Guest Opinion: Men Can Learn from Women in Prostate Cancer Awareness

By Teddy Deane

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

I recently got back from Portland where I volunteered at a charity golf tournament which I helped start in 1998.(I was diagnosed in 1997). The cause was/is prostate cancer(PCa) awareness. Many of the men I started the tournament with have passed on, including the initial sponsor but his son has continued the tournament in his name. This year, for the first time, it was held in conjunction with a tournament for breast cancer (BCa). As usual at these events, there is a dinner and auction following the actual tournament, but this year it was different. The auctioneer wore pink, the silent auction was draped with pink, the pink auction items dwarfed the blue.The amount of money raised for pink was many many times the amount raised for blue.

This is not an unusual phenomenon. BCa awareness, funding for research and almost every other category imaginable are many times greater for BCa than for PCa. Why is this when both cancers have approximately the same yearly death rate and, in fact, PCa occurs in one in six men compared to BCa’s one in eight women?

After living with this seemingly disproportionate phenomenon for over 14 years I have this simple theory: The women have got it together, the men don’t. Women organize and talk about it, they insist on answers, attention, compassion and yes, money. Most men are still in the closet, they don’t want to talk or learn about it. (Wrong! Get it checked!)! After treatment, men want to forget about it. They don’t want others to know about it so they don’t advocate. The result is that research, awareness, and funding for PCa is sadly lacking.

Some of us are trying to change that. “US Too” is a National non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to raising awareness of PCa. Friday Harbor has an “US Too” Chapter (www.ustoo.org) which addresses PCa issues. We meet at 6:00pm 4^th Mondays at the Mullis Ctr. For more information: Teddy-378-5250 or Dave-378-6932.