Jim
Marsh and Tammy live in Illinois, USA. He was 53 when he was diagnosed in March,
2003. His initial PSA was 15.0 ng/ml, he cannot recall his Gleason Score was and
does not know his staging . His choice of treatment was surgery.
I
had my prostate surgery September 3, 2003. At that time, the general survival
rate of someone with prostate cancer was an average of 7 years, even if you elected
to have surgery.**1
I am very happy to see that number has been changed since
then.
At the time we were given four choices for treatment:
Watch
and wait
Chemotherapy
Radiation therapy
Surgery
Watch
and wait was no option, as my wife and I did not want to take the chance that
it would grow larger. I have always lived my life with the motto of: Murphy's
Law was Marsh's Luck. LOL We were not willing to take the chance.
We had
been around people who had Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy. With three kids
aged 15, 8, and 1, we had no desire to put them through the changes their father
would have gone through. No way for a one year old to understand what was happening
to Daddy.
We therefore decided to go with surgery. We have no regrets for
this decision. We were told what to expect as a result of surgery and were comfortable
with what we decided.
However, one of the things we were told was that
I would lose my erection ability for about a year, but that it would return. WRONG!!!!!
It has never returned!!!
Within the past year the doctors have been telling
us that they have found out the old adage of "If you don't use it you'll lose
it" is very true.**2 This
has truly been the hardest result for me to live with. My wife is 15 years younger
than I am, and we really were not ready to give up sex for life quite yet. As
we are now finding out, we would not have had to.
I strongly recommend
to anyone who has had surgery or who is contemplating surgery to check out the
Penis Pumps. It had been mentioned in a group we belonged to at the time, but
no one in the group had tried them. They can keep the muscles active, the blood
flowing, and truly do help.
Because of a heart attack six years prior
to the prostate cancer, I was on heart medication. Therefore I could not take
Viagra or any of the other wonder pills that they came out with until the beginning
of this year. After so many years of non use, they just did not work. I finally
got desperate enough to buy a penis pump and have recovered about half of my erection.
After six years of hearing my wife say, "Honey, it's okay. Sex isn't that important",
I am now hearing, "Wow, I have a new husband!"
Shortly after I had my surgery,
my wife and I joined one support group that had a woman Psychiatrist join. Her
job was to travel the nation holding seminars for wives of prostate cancer patients
who had opted for surgery. She posted quite a bit in that group and I could not
believe what she was telling these wives. She told them that when their husbands
told the wives they did not know what they were going through, to say "Surprise!
We do know! It is called menopause!" I told that doc she was doing a grave injustice
to those poor women. It is not the same. In menopause they lose their DESIRE to
have sex. When you remove the prostate, we still have the same desire and urges,
we lose the ABILITY to have sex. There is a huge difference.
At any rate,
I am simply happy to be alive and VERY happy to have sex back in my life. Currently
I am looking forward to Christmas, 2010. That date to me is important because
it will mean I will have beaten the 7 year mark. Even though I know they are now
saying I could live for 10, 15 or longer years, 7 was the number stated when I
found out I had prostate cancer, and it is what has stuck.
My youngest
son will be 7 September 5th, and I am determined to see him finish high school.
We home school and I am fortunate enough to be the teacher of my 6 year old and
my 13 year old. I just hope I do as good a job with them as my wife did with our
21 year old.
If anyone desires any further information that I may be able
to provide, I would be happy to do so. I have never been shy about speaking to
family, friends, or total strangers about my prostate cancer or the years following.
I just believe that the more information people have the better off they are.
I hope I have not bored anyone to death for this being so long.
Jim
Jims
e-mail address is: swampman49@hotmail.com
1. It is not clear where Jim obtained this
information. Survival is generally a good deal longer than 7 years for early stage
disease, and has been for many years, since the introduction of PSA testing. The
factors that are useful in attempting to calculate survival are set out in The
Elephant In The Room. [back]
2.
The importance of this view is underlined in Use
It Or Lose It. [back]
