Brooke Burke Shares Cancer Diagnosis With Children, Explains Surgery

Brooke Brooke undergoes cancer surgery this week, but, amid the chaos of treatment she has also taken time to prepare her young children for what lies ahead.

Burke-Charvet and husband David Charvet have two young children together, daughter Rain, 5, and son Shaya, 4. The Dancing With the Stars co-host also has two children from a previous marriage, daughter Neriah, 12, and Sierra, 10.

Burke said she wanted to keep the cancer diagnosis from them until she knew they were ready.

“I decided not to tell my children about my diagnosis for as long as I possibly could because I didn’t want them to worry,” Brooke Burke wrote on her Modern Mom blog. “I know that my younger ones still don’t have a great concept of time and I didn’t want them to be anxious, worried and asking 1,000 questions.”

Brooke Burke shared the cancer news with Neriah and Sierra first.

“She was really scared and concerned,” Burke said of Neriah. “She cried, and her biggest fear was if I was going to be ok.”

Sierra took the cancer news better, asking questions about the surgery and leaving it at that, Burke said.

It was more difficult with the younger children, Us Weekly noted. Hearing her young son saying “I don’t want Mommy to die” is “the stuff that breaks my heart and scares me,” Burke wrote.

Burke has also kept her fans updated on the cancer treatment.

“I’m getting ready this week for my surgery and am planning on a speedy recovery,” Brooke Burke said of her cancer diagnosis on her Facebook page. “What a crazy time, but I am surrounded with love and support and that really makes a world of difference.”