Top Facebook executive reveals how she told children of cancer
FACEBOOK’S EUROPE vice-president has spoken about the ordeal of telling her children she has incurable cancer, calling it the hardest thing she has ever done. Writing in the
former Leeds University student Nicola Mendelsohn said she was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma in November 2016.
Her diagnosis came after she discovered a small lump in her groin, with a CT scan showing she had tumours all over her body.
Mrs Mendelsohn is the most senior Facebook executive outside America. She said that she and her husband, Jon, Labour politician Baron Mendelsohn, eventually sat down with their four children to break the news.
She said: “It is not a conversation I could ever have imagined having with them, not even in my worst nightmares, until it hit me in the face. It was the hardest moment of my life.
“The children (aged from 13 to 20) have been incredibly supportive. I promised them I would be completely honest about everything; I wanted them to understand that they could ask me any questions.
“I recently spoke to each of them individually about how they felt a year on, and how they had felt that weekend. They said: ‘We take our cues from you, Mum. You seem to be doing all right with it, so we’re doing all right with it’.”
Mrs Mendelsohn wrote that her type of cancer is “slow growing”, that it is “currently incurable”, and how 60 per cent of those living with lymphomas live more than ten years.
The 46-year-old, originally from Manchester, said she has chosen to monitor her cancer through the “watch and wait” approach, and will begin chemotherapy and immunotherapy if and when her symptoms worsen.