I’m a single mom of 3 with months to live — how do I tell my kids?

February 7, 2023

A single mom of three got some devastating news — and now she has to break it to her children.

After being diagnosed with bowel cancer — also called colorectal cancer — in November 2020, Louise Hayward has now been told she has just months to live.

“They know about my cancer but I haven’t been able to tell them I’m dying,” a distraught Hayward said of her children.

Colorectal cancer affects the large bowel, which is made up of the colon and rectum. In the United Kingdom, bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second biggest cancer killer, according to Bowel Cancer UK. About 43,000 people are diagnosed with it each year in the UK.

The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 106,970 new cases of colon cancer and 46,050 new cases of rectal cancer in the US in 2023. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the US, excluding skin cancers.

Before her diagnosis, the 48-year-old mother had noticed blood in her feces and remembered having such severe bleeding that she had to “sit on a towel” to stop it.

“I felt like I was giving birth — that’s how bad the pain was,” Hayward told South West News Service.

Hayward, who is from Whitchurch in Bristol, initially put off seeing a doctor due to the pandemic. Once she did, her physicians found a 7-centimeter tumor in her large bowel.

A single mum with cancer and less than a year to live is frantically raising cash to support her two youngest kids - who will be raised by her sister when she dies. Single mum-of-three Louise Hayward, 48, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in November 2020 - and it quickly spread to her liver and lungs. See SWNS story SWLScancer. After two gruelling years of chemotherapy she was told last November doctors have run out of options. Louise said she and she has less than a year left to live, but hasn't yet told her two youngest kids about the bleak prognosis. The devastated mum to William, 19, Faith, nine and Louie, seven, is now fundraising to support her children after she passes away.Louise, from Whitchurch, Bristol, has so far received over £3,000 in donations for her kids. — After being diagnosed with bowel cancer — also called colorectal cancer — in November 2020, Louise Hayward now has months to live.

She began chemotherapy and radiotherapy after finding the tumor, but her cancer spread to her liver and lungs after two years.

This past November, she was told that further treatment was no longer viable.

“They told me there is nothing else they can do — I was devastated,” she shared. “All of this is so scary; I was never expecting to be told I was dying.”

Hayward is concerned about what her children will do when she’s gone — and how she will tell them.

“It’s so hard to accept that, in reality, I am going to die soon,” she said.

She has three kids: William, 19, Faith, 9, and Louie, 7. Only her eldest is aware of the prognosis.

“It’s so unfair on them. I just think, ‘Why did they have to be born into this life?’” she said. “How do I tell them they’re going to lose their mum at such a young age?”

As a single parent, Hayward has “done everything” for her children, especially her youngest, Louie, who relies on her.

The three kids will be raised by Hayward’s sister, Rachel, 47, when she passes, and until then, Hayward’s spending her time trying to set them up with financial support.

“All I can do is try to raise some money for them after I have passed,” she said.