Parents with colorectal cancer: 'What do I tell the children?'

Whatever the age of the child, there is no easy way for a parent to explain serious, life-threatening illness. For children to hear that their parent is ill is devastating, especially if the parent has cancer and needs a permanent colostomy. The diagnosis of cancer can produce feelings of fear, confusion and uncertainty in patients and their close relatives. How difficult does this then become for the child battling to understand long medical words, alien hospital environments and an ill parent? The social taboos that surround body matter elimination are legion and therefore the surgical outcome of having a permanent stoma changes the individual's body image perception long-term. The two case studies presented in this article highlight this problem as well as the lack of suitable available literature.