Back to School: Talking to Teachers about Your Cancer

To tell or not to tell? That is a question I ask myself at the start of every school year. Do I tell my children's teachers I have cancer?

BY Sarah DeBord

PUBLISHED August 22, 2019

Sarah DeBord was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer at age 34. In the years since, she has turned her diagnosis into a calling, and become an advocate for other young adults diagnosed with colorectal cancer and parents with young families facing cancer. She works as a communications and program manager for the Minneapolis-based Colon Cancer Coalition , volunteers her time with the online patient-led support community COLONTOWN , and blogs about her often adventurous experiences of living with chronic cancer at ColonCancerChick.com.

Because I look healthy and normal when I show up to school, no one would guess that I had cancer. I'm able to avoid the stares, assumptions, and unsolicited comments of concern from anyone I pass in the halls. Because my treatments have been relatively routine and I've been at this for years, our lives lack the unpredictable disruptions many patients can expect after diagnosis. This lack of disruption has led me to want to keep my dirty little cancer secret from teachers and school staff, and it's taken some conversations with other parents and professionals to realize it's not only alright to let this (cancer) cat out of the bag, it's important.

There have been years I have been extremely reluctant to tell teachers I have cancer, and wondered if that was in the best interest of my children. Not only did I want to avoid the stares or pity, I wanted my kids to avoid it, too. They are already experiencing a childhood so different from their classmates, why draw any more attention to it? Does the teacher wonder why I continually turned down opportunities to volunteer or go on field trips? How do I tell them that any free afternoon is going to be devoted to a nap to combat the fatigue that follows me everywhere, not helping out in their classroom? And putting myself in the middle of hundreds of potentially sick kids and germ-covered school surfaces when I'm neutropenic? I think I'll pass.

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