Tom
McPartland lives in New York, USA. He was 47 when he was diagnosed on June 6,
2008. His initial PSA was 2.77 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 6 and although he
does not state his saging it seems likely he was staged T1c. His choice of treatment
was Robotic Surgery. Here is his story.
THERE
WAS NO RESPONSE TO AN UPDATE
REMINDER
IN 2011
SO THERE IS NO UPDATE.
Was
diagnosed in June of 2008. After a tough month of absorbing the news and looking
at all my options, I decided on Nerve Sparing Robotic Surgery, as my top priority
was to rid my body of cancer. But those quality of life issues weighed heavy on
my mind.
Weeks before surgery were spent having sex as often as I could
with my wife and with myself if necessary. Believe it or not, I would also apologize
to my penis; I just couldn't believe I was about to do to him what I was going
to do. A very tough time emotionally.
I live in NY state and found Dr.
Tewari at NYPres.
Had my procedure on Sept 16th, 2008
Spent the
first week recovering from the procedure. As Dr. Tewari prescribed, I would walk
three miles every day, catheter strapped to my leg.
Incontinence:
Catheter
removed after the first week and I was stunned by the level of incontinence that
I had. I spent so much time preparing myself for the sexual side affects that
I didn't prepare myself for this degree of incontinence. Oh boy, that was a tough
time and I now realize why everyone said their first concern was this topic...
how can I go to work, run, jump, play with the kids... Lots goes through your
mind.
Regardless, five weeks after the surgery I was able to hold my urine
without a diaper during the day. Seven months after the surgery, I stopped wearing
them at night (had a harder time while sleeping and boy is my wife a saint when
I'd wake her at 2AM because I wet the bed - was a big man and thought I didn't
need one that night)
Today, I'm fine with a minor exception of a drop or
two leaking out when I laugh with a full bladder, or push out gas with a full
bladder. All in all, I'm happy in this department.
Erection:
Prior to
the surgery, I was a pretty health male in this department with no erection problems
(except when I drank too much, but I always had that). The day I had my catheter
removed (five days after surgery), I asked the doctor how long before I was able
to orgasm. He said whenever you want. So I went home and two days later I had
to try (that's seven days after surgery). Erection just didn't exist and I used
just two fingers as that's all that would fit. Orgasm was interesting, but I'll
get to that later.
Dr. Tewari prescribes 50mg of Viagra daily and about
two weeks after the surgery I started to see some movement at night. They were
not full erections, but it was alive. At one month after the surgery, I was able
to get a Viagra erection hard enough to have sex with my wife. A great day. However,
I have to say that the erections were unforgiving. If my mind wandered for just
a second, I would lose the erection and then could not get it back.
You
have to realize that at this stage my mind was a train wreck when it came to this
department. A thousand things go through your head about being able to last long,
satisfying her, coming - oh wait that doesn't happen anymore, etc.) It takes time
to come to terms with all this stuff, but it gets easier as time goes on. And
you need to have a great partner (I was very lucky here).
As the months
pass, I found I needed less Viagra and the erections were harder and lasted longer.
Today I take 25mg every other day and get very hard erection and have good sex.
As
for natural erections, I have not progressed as much as I had hoped. There is
some movement, I'd say about 25% of a full erection, but I'm only 11 months and
I still need to give it some time. But I'm still optimistic. I see Dr. Tewari
next week and this will be my biggest concern.
Orgasm:
I wrote earlier
about my orgasm nine days after the surgery. Well, my orgasm at this point was
really scaring me. I would hardly feel anything. It was mainly at the base of
the penis and in the penis itself, but compared to what it was before, it was
barely anything. Later when I started having the Viagra erections, the orgasm
was further muted as the full penis would hold back some of the muscle contractions.
This was flipping me out!
So I decided that I was going to do two things.
1) I was going to orgasm as much as I could to exercise this thing as much as
I could (kind of fun anyway), and 2) I was going to relearn my orgasm and find
out what makes it better.
Well, to make a long story short, I followed
my own advice and I don't know if it was this, or just time, but my orgasms have
gotten so much better that I can honestly say that they are satisfying. Different!
But satisfying.
