Telling People

I've been thinking a lot about the hows, wheres, and whens of telling people about my cancer. Of course these are different for each person I need to tell. When I was first diagnosed I felt like I wanted to tell everyone all at once, right away. I am a teacher and I wanted to tell all my coworkers, students, and their parents right away. I wanted to be on the other side where everyone knew, there were no secrets, and I could get their support immediately. I know that they'll all be supportive; I'm not too concerned about negative responses.

The first person I told was my dad mostly because he was the only person at my house when I got home. He was visiting from California just by chance (or not?). I talked to my wife next after my dad had taken my daughter out for awhile. My wife and I had a couple hours to just process and talk about it. That night I talked to my mom and daughter too. My daughter was pretty emotional. She didn't really understand, didn't know if that meant that I was suddenly going to die really soon. It took her a couple days to realize that I was still me and nothing had changed in an extreme way for me. Extended family were contacted by my parents, and I let the rest of the family and closer friends on facebook know through a private message there.

At work, I started by telling 3 people: the 1 teacher I work with most who I also co-coach with, the head of the school, and the assistant to the head of the school who arranges substitutes and approves sick leave. I knew they were the 3 who needed to know right away from a logistics standpoint. I had already had quite a few doctors appointments and they were wondering if everything was ok. At that point it was still so new that I was somewhat detached from my diagnosis. I was able to talk to them without getting emotional. The assistant suggested that I talk to the school psychologist, for myself, but also to help with how to tell students and others. I talked with her a couple days later. I did get a bit emotional as she asked about my support system and how I was handling it all. By the way, I do have an absolutely amazing support system, I am extremely lucky.

I have started posting on facebook about my diagnosis and treatments. It is the most effective way of keeping those that are interested updated on how things are going for me. I am careful to only friend people I actually know and am comfortable with on facebook, so I feel ok about posting info there.

I haven't told any students yet. First I need to tell the other teachers in my department. I don't know how I want to tell students, but I know that as soon as I tell some students, it will spread like quickfire to the whole school and community. I need to be careful about who I tell first. I have several options.

• I can talk to students in each of my classes when I see them, but then as soon as the first class hears, everyone else will hear from them. I really want to keep misinformation to a minimum. 
• I can ask all of my students to stay behind after a school assembly, then tell them all together.
• I can tell everyone during the assembly itself (I don't really want to do this, but it would be the easiest since I could give a powerpoint about the cancer itself. This has been done before with a teacher talking about his wife passing away from breast cancer and his family and how they were coping)

I am leaning most to the second option. All my students knowing first, but all together. I could send an email to their parents right afterwards, so that they would know also. I am anxious for everyone else to know. Patience is...hard. The tunnel is long, but there is light at the end.