Coming to grips with breast cancer: the spouse's experience with his wife's first six months.

This study examines the experiences of 48 spouses of wives newly diagnosed with local or regional breast cancer. Their reported experiences were organized into the core construct of coming to grips reflected by four domains: (1) feeling nailed by the breast cancer, (2) changing us, (3) taking care of me, and (4) making things work. Prior studies have underestimated the extent to which the assumptive world and day-to-day lives of spouses are shattered by the diagnosis of breast cancer and the work they do to guess how to be supportive to their wives. Interventions are needed that directly assist spouses add to their ways of managing the intrusion of their wife's breast cancer in their lives.