When a Parent Has Cancer: A Guide to Caring for Your Children [With Companion Book "Becky and the Worry Cup"]

At some point in our lives, many of us will face the crisis of an unexpected illness. For parents, the fear, anxiety, and confusion resulting from a cancer diagnosis can be particularly devastating. How can you care responsibility for a child when you are in special need of care How can life go on--for everyone in the family--when you are faced with months or years of treatment When A Parent Has Cancer is a book for families written from the heart of experience. A mother, physician, and cancer survivor, Dr. Wendy Harpham offers clear, direct, and sympathetic advice for parents challenged with the task of raising normal, healthy children while they struggle with a potentially life-threatening disease. Dr. Harpham lays the groundwork of her book with specific plans for helping children through the upheaval of a parent's diagnosis and treatment, remission and recovery, and, if necessary, confronting the possibility of death. Dr. Harpham also addresses the special needs of single parents, as well as teenagers and the healthy spouse learning to cope with a loved one's illness. Included with When a Parent Has Cancer is Becky and the Worry Cup, an illustrated children's book that tells the story of a seven-year-old girl's experiences with her mother's cancer. When a Parent Has Cancer and Becky and the Worry Cup are written with the honesty and clear-sightedness that can come only from lived experience. She offers comfort, encouragement, and the reasonable hope at the exact moment you might fear none is to be found. Most important, these books provide a plan of action for you and your children to live meaningfully and well when life is at its most uncertain.