To know or not to know?

[stoney]

A personal situation got me thinking...

If there is a chance that someone close to you COULD be ill, but its not definate...would you tell the rest of your family before you knew for definate?

Is it best to know or not??

 

[fifitrix]

Lisa, I am not prying but trying to get what you are asking. Have I got this right, you suspect that someone is ill and you have not been told? Or you think that someone is ill and wonder whether to tell the family?

 

[angelina221]

I would definitely wait till you are absolutely sure otherwise you could be worrying the family unneccesarily.
Also if a member of your family is ill then it really is up to them to tell the family. It's not really your place to tell them. Hope whoever it is will be fine :hug:

 

[ValencianNails]

would you tell the rest of your family before you knew for definate?

I would ask the person outright, and wait for medical confirmation before sharing it with other family members :hug: xxx

 

[stoney]

Sorry, wasn't very clear, someone has told us, THEY COULD BE ILL.

I'm just not sure they should have told us, would you want to know, until it was definate??

 

[sknight]

I think I would rather know so I can offer support to them. I would hate to think someone went through the worry alone. x HTH babes

 

[Jolicatellas]

I wouldn't tell any body. It is up to that person to tell others about their condition... (& they'll wait until they know for sure). No point having other people worried about something un-confirmed.
My guess is that person has told you b/c they've got this matter on their mind... but that is as far as they want it to go for now.

 

[kylieb]

It would depend on if they wanted people to know. I am in this situation at the moment and would not dream of say anything as it is against his wishes.
If it was life threatening I may tell my family as they would want to enjoy as much time with this person as possible. It's such a hard one hun. I do hope the news isnt bad xxx

 

[Florriedee]

If it was me being ill I would tell my close family only as I would need their support but only my very close family - or actually perhaps I wouldn't as knowing me I'd be in denial but if it was my mum, dad or sister I would want to know. Does any of that make sense? Prolly not! Lol! Lx

 

[soriminah]

hmmm, it's a hard one. My grandad had cancer and didn't tell us until 2 weeks before he died. I had suspicions because of his symptoms and couldn't work out why the Drs didn't know what was wrong with him. He knew but chose not to tell us. I guess it was his way of not worrying us. BTW, he was 94 so it's not like it was a hugh shock for us.

Earlier this year I had a friend die and I suspected also that she was in early stages of heart failure but she refused to go to the Dr and kept saying it was a chest infection. She died of a heart attack.

Sometimes people just don't want to admit to themselves that there is something wrong and don't want the 'poor you' looks that they might get. Some people go into denial thinking if they don't tell people then it doesn't exist.

At the end of the day I think it's up to the person to decide to tell everyone what is going on but it does make it easier for friends and family if they have fair warning what is going on and can support the sick person.

 

[Teebster]

This is not a easy situation for you and there is no deffinitive answer, but going through a smilar situation now the only thing you can do is talk to the person concerned and ask them what their wishes are. For us we had two weeks before our final diagnosis which after the initial shock, panic and alot of tears then gave as the time to talk about how my Mum wanted to deal with it. xxx

 

[stoney]

Thanks guys, all sorted now