STUMP » Articles » Movember Campaign -- Prostate Cancer and Suicide Prevention » 4 November 2017, 11:39

I generally keep my personal stuff to facebook and/or livejournal, but a quick word.

My husband, Stuart, (the STU part of STUMP) was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer at age 55 this year. I’ve been doing weekly Stu updates on livejournal, reposted to facebook, generally on Saturdays. My personal results are having to do a lot of things Stu used to do, quitting my extra jobs (aw, no more UConn – I do miss that), blogging a lot less, and being very tired.

This November, I’m fundraising for the Movember Foundation, which for 10 years has been raising funds for prostate cancer (services, research, etc.), and have expanded to testicular cancer as well as mental health and suicide prevention. Prostate cancer treatment and survival rates have greatly improved due to active research and development in this area — the regimen Stu is going through is fairly newly developed. The survival rates for advanced prostate cancer are not very good, but they are a lot better than they used to be.

SUICIDE PREVENTION IS A MEN’S ISSUE

In addition to the prostate cancer connection, I have long had a connection to suicide prevention, partly because of what I know of the numbers as well as close friends’ suffering.

My prior blogging on suicide:

• Literal Suicide and Media
• Mortality Monday: Suicide — the Absolute Numbers
• Mortality Monday: Suicide — Rates

Male suicide rates, on an age-adjusted basis, are almost 4 times that of female suicide rates. While the focus of Movember is men dying young, the worst suicide rates are for older men… and dying by suicide is too young, no matter the age.

FUNDRAISING

In the past, I’ve given to my male friends’ Movember campaigns, but this year I’ve set up my own.

I have a fundraising page at the Movember foundation and an associated one on facebook.

Please consider donating.

Thanks!

ADDITIONAL

The Movember Foundation started with men shaving off their facial hair and growing a moustache in the month of November.

As much as I’ve tried growing facial hair, it really hasn’t worked. So I’ve needed some artifical aid: