My daughter, who is eight years old, saw a commercial for a cancer hospital the other day. She’s seen these types of commercials before, but this time, something clicked in her brain.

“I don’t want to get cancer and die!” she exclaimed.

I reassured her that she was absolutely not going to get cancer and die because, well, that’s what you tell someone who is eight.

“And just because people have cancer does not always mean they’re going to die,” I explained. “A lot of people with cancer can have treatment and get better, or they can live with it for a long, long time.”

I knew what I had to say next.  Up until now, I had explained my myeloma to her as “something that’s wrong with my blood.” I’d never used the Big C Word in front of my child. Now I had an opening, and I figured I should take it.

“You know how I have something wrong with my blood?” I said. “It’s a type of cancer. But you know my medicine keeps me very healthy.”

There it was.  I had dropped the C-Bomb in front of my kid. I waited for – I don’t know – the entire world to explode or something.

And she didn’t even blink.

“Yes, I know that,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was talking about the really bad kind of cancer. Not the good kind, like you have.”

And then “Good Luck Charlie” came back on the Disney Channel, and that was the end of that conversation. It hasn’t come up since.

Huh. I’d been imagining the “Mommy has cancer” conversation for years. I have a very smart, very dramatic, overly cautious child, and I had never imagined the conversation going that well. I know that someday there will be more conversations about how myeloma is not necessarily the “good” kind of cancer, but not now. And that’s fine.

For those of us diagnosed with myeloma in our twenties, thirties, and forties, deciding how and when to tell our young children about the disease can be one of the most stressful and painful parts of the diagnosis.

I’ve seen this topic come up several times on online support groups, and no two responses are the same. That’s how it should be.

How and when you explain myeloma depends entirely on the situation and the child.

In my case, I’ve been lucky: I’ve had eight years to build up to the cancer conversation.

I was diagnosed when my daughter was just six months old.

As a toddler and preschooler, she accepted my illness as a normal part of life. As far as she knew, everyone’s mommy went to the doctor all the time; there was nothing odd about spending one morning each month waiting for the FedEx guy to deliver a supply of Revlimid ^[1] (lenalidomide). It was just what we did.

She was two years old when I had to spend three weeks at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for my stem cell harvest. My husband and I brought her along, and my parents came, too. The five of us stayed in a two-bedroom apartment near the clinic. While my husband and I spent our days at the clinic, she had the time of her life with my parents, exploring all of the secret tunnels and hallways at Mayo.

A year or so later, I started taking her with me to my doctor appointments. I wanted her to see that the doctor’s office was not a scary place, and that having blood drawn was fairly simple and didn’t hurt. That’s when I began explaining that there was something wrong with my blood – that it has “icky stuff” in it – and the doctor needs to check it every month and give me medicine.

By now, the doctor visits have become routine and boring for her – endured only by playing games on my iPhone – and that’s how I want it. My illness – at least for the time being – is not dramatic. It’s not scary. It’s just a regular part of our lives.

In time, I know there will be more questions that require more detailed answers, and that’s fine. For now, I feel we are right where we need to be.

How about the rest of you myeloma parents? Please share your stories about telling your children about myeloma.