Ask the Expert Nov 2024

Jennifer Tyner

Ask the Expert:   I have just been diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in my life. I am about to turn 78, and I don’t want to go through chemotherapy and radiation. I don’t have the energy, and this isn’t how I want to spend my last years with my family. However, my children are very upset. How can I help them understand how I feel and accept my decision?

• Education is key here. Talk about quality of life quality of life with your family. Maybe even have your family be at your doctor’s appointment to talk about what chemotherapy and radiation will do. Talk about bucket list and what you want to accomplish with the rest of your life and how those treatments would affect that. Helping your family understand the toll of treatment can help them understand why you have decided to forgo treatment and focus on other ways to spend the time you have left.

 

• Try to get them excited about what you want to do for the rest of your life vs. what they want you to do. Being specific can be helpful here. Saying you want to have peace is a vague idea, but saying you’d like to spend your days in nature, with your grandchildren is a more specific example. Sometimes, people can better understand something specific.

 

• Definitely get on hospice services and get your family involved. Hospice services support the entire family and can help support difficult conversations.

 

• You can start bereavement counseling before someone passes away. This can allow them to grieve while you’re still here, and that’s okay. Hospice can also help in establishing bereavement counseling and finding support.

 

• Another idea is to create a book you can write now (story line). You could do something like this with your family. Try to involve them in all the positive things you can still do while you’re here.

 

• I love the idea of the bucket list, too. This is a list of what you want to do with the time you have left. You can involve your family in the process. You can plan a special trip with each person. You can make new memories.

It sounds like your family loves you and wants what is best for you. Our initial reaction when someone is sick is to try to “make them better.” It sounds like they’re struggling with how best to do that, and a conversation and education could be helpful. Be honest and open with how you feel, what you want and how you envision your time being spent. And let them know how they can help and support you.