David: I’ve got two grown up children. One is currently 35 and the other one is 37. So I was fairly matter of fact.

Surindar: My eldest now is 34 and the middle one 28 and then I’ve got an 18-year-old, my middle daughter took it really badly, emotionally. She struggled and I think for her it was, if this was going to be the end of mum, you know, how would I cope?

Bamidele: What did I tell my daughter I just said, “Okay well I’ve been told I have got breast cancer and everything” and the first thing that came out of her mouth was, “Is this a family thing?” because she knew that my sister had it and everything like that.  I said “No.” I wasn’t going to tell her at the age of 9 that “Oh yeah we have a family history of breast cancer” blah blah blah, that’s crazy. 

Sarah: I have had 2 primary diagnoses of breast cancer.  The first one was 15 years ago when my daughter was only 6 and a half I didn’t use the word “cancer” we talked about “a lump that needed to come away.” Obviously, the second primary cancer my daughter was 22 so she knew very full well about cancer and, and its potential and therefore we went into a lot more detail about it and I showed her the leaflets I’d been given,

Bami: I know people who will not tell their children anything and in the, in the end now, they now had to you know like bombard them with stuff at the very end and all of those things and it’s ends up doing more harm than good. 

Maqsood: My daughter was with me. They turned to her and said, “Tell your mum, she is suffering from breast cancer.” My daughter was a bit shocked and upset.  The doctor said I had to have an operation.

Bamidele: She went on to Google and did her own research. Because that’s the kind of daughter I had. From the age of 8, 9 she would go online, you know what I dread to think how much information that child consumed in that time, but that’s who she is.  All I just told her was “Okay you know what – whatever questions you have just come and ask.”

Sarah: I knew my hair was going to fall out. And being 6 and a half I said to her, “I could have a wig that was the same colour as my own hair and the same style or I could have blonde hair with curls or long hair, long auburn hair”.  And she looked at me straight in the eye very seriously and said “Mummy I want you to look like Mummy”.  So that meant that I had a pageboy style going grey hair for my wig.  One weekend I had a shower, came out of the shower and my daughter was standing there and said“ I think Mummy it’s time to get the wig out”.

Bami: Amy’s school were amazing.  Because as, as a single parent your, your worst nightmare is to be ill and not be able to look after your child. And getting her to school and bringing her home those were things I was dreading. They would come and pick her up in the morning and then they would drop her off in the evening.   So every single day I didn’t have to think about school runs.

Sarah: We kept her routine the same which was me walking her to school each day. And when I was working we had a childminder who collected her from school – we kept that arrangement going. The advice I was given by the Hospital was to rest so I used to every afternoon go up and rest on the bed. It then meant when I had a bouncy 6-and-a-half-year-old coming in from the childminder that I felt refreshed and able to spend that, that time with her.

Sarah: I spoke to the Radiotherapist, and they said “Bring her in one day and she can come out with us” so she came in to the actual room where they were positioning me to make sure that everything was in the right place, and then she trotted out with them and looked at me through the screen.  And when I, the treatment was finished and I came out, she said to me, “You didn’t smile at the camera Mummy.” If you can address their curiosity, like her seeing the radiotherapy that it wasn’t frightening, seeing that my urine had gone pink, and my hair falling out, she I think felt that she was being told what was happening and why it was happening in, in terms that that she could understand.

Karen: For primary early breast cancer, if your fertility could be affected and you still wish to have children, then we would discuss that with you and we could make a referral to have discussions about fertility treatment. It doesn’t mean you can't have children, it just means that it could affect your fertility.