Video: Expert view: Adjusting to a childhood cancer diagnosis

We asked a Mayo Clinic oncologist: What's a family's first step when a child has cancer?

Anita Mahajan, M.D., Radiation Oncology: First thing a parent should do once they understand their child has cancer is to realize that they're gonna feel like they're over their head. It's a first-time event. People aren't prepared for this mentally or emotionally. A lot of information is gonna come crashing down on them, and they just need to sort of take it a step at a time, take a breath, and lean in on the team that's trying to help them.

And people have different ways of dealing with it. Some people decompensate, and they are tearful, and they can't do anything. Others go on to an active drive mode and research everything to the nth degree. And others are somewhere in between.

Trust your team. And the improving science.

Dr. Mahajan: Trust and confidence go hand in hand. You want to feel like you can trust that group. And it's not just the physicians, it's everybody else. It's the nurses; it's the front desk people.

Fortunately, over the last 100 years we've done better and better and better. So 85% of our children who are diagnosed with cancer are actually long-term survivors. A cancer diagnosis at any age affects the whole family, and in particular for children because they're so dependent on their parents.

The siblings are impacted by the change in attention. Suddenly parents and mom and dad leave for a week at a time. So all of that's happening. Life has certain unexpected turns, and you have to sort of accept them because it's nothing they did, it's nothing that could have been prevented, but we have to make the best of what is there now. Everybody cares about your child and that they're gonna do everything they can and use everything they know to help that child out.

Dr. Mahajan has helped hundreds of children and their families take the next step when faced with a cancer diagnosis.

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