Sirkka's brother passed the news along to her other siblings.
Transcript
When it came time to tell the rest of my family, I actually just went to my brother. He lives just down the road and I didn’t really make a joke of it; it was just kind of making myself to be the…Well because, my sister-in-law had had a lump somewhere on her chest, my niece had had a lump somewhere else and so I just kind of said “Well you know so and so had a lump on her breast, it ended up being nothing so and so had a lump someplace else it ended up nothing and then there’s me.” And so I said “Well I got a lump and it’s cancer so…” and then from there, he just let the rest of the family know, because I have a large family. I just didn’t want to be phoning everybody and saying this. Word of mouth, one told the other, told the other but my husband and children were wonderful. My family the rest of my family my brothers and sisters they were right there whenever I needed them and gave a lot of support.
More content
- How it affects family and friends – SirkkaSirkka's brother passed the news along to her other siblings.
- Challenging emotions – SirkkaAfter several operations and infections Sirkka started feeling depressed and desperate.
- Perspectives on treatment pathways – SirkkaSirkka didn’t want foreign materials in her body but didn’t realize that her choice of reconstruction included a piece of mesh left in place.
- Work and finances – SirkkaSirkka felt well supported by colleagues at work.
- Recurrent and metastatic (advanced) breast cancer – SirkkaAs a precaution, Sirkka's doctors decided to treat her as if her cancer had metastasized.