LIVING WITH PROSTATE CANCER: How do families cope with the disease?

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – She lost her own husband to prostate cancer more than two decades ago, today she helps other women come to grips with the disease.

In the third and final part of our Movember series “Living with Prostate Cancer,” we’re speaking with the facilitator of a local support group about how families are left to cope with a diagnosis.

Being the spouse of someone with prostate cancer can be tough, especially if you feel like you have no place else to turn.

“The women don’t have a lot of information or knowledge. They don’t know where to go to and they don’t know who to talk to, because, often, the men will say to them, ‘Don’t tell anybody about this.'”

Beverley Shapiro should know. She lost her husband Fred to prostate cancer 22 years ago.

“Yes, I walk the walk, as they say,” she admits.

She knows full well the devastation the disease can bring.

“His disease was very rapid. It metastasized to his brain. It shocked all the doctors in Vancouver because prostate cancer apparently never metastasizes to brains. Other cancers do, but not prostate. His did.”

Looking for answers, she happened upon a local support group.

“I thought I’ll go once. I didn’t think I could get anything out of it but I thought I would just check it out,” she remembers.

“Well, I did get a lot out of it. The facilitator was fantastic and the women were extraordinary.”

Three years after her first meeting, she took over the group, paying forward the kindness and understanding shown to her.

“This is the first time that they’ve been able to open up and share their emotions because they won’t do it with their husbands, they’re trying to be strong, and they’re trying to rise above all that,” she explains.

“But our group allows them and gives them permission… to be able to vent or scream or yell or cry, whatever their wants and needs, we’re they’re for them. I’ve heard it all.”

Now, she’s there for countless women, who like her, thought it couldn’t happen to them.

“Everybody knows about cancer, but I suppose most people don’t think it could or would ever touch them, so when it does, it does take their breath away and they have to learn to come to terms with it, they have to learn a great deal about it… the side effects, the implications, and it’s scary,” she says.

“Let’s face it. Everybody’s petrified of that ugly c-word. Everybody. It touches everybody some way, somehow.”

You can donate to the NEWS 1130 Movember team

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today