![\"\"](\"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Rollercoaster.gif\")
<\/a>Mock-up for book, \u201cRollercoaster.\u201d Design by Edward Marson; cover photo by Larry Rosenberg.<\/p><\/div>\n
I can get really excited about little stuff.<\/p>\n
So can Nancy Fox, my wife.<\/p>\n
A few days back, for instance, she was bouncing on air because she\u2019d had the vintage knives in our San Anselmo kitchen sharpened.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable,\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cThey\u2019re like new!\u201d<\/p>\n
I loved her enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Almost as much as I\u2019d loved my own ecstasy when I recalled a guilty pleasure from childhood \u2014 a bowlful of sliced sweet gherkins and sour cream.<\/p>\n
Others may grimace, but I blissed out again.<\/p>\n
Big things can also electrify me.<\/p>\n
Such as completing tweak No. 8,957 of \u201cRollercoaster,\u201d my book manuscript that details how a man can survive his partner\u2019s breast cancer.<\/p>\n
I finally believe it\u2019s ready for prime time \u2014 after years and years of updating and polishing.<\/p>\n
Maybe one of you, my steadfast readers, can nurture the project.<\/p>\n
If you know a publisher who might be interested, I\u2019d be interested in your giving me name, rank and serial number. If you\u2019re connected to a foundation and think I could be eligible for a grant, send me the details \u2014 pronto. If you know a philanthropist who might help buoy thousands and thousands of male caregivers, email, snail-mail, carrier-pigeon or smoke-signal me the info.<\/p>\n
\u201cRollercoaster\u201d is a 47,000-word memoir-chronicle of my wife\u2019s breast cancer 19 years ago \u2014 and my role as primary caregiver (and leader of the Marin Man to Man support group for guys with partners in the same sometimes leaky boat).<\/p>\n
Fleshed out by essential \u201chow-to\u201d sequences and information on drugs, scientific research and where to get help.<\/p>\n
Because I\u2019m more concerned with getting the message out than in making money, I\u2019m willing to donate all royalties to a breast-cancer research organization or relevant nonprofit.<\/p>\n
Time\u2019s a-wastin\u2019 \u2014 the stats haven\u2019t improved.<\/p>\n
More than 2 million U.S. women live with breast cancer, with almost 250,000 new cases diagnosed each year, one every few minutes.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of books are aimed at them.<\/p>\n
But their male caregivers (husbands, boyfriends, fathers, sons and brothers) typically become a forgotten part of the equation.<\/p>\n
And they, too, need propping up.<\/p>\n
The few volumes directed at them and still in print are woefully out of date. \u201cRollercoaster,\u201d in contrast, is current (with references, even, to last month\u2019s New York Times story on a key study of mammograms).<\/p>\n
\u201cRollercoaster\u201d tracks my bumpy yet uplifting journey from the depths of Nancy\u2019s diagnosis to the heights of our climbing the Great Wall of China. It illustrates that most couples can successfully deal with the disease itself, \u201cslash, poison and burn\u201d treatments, fear, and the repercussions of it all \u2014 and that there actually can be light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n
I must believe in the book or I wouldn\u2019t have tinkered with it 8,957 times.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m primed for a \u201cRollercoaster\u201d hardcover to appear in oncologists\u2019 and radiologists\u2019 offices, in hospitals and libraries, and in the hands of individual caregivers and patients.<\/p>\n
But I truly don\u2019t want to change the text anymore \u2014 unless Brad Pitt calls me and wants to write an intro (so, if anyone knows how to get to him, tell me).<\/p>\n
And I truly reject the idea of papering my walls with rejection notices.<\/p>\n
Northern Californian Jack London got 600 of them before publishing anything. And Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before one was accepted.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have that kind of patience.<\/p>\n
Nor do I want to be published posthumously.<\/p>\n
I do want to help all the male caregivers of breast cancer and other life-threatening diseases that need support \u2014 while I\u2019m still breathing.<\/p>\n
So I guess I\u2019ll just walk my purebred mutt, Kismet, in downtown San Anselmo while waiting for a fairy godmother to arrive with a publisher in tow.<\/p>\n
And settle, for the moment, for being thrilled by the little stuff.<\/p>\n
Like my wife creating a Seuss-like rhyming treasure hunt last month, with the Big Prize being a small box of tiny candy hearts.<\/p>\n
I loved her reverting to her kindergarten-teacher days and getting me to run up and down stairs so many times I decided to forgo my daily exercises.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen clues are written,\u201d she wrote,<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Valentine\u2019s Day,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo celebrate ours\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a new, goofy way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, being thrilled is a thrill \u2014 whether it\u2019s tiny, silly things or big, important stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can get really excited about little stuff. So can Nancy Fox, my wife. A few days back, for instance, she was bouncing on air because she\u2019d had the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"