marriage changes and how to cope...after cancer treatment

kzimm · Regular Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 14

There's no question that this is more difficult for some than for others. I'm nearly 9 months past my surgery - nerves spared - and waiting for signs of them "waking up". Meanwhile, my wife and I stay intimate in whichever way we can, and we can satify each other pretty well.

Prostate Cancer is either a life-changing or life-ending event. I'll choose life-changing any day.
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Kzimm

sequoiaranger · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject: Not a Man Anymore?

It's been almost exactly a year since my radical retropubic prostatectomy. I had everything taken out, including "the nerves" that control erections. THEN, since the cancer had already metastasized, I was given Eligard (lupron and other leuprolides are similar) to suppress testosterone (what the cancer feeds off of). I can take a self-administered shot that causes erections, but the desire is JUST GONE!!

I had my catheter in for several weeks, and despite the inconvenience, my urinary system had healed COMPLETELY, and I have no dysfunction of the system whatsoever (and no pain, either). I'm no doctor, but I think the horror stories here about severe pain was due to premature cessation of the catheter system, putting too much pressure on an un-healed system.

My libido is GONE, period. As others have related, not only can I not "get it up", but the thought never occurs to me that I might want to. That is SO WEIRD for someone like me who had a rich sexual life prior to the surgery. I truly feel like a PERSON, but not a man anymore.

What I have accepted is that my sexuality had "aged" twenty years without the rest of me. That is, I would not expect to get aroused and erectile when I am eighty, so now that I am 60 (59, actually) that time has come prematurely.

OF COURSE I have been depressed occasionally over this!! The intimate touching and feelings that were so abundant before last year are now negligible. ANY libidinous thoughts that creep in are so fleeting they disappear in SECONDS!!

What I always fall back on is that I am ALIVE to report all this. I try to hug my spouse several times daily, to kiss her in the morning when I wake up, because every day I wake up is a treasured gift that would have disappeared by now if I hadn't had the prostatectomy and hormone treatment. As sad as it is to lose one's libido and the true pleasure of intercourse with one's spouse, that is the price I pay for the joy of living, traveling, seeing family, etc--ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS.

So I have no need of Depends, and am doing fine in 99% of life's aspects, but I'm condemned to libido and erectile dysfunction. I accept that willingly to sustain all the other aspects of pleasurable life.

I think couples just have to deal with what is, make whatever adjustments are mutually satisfying, and revel in the fact that one's life has been extended. You can die next year with a hard-on or go on living a premature "old man's life" for maybe twenty more years. Easy choice for me!
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T-3, Gleason 9+
RRP 2-26-07
Using Eligard Hormone Therapy--
working Sometimes!!

In

sequoiaranger,

WAY TO GO!!!! you are truly amazing. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

For having (forgive the pun) the balls to stand up and say it all. For letting you speak freely of your life. Your expanding and long life. Wink

Others will read this and understand or value your true words of your life.

So, again I thank you. and say again you are amazing- Your wife is very lucky to have a man like you in her life. As I think you have said- Sex isn't everything- and for many women- it's the intimacy, the closeness the love, the touch, the kiss, the held. It's the compainonship that means the most.
You wife is one lucky women to have you in her life- and longer now.

Thank you.
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Thinking of you Inica

*Administrator*

~Nose Cancer~
~Car Accident- Broken Back, Ribs, Spleen
Sternum~
~Continous Cervical Cancer~

My Story-
http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=6731

Smile

9 Lives and still kicking Smile

sequoiaranger · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: Thanks, Inica

Thanks for the kind words, Inica. I read your story, too. I guess we just gotta "Keep on Truckin' " no matter what life throws our way.

>For having (forgive the pun) the balls to stand up and say it all. <

Well, if my chemical hormone treatment fails again, the other option to control testosterone production is to simply "cut 'em off". At this point they aren't worth much anyway!

I have just come back from a visit Down Under--a week in Oz and three weeks in NZ with my wife. Just loved it. Combination of 5-star cruise ship and one-star campervan. Again, I am alive to report it. And now my wife and I are planning a cruise to Norway where her ancestors are. Though retired I gotta work to make $$ to afford these trips, but I certainly have motivation and a great companion (my wife) to share my non-sexual life with.

We almost didn't go on our trip due to a mass discovered in my wife's breast a couple of weeks before the trip. What to do? We crossed our fingers and went anyway. Turns out it is NOT cancer, but "they" actually don't know quite what it is. It's coming out anyway!! The less stress the better!

Good luck with Hunter!

Craig
_________________
T-3, Gleason 9+
RRP 2-26-07
Using Eligard Hormone Therapy--
working Sometimes!!

sanjis · Regular Joined: 12 Oct 2007 Posts: 35

I wish my hubby would just feel that being here is enough. I do! He wishes he didn't have it done now, his libido is going down too, he is just getting frustrated and seems to be pulling away more and more from me. All I want is for us to be together for the rest of our lives and hoping it is at least 30 more years. We have been together since I was 12, married at 17. We are now 54 & 56. He is my love, my lifelong partner and I hate seeing him so depressed and angry over the E.D. and incontinence. Heck I have lived with it for quite some time now, having children did me in. He just is not handling this very well.

bcdoo · Regular Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 18 Location: Texas

Sanjis,

First congratulations for having such a long relationship with the one you love. Next, I had RRP 1/22 and my wife of 34 years (we are 55) has expressed to me the same feelings about the post surgery "blues"...she just wants to understand what else she can do to help. It took me about 6 weeks to reconcile with myself that "living" beats all the other alternatives. So, we try to find joy and happy things in every day and work hard to get rid of the "old maps" and ways we used to do things. I am sorry you and your partner are going through so much stress in your relationship, but would encourage you to be strong and get through this together as you have obviously done so many times throughout your lives together. Wishing you the best.

BCDOO

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