When my husband was diagnosed with cancer, we were told that it was terminal and it would be all about keeping him comfortable.
Our son was away travelling round the world on his gap year, we initially decided to keep it from him as he was in Australia at the time. Two weeks later it was decided that anoperation to remove various tumours would make life easier for him. My husband decided that he was not prepared to take a chance and have the operation without talking to our son first.
So when he rang a few days later I told him over the telephone which was not the best way but the only way which was available to me. He flew home and arrived 36 hours later.
My husband lived for another 12 months after that and my son said to me that he would never have been able to forgive me if I had not let him have those precious last 12 months with his dad.
As a family we managed to do lots of things in those final 12 months that we had been “putting off” as people do.