Cancer and a sex life - WHATS THAT????

[MiniDriver]

Thank you for all the comments and input! I have had a laugh today. (about the chocolates) This site is a lovely support. Iain

[Jules2]

laughter is great 🙂

[Jules2]

I have a warped sense of humour and i actually found it quite funny that just before i was to have chemotherapy i had a male nurse come talk to me about my sexuality. Am single at the moment too! haha Ahh, dont be too hard on yourself re sex ... its just another bit of your relationship that cancer manages to turn upside down and you just have to figure out another way to deal. 🙂 One thing cancer does i feel is to make us very inventive in our minds and bodies. Good luck with it all and to your wife also. Anyone having been through treatment has a huge amount of empathy for those that are going through it. I should tell you about years ago when i was waiting to see an oncologist in a clinic. There were two guys in wheel chairs who had spent time in hospital together. Apparently there was a third one who was still in hospital. They were laughing and joking in the clinic about how when "so and so" was having treatment and was soooooooooooooo sick, they ate all his choccies. lol Plus they took this bloke up the top of some ramp and let his wheelchair go!! Life is what we make of it and thats in our heads and therefore its possible to change our perception. Least thats how i look on it. take care Julie

[kymg]

G'day Minidriver I hear what you are saying - its a bastard I had a Radical Prostatectomy recently that was not nerve sparing. As a result I am unable to acheive an erection possibly for three years (a year to eighteen months without sex seems quite doable in my eyes.) To give you some idea (and now we are cutting to the chase) all the nerves responsible for the erectile function are shot to buggery and will take time to sort themselves out if they do at all. Nothing I or anyone else can do (and I mean in a personal private way) will help get an erection or even give me hope. Hell I cannot even go to the toilet standing up as there is not enough length to get out of my pants. Sheesh. And I am only 49 Added to that is the incontinence - well that just makes for a real dandy night between the sheets. And I hear what you are saying about pills and potions. They hardly enhance a romantic night / day whatever. Added to that maybe the need for pumps or injections then a fair bit of the sponteneity goes away. Now that I have embarrassed myself I had better stop. It seems that the big C has lots and lots of side effects. Its a pity that some of them are spoken about in such a roundabout way. Do not give up - kiss, cuddle, squeeze, fondle. And yes, laughter is great Good Luck Kym

[Jules2]

Hey Kym You havent embarrassed yourself at all!! Julie

[Versaillon]

Hey Mini Right now, my husband is having treatment every fortnight. Now, he's always had quite a high sex drive while mine seems to go in waves. Of late, mine is dead in the water - I am far too tired and emotionally exhausted to contemplate sex much. Plus, my anti-depressants (for an anxiety disorder) seem to put a dampener on the good ole libido, yay for me. What's weird is, hubby is the one having treatment, is tired beyond belief yet on his good week (non-chemo week), I have to bring out the headache excuse at least once LOL. We, being newlyweds, should be shagging like bunnies but like others have said, Cancer Land really takes it out of you. Sex isn't really sexy when you have to worry about contraception so his chemo drugs don't affect me and my fertility, if you get my drift. Or I have to be careful not to touch his surgery scar on his tummy as it's still tender. Kinda takes the spontaneity out of it all. I think sex for a lot of 'cancer couples' is about staying reconnected and keeping the intimacy alive, even when the body couldn't give a rats ass in a world where it's all very sterile, medical and matter of fact. Well, at least I think that's what it is for us. Jo

[Sailor]

G'day Folks I went up to the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia meeting up on the Gold Coast a couple of weeks ago. They had a panel discussion on sexuality. They had a panel that had several 'consumers', a nurse a social worker and a sex therapist. This sex therapist was entirely medicalised - sex was just seemed something mechanical. When one person raised the issue of erectile dysfunction she glibly replied that it was no longer a problem as we had appropriate pharmaceuticals to deal with it. Also that if, as you got older, you didn't have sex as frequently it was because you had had boring sex when you were younger! I started to get angry when some old bloke from up the back got up and let her have it. He explained in words of one syllable what loss of libido really meant, that he worked with men who had had prostate cancer and how many couples found that viagra and injections were unsatisfactory because they took away all spontaneity and many older couples where the man had had a prostatectomy decided against using aids and settled for intimacy instead and were quite happy about it. He, really let her have it and I felt like cheering, she was just so smug, glib and medicalised. It is appalling when these so called professionals just have no understanding of what it is like. Cheers Sailor Without patience, a sailor I would never be. Lee Allred


[Jules2]

oh amen to what you have written sailor in regards to "professionals". I could say more, however, its just not right to do so. :) Julie

[kymg]

Hi Julie and others too Actually I guess I wasn’t really worried about embarrassing myself – beyond that now. More a case of embarrassing all you good folk out there. I generally don’t discuss my erections (or lack thereof) with people. Seems a totally inappropriate and I would normally get the measure of someone before I say too much anyway. I guess I just don’t know who I am talking to here and so I worry that I have said the wrong thing. Sex (along with politics and religion) is one of things we are taught not to talk about in company. I have discovered that I can talk to people with cancer about all manner of things that are affected by cancer without too much discomfort although I think I say too much and then think “Hmmm went a bit too far there”. Quite frankly I could do with a shag right now and knowing that I may never have another one leaves me quite depressed so the less I think of it the better off I will be – but hell I am a bloke and we are always supposed to be thinking about it – aren’t we. I really have to get over some of the other issues surrounding my surgery. Sailor, - your comments from the Oncology Society meeting make some interesting reading too – it is interesting the she was a ‘she’ and probably hasn’t a clue what blokes prostate blokes are going through. The loss of the ability to have a ‘useful’ erection takes away some of a man’s manhood and can be quite disheartening both for him and his partner. I tried to explain this to a counsellor and used the analogy of a woman losing her breasts. She said “I hope you think of women as more than a pair of breasts”. Well der… yes but the loss of them is devastating for a woman as is the loss of the ability for a man to have an erection. But I am getting off the point. I guess there are other ways and means of releasing sexual tension for cancer sufferers and their partners but along with sex comes intimacy and that cannot be traded away. Ah well maybe a good night’s sleep will make me feel better. Cheers Kym Is the sun over the yardarm yet?

[Jules2]

Hi Kym The beauty of the internet is that there is a little red "x" up the top right hand corner of our screen and should we choose not to partipate in something we can exercise our democratic right and click it. 🙂 I wouldnt stress too much, although in saying that i understand. I was feeling a little iffy as to how much detail etc... I actually think this is a fantastic discussion. The thing is with cancer is that we find ourselves with a "new us". We have to adjust and get used to how life is for us now and how it is going to be and sometimes it can be vastly different to how we used to be. Not always an easy thing and some parts of that are harder than others. Cheers Kym and yes i think the sun is over the yardarm well and truely by now. Depending on when you read this of course. :) Julie