A devastating diagnosis comes with a lot of baggage on top of the fear of death and the agony of symptoms.

Relationships complicate the issue, and that’s what has happened in this story.

If you had a scary sounding diagnosis, would you share it with the family members closest to you, or would you try to keep it a secret so they wouldn’t worry?

Keep reading to see why concealing information sometimes creates even bigger problems.

AITA for hiding my ALS diagnosis from my grandpa?

A year ago, I was diagnosed with limb-onset ALS at 25 after a long struggle with experiencing foot drop and muscle weakness.

For a few months, I hid my diagnosis from everyone until progression of the disease forced me to come clean.

I’m still coming to terms with this and each day has been a living hell as I wake up not knowing what motor skills I will lose next.

But there’s another big worry on his mind.

I have always been fiercely independent and the protector of the people I love, so it kills me knowing that everyone who loves me (my girlfriend especially) now has to bear the burden of my illness.

The one person I haven’t told is my grandpa, who raised me and my brother until we were teens because my parents were at work all the time. He’s the one who cared for me the most, who has literally watched me grow up.

I have always promised to take care of and give him the best of everything because he sacrificed to give me as much of a happy childhood as he could.

He can’t bring himself to share the news.

Ever since I was diagnosed the thought of having to tell my grandpa that his grandson has an incurable, degenerative disease has plagued me and I don’t think I can gather up the courage to tell him or to face the fact that I can’t fulfill my promise.

He’s nearing 70 and I want him to live as happily as possible without worrying about me.

His secret is becoming harder to conceal.

The other day, we met for a family dinner. I don’t see my grandpa very often now, so before the dinner I was adamant that my grandpa would not find out.

My brother and girlfriend agreed to cover for me using a wheelchair by saying I’d been injured playing soccer.

Grandpa accepted the excuse and all seemed to be well until my cousin, who wasn’t aware my grandpa didn’t know, brought it up.

As I expected, he was devastated and couldn’t stop asking me why I didn’t tell him.

The aftermath is unbearable.

Later that night, the sudden emotional shock likely triggered his heart condition (he has a history of heart attacks).

My grandpa is now in the hospital and I haven’t been able to stop crying.

My brother is furious at my cousin for revealing my diagnosis and even more so for not being apologetic since she’s insisting that it’s my fault because I should have just been honest with my grandpa.

She called me manipulative and a liar and said that it wasn’t my place to decide whether grandpa could handle it or not.

He’s not sure what to do.

The guilt is eating me alive, but at the same time the aftermath just tells me that I was right to hide it because the news absolutely crushed my grandpa.

I don’t know what to do anymore except to pray that my grandpa makes it through. AITA?

It’s understandable that he didn’t want to tell his grandpa, but it’s really too bad he found out the way he did.

Here is what folks are saying on Reddit.

It was bound to come out.

It’s not when they need to focus on.

Some people are like that.

Yeah, it’s inevitable.

Exactly. The diagnosis is way more shocking than the concealment.

He couldn’t keep it a secret forever.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.