Breast Cancer Husband: How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) During Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond

by Marc Silver

Book Overview

A unique guide, like none other on the market-packed with medical information, practical tips, psychological insight, and coping strategies-to help men help the women they love through this trying... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579548334
• ISBN13: 9781579548339
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A must-have, must-read book for breast cancer husbands

My only regret about this book is that I didn't get it sooner. I found this book while my wife was already half-way through treatment, at a breast cancer symposium. (As an aside, very few husbands attended the symposium other than me, a real shame; I felt deep anguish for the many women clearly going through treatment who were there alone and unsupported.) My wife is young, and her diagnosis really hit us from nowhere. I'm someone who is an eternal optimist, and the succession of worsening news about her condition nearly brought me to my knees. When I found this book I believe I was quietly depressed. It was so important to me not to "steal the spotlight" of attention from my wife that I intentionally avoided dealing with my own fears, trauma, and anger. I started reading the book on a long plane ride back home from a business trip, and as I read it I literally felt weight lifted off my shoulders. I cried, and I laughed, and mostly I felt tremendous relief. I have had the opportunity to meet the author at a speaking engagement, and I spoke up and told him that at a moment in my life where I felt all alone and very scared, he was my best friend. If you are a breast cancer husband, you simply must read this book.

Not Just for Husbands

Despite its title, "Breast Cancer Husband" is really a book that I'd highly recommend not only to husbands but to siblings, children, parents, friends--in short, to anyone who cares about a woman with breast cancer--as well to the woman herself. The book has much to recommend it: thorough research, jargon-free prose, experts' opinions, survivors' stories, common-sense advice, humaneness and sensitivity, and (this came as a surprise) moments of true hilarity. After you've read it and absorbed its lessons (sample: Shut up and listen), you may be tempted to say, "I knew that!" Guess what? You didn't.

Helping my husband IS helping me too!

This book is wonderful! I bought it for my husband after we recently learned that I have breast cancer for a second time and we are both reading it. It is packed with information but somehow reads like a good novel. I already can tell my husband is being more sensitive to my needs because of Marc's advice. So many things Marc Silver has written that I am so glad my husband will be reading. They are things I want him to know!

Every woman diagnosed should give this book to her husband.

Not only informative but even if your husband never reads it, it will open you up to ask for what you need during this stressful time. I wish I had this book at the beginning of my journey through breast cancer.

Absolutely Essential!

If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you are a new (and doubtless unwilling) member of the not-so-elite group of men who have become Breast Cancer Husbands. If so, stop reading this and buy this book. (Full disclosure: I was contacted by Marc Silver, the author, last year and interviewed extensively about my own experiences; I am quoted several times in the book.) I only wish that this book existed two years ago when my wife of 23 years was disgnosed with breast cancer; it is an invaluable resource that informs men in an accurate, succinct fashion exactly what is likely to happen at each stage of the diagnosis and treatment process. But Mr. Silver's arroach to the topic is hardly clinical. He deals with some of the most heart-wrenching topics any man will ever have to face with an eye on reality and a deft touch of humor. Breast cancer and humor in the same sentence? You've got to be kidding, right? Well, he pulls it off, managing to inject a lighter touch without ever minimizing the seriousness of his topic. Personally, I think most people use humor anyway to deal with the toughest situations, and the big "C" was no exception for my wife and I. Whether you are starting this journey, or if you've been through it like Marc and I have, this book is bound to become your most valuable resource, because it is told from the mouths of real Breast Cancer Husbands with real, true-life stories. With literally hundreds of books available for women who are dealing with this horrible disease, a book like this directed at the men simply did not exist. It was long overdue.