My 8 Parenting Survival Strategies After 9 Months of Cancer Treatment

In the last nine months, my kids observed me give birth, lose 40 lbs, lose my hair twice, spend days in the hospital neutropenic, and lose a breast. Before the end of the year, they’ll watch me radiate my skin. The journey isn’t pretty. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Last week, I was marked up for radiation therapy (six weeks, Monday-Friday) at MD Anderson Houston to treat the Stage IIIC triple-negative breast cancer that tried to kill me. I’m a part of a Phase III clinical trial assessing the efficacy of proton vs photon-guided radiation. I’ll write more about the radiation experience.

Unlike chemotherapy, I’m in a buoyant space with lots to share. Needless to say, the simulation test run was reassuring, and I feel motivated and ready to run this next gauntlet to cancer freedom.

Last week, my kids were on break and sitting at home. Since I was traveling to Houston, I took them on a road trip. My beloved cousin owns a scooter shop in Graffiti Park, Downtown Houston and they hung out with him and his wife during my four doctor’s appointments. On the way home, we visited Downtown Aquarium. Since I was diagnosed and gave birth to their baby sister in February, I haven’t had a day with just my older two (12, 5), and we needed it.

The experience allowed me to reflect on my learning over the last six months of parenting during breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. I hope these survival strategies inspire you to create your own somehow. Or, for parents that aren’t afflicted with ticking time bombs inside them, maybe take your days a little slower and lovelier.

I’m still raising funds for my alternative treatments (starting January 1). If you feel inclined, you can donate here: www.givebutter.com/tiffanymadison1

1. Adversity has made me a wiser, calmer parent, and it shows.

No one chooses to suffer, but this experience continues to transform me. Before this diagnosis, I was a fast-paced, no excuses, growth mindset, “discipline equals freedom” preaching parent that talked more than I listened. Now I am a more patient, less ruffled, deeply joyful, and present parent. Cancer knocks any unnecessary conflict or drama out of your life.

I still preach. But more about leading your life from love and gratitude first. I parent from the heart and head in balance rather than the latter overtaking the former.

Our son recently came to me with a problem that made him extremely emotional. He’s in the pre-pubescent stage, where all his emotions and hormones are coming online. Before truly inculcating stoicism and mindfulness into my daily routine to balance my powerful emotions, I might have become worked up too. His concerns were valid, and my protectiveness was activated.

But I listened more than I spoke, and y’all know that’s funny. Ha! I didn’t rant some moral message or enthusiastically validate his complicated emotions. I asked him to take a few deep breaths with me from his belly. I explained that we used an ancient human ritual to dial down our nervous systems. After, I continued asking questions about his experience rather than trying to relate and reassure him. I’m listening and validating more and advocating emotional acknowledgment in a calm, unflappable manner that seemed foreign even to me.

But this is how my cancer journey has reshaped me. In the blink of an eye, I’ve become a “don’t sweat the minor stuff” parent. A gentler, more patient, and reassuring parent who leads more deeply because I’m striving for personal serenity. This adversity has forced me to evaluate my relationship with everything, especially stress, and develop better tools.

I had to learn these mindfulness skills in a crash course, but now I am trying to teach my children.

2. I embraced that parenting is joyful if your perspective decides.

Kids are our little broke besties sometimes — other times, little emotional monsters — especially at bedtime. After a severe bout with COVID in 2020, I rocked my daughter to sleep in a near-meditative state of gratitude and love. But over time, that gratitude faded into priority roulette once she snoozed. The eagerness to finish my novel while they were sleeping had me rushing through bedtime again.

Standing on the doorstep of stage 4 cancer and being told I have six months to live reminded me to cherish bedtimes. There is unparalleled joy and gratitude to experience by tucking my children into a warm, safe, and peaceful room.

A note on this: Writing about geopolitics for years makes me constantly compare our peaceful existence to what other families endure daily, and I’m grateful. Unlike millions of innocent parents worldwide, I live in a country where my children can dream about Minecraft, unicorns, and warm bottles inside cozy, safe bedrooms. I don’t have to worry about rockets flying through my child’s window. I’ve won a tenuous, sick geographical lottery as a parent, and I’m grateful.

Since my diagnosis and treatment, our nighttime routines have been joyful. Right in time, too, because while our 12-year-old is self-sufficient, our oldest daughter has developed separation anxiety. There’s a sweet little six-month-old that loves momma for bedtime too. If I ever feel a streak of stress, I remember a finite number of these experiences are left. How grateful am I to feel this joy of bedtime?

These thoughts linger as a sobering, gentle reminder that tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone. I want to be joyful today.

3. I found a way to discuss death.

This lesson learned navigates deep waters of religion, belief, faith, and other esoteric concepts. This is not an exhaustive assessment or analysis. This is not advice.

