that we have inadvertently, through no fault of our own, slightly increased our daughters’ breast cancer risks. Remind yourselves that your daughters will be likely to take special care of themselves, since their awareness has been heightened. Also, remember that real advances are being made in prevention and treatment, and we can hope that the incidence of breast cancer will be much reduced in our daughters.
In thinking about the impact of breast cancer on your children, remember that this is not just a disease that affects female body parts. Breast cancer, like many other cancers, affects the whole person and her family. In some real sense, the whole family can feel stricken by this insidious disease.
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Tagged as: Women’s Health
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