Thanks for sharing your story as we all have to interact with close friends and family to some degree during the diagnosis, treatment, and post tx phases.

Your kids, I assume, are grown adults so should be fully aware of what you have and are experiencing. Mothers always want to protect your kids but my feeling is full disclosure offers the best way to protect them.

Cancer clearly is partially passed along in the gene pool so making your kids very clear eyed about the potential increased risks to them is a very good thing, even if it scares the crap out of them. You only hope they are fully aware and take measures to ensure they advocate and inform all their providers about cancer in the family in order to make sure all providers take a close and second look over potential signs of cancer.

My own experience did not go smoothly with my family. My youngest was a junior in high school, my daughter was in college. My wife and kids all wanted to cower up and hide. No different than many here who rather close their eyes than stare the oncoming train head on.

Being of the later personality, "come on, let's get it on!", I personally got totally involved in all things cancer to best arm myself for the battles.

Looking beyond my own self interest, I wanted to use my experience to help as many others as possible. Make the most folks aware of oral cancer and all the details of each and every skirmish and battle.

I did two things. My cancer is HPV p16+ so the first I did was create an email list of nearly every person I knew (excluding business associations) and informed them about oral cancer and supported and urged everyone to have their kids get the HPV vaccinations or tell anyone they knew who had kids to get it. I figured if a single child was able to avoid getting this cancer it was worth the personal issues I and my family were suffering. I did get emails from parents who were on the fence and they were convinced to get the series for their kids!

Second thing was I created a detailed and daily blog of the entire experience, from initial visit through recovery. I post an update once in awhile just to keep the story complete. Never know what the future holds. Many members here at OCF and CSN have signed up and read the details. For those like me that seek the knowledge and feel more empowered then this is detailed journal provides pretty unique insight into what to generally expect.

Looking back, I feel great about those decisions. I have had a single thought of self doubt and know I have only helped people make the decision to get their kids vaccinated and provided the on the ground, on the battlefield experiences for those facing the disease.

In Alpaca's and others cases where there was less than full sharing of the entire experience(s), one might feel more encouraged to be more proactive to share one's experience with the view it may be difficult but offers more benefit than keeping things close.