Side effects (round trois)

Warning: I intend to touch on effects that might not be discussed in polite company. If you're at all squeamish, I advise bailing on this one now. (Of course that will make almost anyone just have to continue!)

But first, the expected effects of the radioactive seeds is making itself known already. Last night I was up about twice as often to use the bathroom. And eliminating is hard, it hurts (what extent of that is due to having had a catheter is not clear, but it hurts), the stream is weak and stops several times before I think I'm done. All of this is what I was told will happen. So, I guess it's working, because it would be an incredibly silly thing if it didn't work. Especially at these prices. And I'm a bit tender in what I assume is the area the needles went in.

OK... more to the point, this treatment regimen I'm doing has some attractive things about it - given my pathology: 

• It's less invasive than doing a full-blown radical prostatectomy.
• Recent data indicates somewhat better survival rates 10 years out, and lower reoccurrence rates
  

But it carries some of the same potential side effects as surgery. Incontinence and impotence at two that are on the list, along with erectile dysfunction. 
But there's another thing that I haven't found discussed anywhere, which is not to say that it isn't out there.

Dry orgasms.  This is certainly discussed as an effect of surgery, because the equipment (prostate & seminal vesicles) are removed. But I haven't seen it listed or discussed as an effect of this treatment.  But I asked the radiation oncologist about it and he said that yes, it was an effect. As he put it "we're burning up the prostate. Where do you think the fluid comes from?" Maybe not the most delicately put, but certainly direct... which I appreciate. 

I suppose I should have made the connection, but I hadn't. And of course, now that I thought to do a direct search on the phrase "dry orgasm and brachytherapy" I found a ton of hits.  Here's one from prostate-cancer.org ... read down the page to the heading "Sex after Brachytherapy".  I guess I should have searched on it before. :-/  Sigh.  Oh well, so it goes.

My point, if I have one, is that while these effects are expected (to some extent yet to be seen for me), they can be ones that others besides me might be interested in.  And from my point of view, there is potentially another part of my life up until this point that I may need to let go of.  There is something almost poetic about letting go of a previous way of being.  How did Eliot put it?

... I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact? ...      - fm "Gerontion" (1920)

Well, maybe that's not quite what I mean. It's not that bleak. But there is a letting go involved in all of this that is worth thinking about. I don't feel as if the change in sexual function means life is over, quite the contrary. But I think it's worth understanding, hence the discussion here.

And there are other things that amount to gifts that also beg for equal time. This isn't all about loss and letting go. I am reminded of someone (another cancer patient) who wrote to Lance Armstrong during his cancer fight and said "You don't know it yet, but we're the lucky ones." I think about this now and again, and I think I begin to see where that comes from. Maybe not, but I think I am getting there.

This was maybe too serious an ending, but it is on my mind... and I don't mind sharing it. Hopefully it wasn't telling too much.