good morning and welcome to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host this morning. we're about to begin a really interesting conversation about breast cancer, but in a different way than we're usually used to. . i'd like to introduce you to the author of roller coaster, how to survive his partner's breast cancer, and rose barlo, 0 breast cancer out of marin county.

thank you, rose. >> what is your organization? >> we're a community-based organization and we've been dedicated to finding the causes of breast cancer particularly those in the physical and socio socioeconomic environment and educate the community about risk reduction so they can a lower their risk or avoid breast cancer all together. >> so is your clientele, men, women, attorneys? broadly based? >> communities, you could stay societies. there isn't one unfortunately untouched by breast cancer so what we're sharing comes out of research the scientists are doing and we can give it back to the community so they can do something with that organization. >> and woody, your wife nancy

had breast cancer so why don't you just kind of jump in and tell us how you came to write your book. >> well, i started by doing a journal when she was in the throws of the treatment and then i realized shortly after what i had to say could help other men in similar positions. >> and so people journal for different reasons and that's a very personal kind of experience, but for you, were you someone who kept a journal normally? was it something you started because of your wife's breast cancer? how did you come to write the experience? >> i'm a lifelong journalist, but private journals were done erratically through my life and sporadically. this was done very radically.

it got personal and very honest and that's what the book ended up being. >> when did you begin to journal? >> just when she was diagnosed. the day she was diagnosed. >> and then now the book is published? yes. >> so when in your experience does the book end? >> it doesn't end because cancer is chronic and it's always there. what the book does is have hope and this -- there have been 15 books in 15 years written by men about their partners' breast cancer. 14 are out-of-date and mine is current and men are the forgotten part of the equation. men's universe is threaten and turned upside down, and most people kind of ignore the man despite the fact the man has to

be there for his wife all the time, 24/7, and be passionate and compassionate at the same time. >> breast cancer is one of the illnesses that is really rapidly changing in terms of the insights of the experience itself, the medical aspect in terms of research and treatment and i'm sort of wondering what's current from each of your perspectives of 0 breast cancer we can ask the same thing from his perspective. 14 are not current, so what's current for you? >> so literally yesterday we launched a group of people who involved with breast cancer survivors and we learned 23% of all cancer survivors in this country are breast cancer survivors, which is kind of a

good news-bad news. there has been real progress not having a real death sentence, but it leaves a lot of people who live with greater levels of greater risk and greater levels of fear about breast cancer recurrence, so one of the things breast cancer is starting to do is look at prevention of breast breast cancer, not the primary disease. that is probably the most up-to-date experience that i can give you. >> what makes your box current? >> i have done extensive research with medications, drugs, and research itself, and it constantly changes. for example, when my wife was treated, she lost her hair almost instantly during the chemo, that has been alleviated

to some degree by a cocktail being changed and the one component of it that caused that is no longer there or lesser dosage. also, there are all sorts of new drugs that didn't exist 20 years ago. that'll extend the life -- not necessarily cure things. the technology have improved and the doctors are more aware they need to incorporate nonwestern medicine techniques sometimes. >> woody, and rose, we're off to a wonderful start. please join us in a moment when we return on mosaic on this important topic of breast cancer.

cancer. welcome back to mosaic. we're having a very important conversation. i know you deal with all classes of people, also people from all stations of life, as it impacts breast cancer. we certainly know like all illnesses, that it touches every race, every station in life, and i'm wonders if you could sort of talk a little bit about that perspective of the experience? >> we're increasingly bringing our focus to the underserved communities in this conversation, as the marin marin

breast cancer, who for the most part had very significant resources they could call on and not just material, but education resources so they could sort of understand and engage in similar to the approach woody's taken, some research of their own, asking questions of their doctors, having english as their first language and we're really starting to put our efforts and apply our learning to communicating with those communities that are not as well as resources. so for socio economic reasons, english is a second language, so there's a lot of work to be done there and i'm happy to talk about that. >> and what is your particular reflection as a husband with your wife with breast cancer we know there are women who are otherwise single who might have

a companion they move through the illness, certainly lgbt folks and i'm wondering to what degrees, though your experience is singularly, your own, but you've written a book and all books have a universal pale appea well, it with anyone's journey with -- appea well, it about breastl about breast cancer. >> the book talks -- there's chapter on a support group that i've been running for 20 years, it's called marin man-to-man, and it's a group for men whose partners had or had breast cancer. we've expand today. we have a man who had breast

cancer himself in there. 2,500 men with breast cancer each year. >> you can talk about one of the things is people don't really articlate theulete around issues of sexuality, and -- arcticulate, one's ability to work, sort of the emotional roller coaster. you can talk about some of those things in the context of your experience? >> i could, but to answer everything you brought up, you have to read the whole book. >> yeah, of course, sure. sure. >> but meanwhile, the -- the image that women have can be destroyed during breast cancer because they may need a

mastectemy. mastecteomy. the hair loss is a big deal and may mean getting a wig, watching your hair growing as my wife did, in different colors. support is important critical, in fact, coming from wherever it comes from. i recommend women and men find a group, if it's possible, of support. if you believe in therapy, in terms of therapists, to find that, to use friends. women in particular need women friends who can relate to them on the physical basis to give them that support, and men need to get out of the way sometimes. my wife, one of the things i learned was sometimes she just wanted me to squeeze her hand and shut up and that became very important. it became very important that i not play the macho man role, i would have trouble with that any

way -- but that is not what women are looking for. they're not looking for the fixer in these circumstances; they're looking for people who can understand what they're going through and understand. >> we're going to come back as we continue this important conversation with woody and with rose. please join us in just a moment on mosaic.

. welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi white. we're having a good conversation with rose and woody who has written a really wonderful book called "roller coaster," how a

man can survive his wife having breast cancer. there's issues around prevention and genetic profiling and really coming to understand generally speaking but also individually what your own personal profile looks like when it comes to breast cancer so you can talk about issues of prevention and knowledge to know about yourself? >> right. so about 10% of all cancers are genetic and i'll talk about a standpoint briefly and i'll talk about all the others where there isn't that little sort of clear-cut understanding of what might be your risk factors. i lost both my mother and her sister to ovarian cancer when they were younger than i am and i was very fortunate to have a doctors inside africa and london and scotland and here in the bay area who took that family

history very seriously even before we knew about the brca gene, and we tomorrow a course of action to help me stay ahead of what looked like very strong famorial, and we did have it in the british communities. armed with that knowledge over 25 years i've been able do some things that have helped to get me to this point disease free at this time and i hope to continue to being disease free and sort of general counsel i could give to people, especially with this ethnic background, know as much as you can about your mother and father's side, as well. >> it used to be in terms of

medical history, women were asked most exclusively about her maternal side of the family with respect to the back a gene n terms of the development of breast cancer. >> and it was my maternal paternal side, so it was the mother's side we've been able to identify the history of this gene, because it's show up in what were nieces of my late grandfather, as well. it hasn't shown up on my maternal grandmother's side. there's go to resource for information about back a brca 1,

and brca 2. i'll put a plug in for them. but turning the risk of some women and men, there isn't necessarily that clear-cut. it appears sort of randomly. we've been in contact with a doctor at keiser has been having studies with eight-year old girls. >> and i think we're going to put up a book you brought so we can show folks what it's going to be. so what is the new puberty? >> so the new puberty is a piece of work that didn't come directly out of the sigma study, which is what we've been doing with kaiser, but some of the researchers and doctors who were associated with that team have

done some research into the physical development in today's society, as well as some of the sort of psychosocial elements on what they've done. puberty is happening earlier and earlier. puberty is -- has been shown to be associated with early puberty. it's been shown to be associated with increased lifetime breast cancer risks, and the belief is that what's driving this early puberty is its links to some of the other observations we hear in the news about an epidemic of obesity, lack of physical exercise, and poor diet, stress in the lives of young women. those are all factors that can contribute to the early puberty and that becomes a risk factor over a lifetime for breast cancer. >> there's a lot of influences around public policy and some other issue in the our society.

we're going to talk a quake break and come back to mosaic in just a moment.

. welcome back. i'm rabbi white, at the tail end of the conversation with rose, and how a man can survive his partner's breast cancer. woody and rose there's so much that's always on the future of the breast cancer and always on the edge of hope, so what does the future look like from your

perspectives around issues of breast cancer? >> so from a community engagement, education and outreach point of view, for us the future is those wrong women who were in high school so we're very excited to start thinking deeply about how to engage that group not to drive them crazy with fear but encourage them to educate -- to do the things that i can to prevent breast cancer comfort going into the field. we need a whole new generation of advocates, communicators, of healers, of careers, of scientists. so, that's something in our future we're very excited about. >> i think as a proliferation of breast cancer, 20 years ago, the word breast was a word people didn't use in public. we were going way beyond that and an organization springing up all over the country, all over

the world in fact that are helpful, giving money to research, doing enormous amounts of research. my book is what i call the light at the end of the tunnel. it shows people can survive both the woman, the husband, or the partner. the relationship itself, might not have ten relationships end up closer at the end of treatment because of what they have done through, it is a -- it can be a positive experience despite the negativity, despite the difficulties. >> and from your perspective, there's just so many layers of this that are in some cases political and in some cases scientific and the practice of medicine, the personal educational aspect of it, there

certainly is public policy. even now, what would you say would be an underserved population or an underserved thread to the issue of breast cancer at large? >> i do think economics play a big role, so the most economically disadvantaged in our communities are the most underserved and i think we need to draw our attention to that and some of that links back to the way in general medicine -- accessibility to medical -- preventative and curative medical care in this country the way costs are allocated is a huge challenge. >> as well as a scientific issue. >> i make reference to the book to the lesbian community, the african-american community, the hispanic community, all of which

do not go to the doctors with the same taken from weakness more healthy white community does, therefore survival rate is lower. >> rose and woody thank you so much. certain, there are lots and lots of layers we did not get to. we hope this is a coma to the conversation on every level that you do. thank you so much for being with us here on mosaic.

i love my sister. my heart doesn't see race. love is love.

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