Welcome Hellion,

I'm going to speak frankly and not pull any punches, and I want to assure you up front that I mean it only to be helpful. The unvarnished truth is not always pretty, but it has the virtue of always being the truth anyway.

Let's talk about fear for a moment. You are in a situation where the worst that can happen is that you die. Well, that's nothing to fear because it's going to happen anyway. In fact, everyone on the planet is going to die, and very few know when. So that's nothing to fear.

What is making you fearful is, as you said, your concern about your family, should you die sooner, rather than later. This too, is always possible, and it's always possible for every one of us who have life.

So that not anything to fear either, but it is something to plan and prepare for, and that is something for you to start right now, getting your affairs organized and in order so that your survivors will not have that to deal with. It's likely that they won't have to because you are going to get through this, but it is prudent to do this anyway.

Probably the next thing to work on is Attitude. Your attitude towards this situation will color the reaction and attitudes of the other members of your family.

The title of this thread suggests to me that you may be in the grip of the "woe is me's" already. This will frighten your kids (and your spouse); and worse, will lead to paralysis of your will; so you can't afford to go there.

Shake that off now and replace it with "This is very survivable and I am going to be one of those who do!" Avoid negativity, it actually does program you to expect negative results and in addition, actually does reduce your chances. Stress does this also, so avoid it where possible.

By the way, this meta-programming aspect of attitude will work in your favor and will produce positive results if you do it. Note well, I did not say "try it," because deciding to "try something" as opposed to just doing it, is a recipe for failure. Put your mind to it and do it.

Your chances of surviving this are very good, new treatments are literally appearing daily, and the standard treatments already offer significant success. Your chances of survival are also greatly enhanced by adopting a realistic and positive attitude.

Look at your diagnosis as simply the world's loudest wake-up call. Life exists in this moment, the previous one is gone forever; the next one is not guaranteed to even arrive, and I'm not talking about cancer patients here, but about each one of us on this planet.

Good luck to you and your family, you will get through this!

Bart