We all die. Cancer diagnosis expedites your inevitable timeline, removing it from not “if/when” to “when/when?” framing. Pretending that you’ll always be with your children is, in my opinion, deeply traumatic for kids. My husband and I went back and forth, trying to imagine the best approach for articulating such complex, universal realities that people you love die.

Getting this right can prevent permanent psychological and existential damage. It’s no easy task.

I had to euthanize my German Shepherd, Indie, during treatment. She was 11 years old and had a massive bladder tumor (unfortunate but interesting, huh?). My children had never witnessed the death of anyone in their life before this.

My five-year-old daughter had to process Indie was joining the circle of life and that while her spirit was “back into the universe,” she would live on in our hearts. She has never asked me if I was going to “pass away,” but during treatment, she asked many questions about what that concept meant.

I used the Disney movie Moana as an example. Her grandma passes away in the movie, but she is always with Moana. My daughter loves that movie, and referencing that example seemed appropriate.

When our 12-year-old son told me he was scared I would pass away, I told him that wasn’t happening until it was my time. We won custody of him in a protracted, nasty legal battle with a borderline psychopath. He’s been through a lot, and we are very close. Concerns about his life if I weren’t around doubled his genuine fear for my life.

I explained that we all have a time, and it’s not mine yet, so I can’t give in to fear of the unknown.

I told him I had a lifetime ahead of living with the light of the creator inside of me. I made a barter with the universe to be an unrelenting agent of good. My plans are many. Love my family, finish my book, get it on the big screen, write another two books, launch another company with my dream team partners, and run for office.

I explained that I wasn’t ready to let go of those dreams and asked him to hope that I could heal this cancer alongside me, and he promised to do so. He joined me in referring to “the (not “my”) cancer” in the past tense and discussing the future with enthusiasm and excitement.

Our son has begun asking existential questions. He understands death’s impermanence and the value of life. But this experience has ignited a profoundly personal spiritual thirst for exploring various world religions, which I support. We will have many more existential curiosities to discuss, but we have tried approaching death with a mixture of realism and spirituality, not fear and horror.

4. I shared my resilience strategies with my kids.

As a survivor of childhood adversity, I’m a trauma-informed parent. I had six months to live at 39 years old and 28 weeks pregnant. I know what losing me at 12, 5, and six months old would have done to my children. Not on my watch, y’all.

But in seeking aggressive treatment, I knew what that also put my kids through. My top concern during treatment was getting up every day and “faking it ’til you make it” in front of my kids. I didn’t spend a day in bed during pregnancy or chemotherapy and tried not to complain about side effects in earshot. I followed the doctor’s orders, got weekly acupuncture, and followed a rainbow diet to give me strength and mitigate the consequences of chemotherapy.

In the last nine months, my kids observed me give birth, lose 40 lbs, lose my hair twice, spend days in the hospital neutropenic, and lose a breast. Before the end of the year, they’ll watch me radiate my skin. The journey isn’t pretty.

But they also spent six months watching me use new skills to manage stress and anxiety, not because I was in denial of my dire circumstances but despite them. They watched me learn qi gong, breathwork, and diet and lifestyle changes. They also watched me harness meditation or prayer to enhance my mental health and well-being.

Most importantly, I hope both kids watched me model a commitment to inner resilience that signaled death wasn’t taking me down without a fight. The universe is always plotting our end, and we do not go gently into that good night.

My behavior was not about hiding the grief, sorrow, and terror that comes with this journey. I was processing those emotions in meditation rather than shoving them down. My choices were about reminding them that we get right back up when the world kicks us down. And lastly, to lead by example. Perseverance requires a “why”, and they (and my husband) are that “why”. To persevere through life’s challenges, they must find their “why” and live for it.

God forbid something like this comes their way. I can only hope that experience won’t take him down, either. Rather than preaching that they ignore their darker emotions and fears about death or pretend they don’t exist, we face them and do what’s necessary to survive.

5. Rather than shield them, I learned to share the emotions I wanted my children to emulate.

Breast cancer is theorized to be emotional, and “emotional release” has not been a strength of mine historically (working on it!). My therapist gave me sage advice when I was first diagnosed. She knows me well and reminds me not to shield the reality of my emotions from my children. I’m not a supermom robot.

So she reminded me that I didn’t need to play invincible superhuman. I could be vulnerable in ways that inspired my children to grow rather than grieve. After that conversation, I strived to embody teaching them about the most positive emotions every day during treatment.

When I needed a moment, I sought privacy, but when good things were happening, I included them.

My son and daughter only saw me cry when our home flooded for months with Amazon wish list supplements from strangers. When I could pay for expenses, thanks to the generous donations from around the world pouring in, I cried tears of joy.

