‘Telling my children I had cancer was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’

My husband and I decided to tell them the truth early on – they knew something was wrong from the moment of my diagnosis, as the phone rang non-stop and my mother had suddenly arrived. They needed to know why, rather than overhearing the hushed, frightened whispers of the adults around them.

I was so glad to hear, in her video, that the Princess of Wales – who hasn’t disclosed what type of cancer she has – had also told her youngest son, Louis, who is five, the same age as my youngest when I was diagnosed. Even very young children pick up on things, and can conjure up scary scenarios in their little minds. By being open and honest, in simple, age-appropriate language, they feel safer.

One of the hardest things was balancing the urge to protect my children with the uncertainty I was still feeling. I didn’t know what our future held, so how could I tell them? But, like the Princess is probably feeling, I felt my first job was to carry on as a mother and that meant keeping life as normal as possible. Or the new normal we found ourselves in. So I put my make-up on and went to my brother-in-law’s 40^th soon after I was diagnosed.

When we had told our children, one simply asked what was for breakfast while the other looked blank-faced and didn’t seem to take it in. But the following day, when we arrived at my brother-in-law’s party, they blurted out, “Mummy has cancer” when he opened the door. 

I worried about my mum, my dad, my husband and my friends. Seeing what my diagnosis was doing to them broke my heart. My mum wanted to stay and look after me when I was really sick, but I didn’t let her because no mother should see their child at their lowest ebb.

My heart goes out to Prince William too. He has a tough role, just as my husband did.

One of the other challenges for me was the loss of control. I was used to steering the ship at home and, as a doctor, the transition from carer to patient was very hard, too. During chemotherapy, I was bed-bound for week one, up and pottering gently for week two, and when I felt OK in week three I planned fun things for the kids to do, before going back to being bed-bound – and so it continued.