Prostate Cancer SUCKS

 To anyone who has gone through this cancer, any other cancer, or a serious medical condition or diagnosis, this is not really anything new.  To anyone that this is their first brush with their own cancer diagnosis, it truly does change you. Many have likened this change to the grief process.  Feeling all of the steps of grief at once is very confusing for myself and for my spouse.  At times, I isolate and will shun anything from the outside as I turn inward.  I do not want to remind myself of my bodily changes and lack of any sexual functioning.  I cannot see beyond that fact and wish to remain inside my own head fixating on those facts.  I cannot move forward from those losses.   This inward thought process brings about the anger.  Anger from not accepting or rolling with the changes to my body from the diagnosis or treatment.  It comes out in many forms and is hurtful to others, but at that moment, it just comes out.  By t...

 So all the advice that is out there for those dealing with the side effects of prostate cancer treatments is to work on intimacy with your partner to maintain that connection.  I don't disagree.  You need to stay connected otherwise the relationship turns into roommates or I have also heard some refer to it as a brother and sister type relationship.  Like I said, I don't disagree, but what if you already had reached a great level of intimacy?   I know, I am a guy and my view of intimacy is far different then a female, but what can I do when everything that I find to increase intimacy involves what I (we) have already been doing prior to prostate cancer treatments?  Yes, there is always work to do to get back to that level, but that also involved satisfaction for both with the culmination of penetration.  The entire evening seems to be a loss for my masculinity and a failure because that is not yet possible. A big part, I am sure, is all contain...