Finally, a much-needed voice for the spouses and partners of prostate cancer survivors--an unflinchingly honest and beautifully written memoir about one couple's struggles and transformation that serves as a guide for others dealing with the disease.
Facts: * Prostate cancer is the most common cancer, other than skin cancers, in American men. * 90% of the 190,000 men diagnosed annually will be cured. * 2 million men currently live as survivors.
Though many sources exist for men dealing with this dreaded disease, their partners are often left on their own to figure out how to deal with personality changes and sudden "male menopause," how to redefine love and intimacy, and how to deal with side effects of the treatment.
Victoria Hallerman, an accomplished poet, writes candidly about her and her husband's experience over the last five years, including sections in his voice as well. A manual for surviving what treatments can do to a marriage, her book is both a compelling narrative and a supportive and informational guidebook. It's sure to be a boon to the enormous and ever-growing group of wives and partners of prostate cancer survivors who, like the author, need to be able to answer the question "Who are we now?"
Product Details
ISBN13: 9781557048196
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
THE GO-TO BOOK FOR MORAL SUPPORT AND ENLIGHTENMENT
Review Date: February 15, 2010
Reviewer: Aurora, Dover, DE
HOW WE SURVIVED PROSTATE CANCER is a guide, a psychologist and a medical primer to everything you need to know. This beautifully written book holds your hand, points out the icy patches and guides you through the confusing maze of differing opinions, treatment choices and approaches to dealing with the diagnosis.
Victoria Hallerman examines the emotional and physical fallout of each of the choices she and Dean made during this stressful time. She also carefully describes how they each dealt with having made some, ultimately, unfortunate choices and how this affected their relationship.
If you're in this situation, How WE SURVIVED PROSTATE CANCER is the best possible choice you can make. It may, for you, be the neon-colored cone that prevents you from sinking into an enormous pothole on a very rough road.
I thought this book was excellent, even before my own diagnosis.
Review Date: February 12, 2010
Reviewer: David T. Quintavalle, New York, NY United States
My first reaction to this excellent book was one of admiration that Hallerman could construct at once a moving personal account of a marriage under siege of health crisis, a constructive guide to intelligently navigating a daunting sea of doctors, treatments and medical decisions and an invaluable resource for treatment information, support groups and internet research. This was as an objective reader and acquaintance of Ms. Hallerman.
But when I received my own diagnosis of prostate cancer shortly after this first reading, I hurried back to the book with a new appreciation of her step by step approach to making my own decisions; the wealth of information gathered in one book; the brilliant inclusion of her husband's thoughts and experiences and her steadfast insistence on getting multiple opinions and not settling for a doctor I wasn't comfortable with.
I credit her book with my own decision to switch to my `second opinion' doctor when I was under whelmed by my diagnosing surgeon and his recommendation for a radiation oncologist. I sent a copy to my GP and he said that reading Hallerman's account of her husband's hormone deprivation therapy `changed his mind' about his absolute endorsement of its use.
This book is recommended for anyone making tough medical decisions as a couple and required reading for prostate cancer sufferers and their partners.
A "must read" for couples when he has prostate cancer
Review Date: September 2, 2009
Reviewer: John M. Arnold, Grand Rapids, MI USA
This book was written and released three years after I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. As I read it I found myself wishing over and over that it had been in print when I first was diagnosed, and that my wife and I had read it together. It isn't a happy book; their struggle was very difficult. But the book raises all the right issues for a couple to be aware of and talking about in order to get through this ordeal stronger as a couple, instead of being shattered by it.
How we survived prostate cancer: what we did and what we should have done.
Review Date: August 8, 2009
Reviewer: J. Peralto,
This memoir is well thought out and very well written; it provides today's couples with most if not all of what they need to unite and act as each others best friend and ally in the struggle to combat one of today's worst cancer killers for men. Victoria Hallerman uses her considerable talent as a writer to articulate the horrors and nightmares of the battle she and her husband have waged against prostate cancer. A must read for anyone beginning the battle or even well into it.
a very useful book
Review Date: July 15, 2009
Reviewer: C. Creason,
While thus book seemed somewhat disorganized in sequence it contains a great deal of useful information and is helpful in the respect of tempering the fear one faces when you first hear the "C" word. It is enlightening to hear from the wife's perspective but I think the references for information about support groups and medical references are the most important. A good book to have in your library if you are having prostate problems.
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THE GO-TO BOOK FOR MORAL SUPPORT AND ENLIGHTENMENT
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