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" Breast cancer is traditionally thought of as a &amp;quot;woman&amp;#039;s issue&amp;quot;\u2014and, by and large, it is. Yet that doesn&amp;#039;t mean a breast cancer diagnosis only affects women. In reality, men are also impacted by the disease, whether it&amp;#039;s their spouse, sibling, relative or friend who&amp;#039;s battling it. To learn more about what it&amp;#039;s like for the opposite sex, we spoke with five men who became advocates for the cause. As supporters and co-survivors (the term for anyone who&amp;#039;s supported a person through a breast cancer diagnosis), these men made it their mission to get the word out and help others support the women in their lives. From blogging to launching organizations dedicated to the cause, here are their stories. Ed Sousek, Founder and Blogger of WhataRideBlog.WordPress.com  In June 2010, when retired San Diego police officer Ed Sousek&amp;#039;s wife, Patty, learned she had breast cancer, he knew he couldn&amp;#039;t fall apart. He recalls saying to himself, &amp;quot;Whatever you&amp;#039;re feeling, she&amp;#039;s feeling 100 times more than you are.&amp;quot; He recalls, &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t know what to do. But you literally have to fly by the seat of your pants and go by what&amp;#039;s best for your wife.&amp;quot; As the phone calls started poured in, Ed became the information hub, providing constant updates while supporting his wife. &amp;quot;There were people calling, friends, family\u2026 the phone was ringing off the hook,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I thought maybe I could start a blog so they could go online and not need to call. It was sort of a convenience thing.&amp;quot; But it ended up being so much more. He not only found the journaling aspect of the blog therapeutic, it also introduced him to an online community of men sharing the same experience. &amp;quot;There aren&amp;#039;t many support groups for men. Support is amazing for women, but for the husbands or the caregivers, there&amp;#039;s very little support,&amp;quot; he says.  Since its launch in August 2010, Ed has been overwhelmed by the response to his blog, which has covered everything from Patty&amp;#039;s chemo treatments to visits with their grandchildren. &amp;quot;I am just so pleased by where the blog is now. I&amp;#039;m helping so many people. I get emails saying, &amp;#039;Thank you so much,&amp;#039; and I tell readers if they have any questions at all, to email me,&amp;quot; Ed says.  Though Patty is now on the path to recovery, Ed has continued blogging, knowing he can help others out there. &amp;quot;When my wife stopped chemo, she didn&amp;#039;t have a lick of hair on her. Watching her hair grow back was an experience. Also, she had reconstructive surgery and still feels side effects, so the journey is far from over.&amp;quot; In fact, Ed is working to combine his journals with Patty&amp;#039;s, to create a book about their shared experience. Mitchell Ashley, Founder and Blogger of BreastCancerforHusbands.com  When Mitchell Ashley&amp;#039;s wife, Mary Ellen, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, he turned to blogging as a way to process what the couple was going through. However, instead of focusing on the breast cancer patient\u2014which a lot of people were already doing\u2014he decided his blog would focus on the experience of being a breast cancer patient&amp;#039;s caretaker. &amp;quot;I had a support group of family and friends, but I was looking for other ways to express what was going on, and the things I was dealing with,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;My wife didn&amp;#039;t want me to blog about her, but she was totally fine with me writing about my own thoughts, what I was going through, and information and research I found or opinions I had.&amp;quot; Mitchell blogged about doctor visits and articles he read, and created a prayer list on the site, where he listed the names of other people who emailed him about their own battle with the disease as a way to honor them and pray for a speedy recovery. &amp;quot;I had people reach out to me who had already gone through the battle with breast cancer or were currently going through it. I had a lot of people say that reading about my experience helped them.&amp;quot; More than anything else, Mitchell says the blog helped him cope with his own feelings so that he could be there for his wife. &amp;quot;One way it helped me was being in contact with people [going through similar experiences], and the other was just the chance to express myself. I didn&amp;#039;t want to talk about breast cancer all the time with my wife, so it was a way that I could do that.&amp;quot;  Tragically, Mary Ellen lost her battle with breast cancer in February 2010. Although Mitchell has stopped posting on the blog, he has left it up for other men to find and read, with the hope that it will continue to help them. &amp;quot;I still receive emails from readers, mostly men, looking for resources or support about breast cancer,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I poured everything I had into loving my wife and supporting her battle with cancer. When we were going through that together, that&amp;#039;s where my heart and soul were.&amp;quot; Woody Fraser, Co-Founder of MenforWomenNow.org  Television producer and director Woody Fraser was used to being the man in charge, but when his wife, Noreen, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, everything changed. &amp;quot;When she first got cancer, every morning she&amp;#039;d wake up and I&amp;#039;d be six inches from her face and I&amp;#039;d ask, &amp;#039;How do you feel?&amp;#039; After about six weeks, she said, &amp;#039;Stop it, you&amp;#039;re driving me nuts.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s when I realized I had no clue\u2026so I went in the bathroom and I started crying because there was nothing I could really do to help her.