I wasn’t expecting so much love to pour in. The generosity so touched me that the gratitude was emotionally overwhelming, and they saw it all.

Our 12-year-old asked me why I was crying, and I told him everything I felt. My then 4-year-old heard me explain that time is our most valuable asset because we can’t get it back. People exchange their time for money and work hard. To send those valuable resources to me, to help me, was the kindest act. I explained that I’m a part of the “good people network,” where honest, genuine, and ethical people serve one another.

I shared that my belief in supporting and uplifting fellow wonderful humans and finding ways to help them without asking for anything may have meant I was receiving some of my own extended love. What you selflessly give, you may get.

They now understand the concept of karma. I also told them I would find a way to thank each person personally, and if they ever needed anything, they could come to me. I hope this modeled gratitude expression and reciprocation.

Experiencing those positive emotions rooted in love alongside me hopefully means they’ll look back on this experience with more wisdom gained and less trauma experienced. I now believe that cancer patients and survivor parents prioritizing their mental and spiritual health (alongside their physical) are uniquely positioned. Our children can grow with us through this experience rather than suffer alongside us.

6. I became more fiercely committed to life.

This doesn’t need much explanation. Spending time with my husband and children fills me with unbridled aggression to live. Period.

7. I share my new strategies for emotional awareness and release.

I never learned spiritual or emotional self-care practices from my overwhelmed mom. Learning to take a deep breath to reset your nervous system wasn’t taught. It was the 90s, y’all, and my mother, though I love her dearly, is a Boomer parent. “Suck it up, buttercup” is shorthand for emotional repression. Though that mentality has served me well sometimes, I have learned that balancing emotions is more important than soldiering on.

I’m better if I can efficiently persevere through my pain because I know it so well.

A quick note about modeling: my parents also taught lessons but struggled to lead by example. My alcoholic father, with severe PTSD, preached responsibility and integrity, but he left and never returned after I was eight years old. My mother preached about following your dreams (thank God she did) and reaching your full potential, but she didn’t pursue her aspirations. So I’ve made a cycle-breakers commitment to modeling as a parent.

I’m trying not to take the cerebral approach to help my children emotionally cope with life. While I’ve always been a preachy parent and verbose (no way!) to boot, now I employ more Aristotelian logic to teach my children how to think and feel rather than what.

When something emotionally excites them, I’m trying to impart emotional self-awareness rather than comfort first and redirecting second. I ask questions I didn’t before, like, “What area do you feel that emotion stuck in your body?” I have walked the oldest two through grounding exercises and some light breathwork to reset their electric little nervous systems. I encourage them to let it all out rather than give warm hugs and effective distractions.

These are things I didn’t learn until cancer struck. When it comes down to it, I’m hoping to model for them what I’m learning internally for myself. In some ways, they get to intimately join part of this journey.

8. Cancer patients (that can) should consider putting their children in play therapy.

Now that I’m emerging from the belly of the scanxiety/chemo/side effect/surgery beast mode cycle, I realize no matter how hard we tried to protect our kids, they’ve picked up some trauma on the journey.

One social worker told me that trauma was inevitable, so the key is addressing it early and often.

Our 12-year-old has been in therapy since 2019, but my five-year-old will start next week with a play therapist we trust. In Houston, she shared with me “stories” of when she was a mommy that was “stabbed” in the chest, and her kids were so scared.

“They had their dad and felt safe with him and their three pets, and lots of aunties and uncles that loved them, but they were still so worried.”

She intently anticipated my response. So I walked Charlotte through Aristotelian questions that led to her acknowledging her children weren’t worried when she came home from the hospital. She agreed, but then she told me they were scared she would go back. I can’t promise Charlotte that I won’t, so I told her that if that happened, I was sure her children would know she’d be okay because they have her as a mommy, and she’s strong.

She agreed and carried on galloping her bald Survivor Barbie on the back of Spirit, enacting a make-believe conversation where she reassured her imaginary children using my words. At that moment, I realized that she felt all that while I had survived the trials of diagnosis, chemo while pregnant, and balancing motherhood and postpartum life with further treatment, just in her own little way.

Helping her process those fears is my next mission. We have arrangements for her to begin therapy, and I feel optimistic about that step, but I wish I had acted sooner. We can only anticipate so much and act so fast, so it’s better late than never to enlist professional support.

Hug your little ones tightly, y’all. They’re only little for so long.

Love to all,

Tiffany

Thank you to my top Patreon/GiveButter supporters, Elizabeth, Jessica Mathis, Christina, Whitney, Dave & Sandy, and LM. To donate here: www.givebutter.com/tiffanymadison1