Disease-free? Book still worth reading, site says

'Rollercoaster' is praised in online article for showing men how they can be good partners 

A new examiner.com feature article titled "Woody Weingarten's ride through wife's breast cancer may help you" states unequivocally that my book "is worth reading even if no one in your life has cancer."

Why?

"Because," it says, "it is filled with very smart clues about how a man can be the best possible husband or partner. And how a wife can help him be that."

"Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," the story points out accurately, is also "a guide to give people a sense of what they will be facing" if, unfortunately, a life-threatening disease does strike.

It furthermore labels the book "a memoir, a love story, a research guide, and some realities of chemotherapy and medications."

Written by Janet Gallin as an adjunct to her "Love Letters Live" podcast package, the online piece notes that the "husband of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer has to…survive his own terror in order to be a strength to her."

How to do that, despite the ups and downs, is the main thrust of my new VitalityPress book.

Accordingly, the article indicates, "Rollercoaster" can help you figure out what is true concerning the disease, its treatments and its aftermath — and, by the same token, what is not. 

And that's not as easy as a caregiver or patient might think. "A study says X is true and Y is false, the next week it is the opposite," I'm correctly quoted as saying.

The piece maintains that I'm a survivor of my wife's cancer.

I am.

But she, too, is a survivor. And we're both thriving.

You can read the entire article here — and then learn even more by following a couple of its links.

Marin Man to Man gives vulnerable guys a boost

Support group for male breast cancer caregivers still going strong after two decades

Marin Man to Man is a weekly support group I've been running for almost 20 years.

It's for men whose partners have or had breast cancer or some other life-threatening disease.

I, Woody Weingarten, have found the group can keep guys feeling healthy — or give them a crucial boost when the walls of their lives seem to be caving in.

A section of my new VintagePress book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," touches on what the group does and can do.

It notes, for instance, that:

Support group meets over breakfast.
Frankie Frost/Marin IJ photo.

We can complement Internet info, factoids and data, often differentiating between truth and fiction.

We can de-code what physicians and other healers say — and don’t say.

We can increase understanding offered by relatives, friends and co-workers because we frequently empathize when they can’t.

We can — without embarrassment — be warm and friendly, direct and anecdotal, and add an intimacy factor because we’re human beings and not a book, journal, chat-room or blog.

We can increase a newbie’s stockpile of contacts and where-do-you-find-its because we’ve been there.

Best of all, we can be ultra-illuminating because we can share what’s worked for us and what hasn’t.

For two decades Marin Man to Man has attracted fellows habitually willing to be candid about themselves and their partners,