Helping Your Children Cope with Your Cancer (Second Edition)

Cancer is bad news. It’s frightening to even think about it. Now think how frightening it would be for your children to know you have cancer. How do you tell them? How do you deal with the trauma and the pain? How do you prepare for the emotional and psychological upheaval a family endures when a parent has cancer?

Peter Van Dernoot has gathered the real-life stories and experiences of over twenty parents who have been diagnosed with cancer. They share their deepest fears and their highest hopes as they provide the reader with invaluable advice, guidance and inspiration. Now including all-new stories from parents and advice from professional counselors, this groundbreaking book is a very special gift from families affected by cancer to families affected by cancer.Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments

Preface

PART I:

Professionals: Sharing Their Insight

1.The Importance of Communicating with Your Kids About Cancer

2.A Look Inside a Children’s Support Group

3.Sharing the Journey with Your Child

4.Kids Count’s “Chemo Bear” Hits the Road to Meet Special Needs

PART II:

Parents: Helping Their Kids Cope

5.Unconditional Love

6.A Little Understanding Goes a Long Way

7.“Mom, I Lost It Today!”

8.Do It With Love, And All Else Is Irrelevant

9.My Family Has Cancer

10.Ready to Enter Chemotherapy

11.Speaking With the Angels

12.I Am Ashamed

13.Something Is Wrong!

14.Goompa Has an Owie

15.I Love Life!

16. Baldy Head...Hair Head

17.Children: The Forgotten Part of Cancer

18.Cool, Mom!

19.Yes, Mom, I’m Scared

20.Robin’s Hope

21.Amy’s Year

22.“Manuel, You Have Cancer”

23.Children’s Support Group Was a Godsend

24.There Is a Purpose to All This

25.Teachers Can Make a Big Difference

26.Andy Updates

27.Helping Kids CLIMB through Tough Times

PART III:

Children: Expressing Themselves

28.From Gilda’s Club

29.Mom’s Cancer

30.Mom Talked With Me Every Day

31.For My Daddy“Helping Your Children Cope With Your Cancer provides valuable advice on how to discuss the impact of this disease on the whole family. The personal stories in this book really show the importance of opening a dialogue for children to ask questions, share feelings, and gain the knowledge they need to cope with a parent’s cancer.” –Lance Armstrong

“Helping your children cope with your cancer...will be the hardest thing you have ever done and this book and the personal stories and programs contained in it will help you do it the best way for you and your child.” –Peggy Anne Murphy, L.M.S.W., Les Gallo-Silver, L.C.S.W.R., and Stacy Kramer, L.M.S.W., Cancer Care, Inc.

“This book provides an instant support group for families in which a parent has been diagnosed with cancer.”–The Susan G. Komen Foundation

“A remarkable publication, the first of its kind...essential to every family afflicted with cancer.” –William R. Nelson, M.D., former Surgical Oncologist Fellow, Memorial Sloan-Kettering CenterPeter van Dernoot’s wife was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer when their children were 11 and 15, and died at the age of forty-five. From 1981 to 2001 he operated his own communications management company in Denver, Colorado. Previously, he held senior public relations posts in major international companies. In 2001, he founded The Children’s Treehouse Foundation, and in 2005, received the Human Service Professional of the Year award from the National Association of Social Workers, Colorado Chapter, for his work with the foundation. To learn more about the foundation, visit www.childrenstreehousefdn.org. Proceeds from the sale of this book are being donated to The Children’s Treehouse Foundation.