Overview
This book was written to help women (and the men they care about) become more informed about prostate health, prostate tests, and prostate cancer, and to help them decide what action, if any, to take. If you are a woman, with a husband/partner, father, brother, son, or a male friend, aged between 40 and 80 years of age, who is an important part of your life, you should probably read this book.
And if you are a man in any of the above categories, and have not (yet) given much thought to what you need to know about the topic, perhaps you should read it too.
If you are a woman or a man, with someone you care about who has recently undergone tests or been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and do not know a great deal about the disease, then this book might be a good starting point. If prostate cancer has touched your friends or members of your family, perhaps this book will help you understand something of what they are going through, and allow you to be more open and supportive in your interactions with them.
Our aim is to lift the veil of silence from the topic of prostate cancer, and to suggest what men can do to reduce their risks of developing prostate cancer and, if they are in the minority who will develop it at some point in their lives, to suggest what they can do to ensure that they are diagnosed early and treated successfully.
But why write a book primarily for women on the topic of cancer that affects only men? After all, women do not have a prostate gland and therefore cannot develop prostate cancer! The reason is that women have always been, and continue to be, family health managers. To take care of their families – which often includes encouraging the men in their lives to have medical checkups, to pay attention to symptoms they would rather ignore, and to take greater responsibility for their own (men’s) health – women need to be informed.
Author Information
Irena Madjar, RN, MA, PhD, has a long standing interest in human experience of cancer and its treatment and has undertaken research in this field over a number of years. She retired from the position of Professor of Nursing, The University of Newcastle, NSW in 2006 and now lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand.
Gail Tingle was a fashion model, and a current affairs program producer at Radio 2GB and 2CH in Sydney. Her interest in cancer awareness coincided with her husband John’s diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2005. Gail lives on the north coast of NSW with John, a journalist and former politician.