&amp;quot; Woody decided to seek out men&amp;#039;s support groups, where he learned how to cope with his feelings as well as his wife&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;I learned what the problems are for a husband of a woman with cancer. You&amp;#039;re the closest person to her, so you&amp;#039;re going to get it all. You&amp;#039;re the only person she can let it all out on,&amp;quot; he says. After several years, the cancer spread to other parts of Noreen&amp;#039;s body and Woody decided he needed to re-angle his efforts in order to be more solution-based. &amp;quot;I said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ve got to keep her looking ahead, instead of being worried; I&amp;#039;ve got to try to get her mind occupied with something worthwhile.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; With Noreen leading the charge, the couple started working on the Noreen Fraser Foundation, and in time, Men for Women Now, a network for men supporting women with cancer. &amp;quot;The idea of Men for Women Now is to get men together so they can find out more about the disease, and learn how to talk to their wives about it,&amp;quot; Woody says. The website provides resources and an online community for men supporting women with cancer. There is a discussion board, in which Noreen participates, as well as videos of men sharing tips on how they&amp;#039;ve supported the women in their lives. It also empowers men to become pro-active and encourages them to tell the women in their lives to get a pap smear and a mammogram, Woody says. &amp;quot;It just hits a note with men, so a guy can feel like it&amp;#039;s OK to be scared, to cry, to be sad and be at a loss for what to do.&amp;quot; Marc Heyison, Founder of MenAgainstBreastCancer.org  In 1992, former Baltimore Orioles baseball player Marc Heyison&amp;#039;s mother, Gloria, was diagnosed with breast cancer. &amp;quot;I was 29 when my mom was diagnosed and I felt like a little boy again, thinking, &amp;#039;Oh my god, my mommy&amp;#039;s going to die.&amp;#039; I felt fear. I felt hopeless,&amp;quot; Marc says. Fortunately, his family rallied around his mother, and he was able to be a part of that. &amp;quot;I was lucky; I was brought up by a mom and dad who taught me how to be a caregiver, so it was time to give back to my mom.&amp;quot; However, Marc recognizes that caretaking doesn&amp;#039;t feel so natural for many men. &amp;quot;A lot of men really do want to get involved, they want to be there for the person they love\u2026they&amp;#039;re just not sure how to do it,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Guys feel like they have to solve the problems on their own, which they don&amp;#039;t. They feel they have to fix it, which they can&amp;#039;t. And if they don&amp;#039;t feel like they can fix it, they may shut down, and it could come off as being aloof.&amp;quot; After Gloria won her battle in 1999, Marc decided to launch Men Against Breast Cancer, with the mission of helping and empowering men to be there for the women they love. The organization hosts educational workshops, which help men navigate breast cancer, in addition to creating action plans and producing a caregiver&amp;#039;s guide called For the Women We Love. The guide provides tangible steps men can take to help their wives, sisters, mothers and daughters. &amp;quot;When given the opportunity, men are incredible caregivers,&amp;quot; Marc says. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t go in there and promise to solve problems, but we give them the blueprint and the tools, and point them in the right direction.&amp;quot; He adds: &amp;quot;If a woman has a loving partner by her side, she can focus on her care. By helping the caregiver, we are helping the patient.&amp;quot; Eric Brinker, National Board Member of the Susan G. Komen Foundation  When Susan G. Komen died of breast cancer at 36 years old in 1980, it was her sister, Nancy G. Brinker, who became inspired to launch the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. Although it began in 1983 as a small grassroots advocacy group run out of her home, it&amp;#039;s now one of the nation&amp;#039;s leading breast cancer awareness and fundraising organizations. Nancy&amp;#039;s son, Eric, remembers the cause being a priority in his mom&amp;#039;s life from an early age. &amp;quot;I grew up with my room being used to pack party favors; I grew up around more pink than any boy in the world,&amp;quot; he says. Although he doesn&amp;#039;t remember much about his aunt before she passed away, he vividly recalls when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. &amp;quot;It was scary; you never feel good when you see your mom with tubes coming out of her and going through chemo. But for some reason, I always knew my mom was going to be OK.&amp;quot; And, thankfully, she was. But the impact of her illness and her advocacy left a strong impression on Eric. &amp;quot;I grew up watching my mom dedicate her life to influencing and creating a movement. I was her co-survivor, and as an adult, I&amp;#039;ve become active in the organization.&amp;quot; Eric has worked extensively with the Peoria, Illinois, branch of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. There, he chaired the Race for the Cure for two years, each time raising around $1 million. In 2010, he joined the Susan G. Komen for a Cure national board. &amp;quot;One of the things my mom used to always say is that we have to take charge of this disease; be a consumer and be an advocate\u2014control it, don&amp;#039;t let it control you. And that&amp;#039;s really what this organization was when my mom founded it. Never before had a group of survivors gotten together and seen that you can survive this and you can live.&amp;quot;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/womens-health/advice/a2660/men-who-support-the-fight-against-breast-cancer-124604/>