Help

Hope this helps some
I too, am surprised you didn't pursue chemo/radiation at the outset, but I don't know your husband's details or where you are receiving treatment. My husband just finished with chemo along with proton beam radiation at MD Anderson for T4N1 EC. The benefit to proton is there is much less damage to surrounding organs. His tumor was touching one of his lungs, but had not invaded it yet (thank God!). They were able to direct the proton beam to treat that area, but spare the greater portion of his lungs and heart. MDA is doing clinical trials with proton therapy for surgical and non-surgical candidates so you might be luck enough, as we were, to have your insurance pick up the tab. The drawback is that there are only about 9 proton therapy centers in the US. We traveled between Dallas and Houston every week because we were so impressed by the results we read about proton therapy vs. IMRT. This may or may not be feasible for you depending on where you live and what child care you can get from family and friends if you had to travel.

As to how to tell your children, depending on their ages, less can be more in this situation. Our three are 11-19 and we told more to the older two and less to the youngest. They need to know what is going on because they will sense that things aren't right. I'm surprised you made it through a whole round of chemo without telling them! It is an exceedingly difficult conversation to have. Because of their varying ages, we told our three separately so we could give details as needed and allow each of them to react naturally without fear of being judged by the others. They each need their own support group so I contacted the parents of their friends to let them know the situation. They in turn told their children so they would not be surprised or fearful of how to handle the situation if and when the subject arises. I also contacted their teachers at school to keep me aware if any behavioral issues arise. I was lucky that my youngest's teacher had gone through prostate cancer treatment 2 years earlier and had to tell his children so he is exceptionally attuned to what my son is going through and gave him permission to leave the classroom if at any point he started thinking about his dad and needed some time alone. We are fortunate to have hope that the chemo/radiation and surgery next month will cure my husband, but we are living in the world of the unknown again as we wait for the restaging tests in 4 weeks. If the tumor didn't respond as anticipated, or if the cancer spread then he won't be eligible for surgery and we'll have to reevaluate and figure out a Plan B and have another conversation with our children...
Good luck and God Bless