After Cancer, the Echo of Desire - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

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More from the NYT blog. Kathy

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Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Eight months after learning that I had prostate cancer, my sex drive has vanished into a drug-induced limbo.

As recently as two weeks ago, my libido hadn’t yet checked out. But since then, hormone injections — like the oncologist’s elves — have kept doing their job, which is to suppress testosterone. No testosterone, no sex drive, and, my doctors and I hope, eventually no prostate cancer.

But even with the promise of being cured, the physical changes in my sex life and, more shockingly, my recent loss of interest in sex, are among the most difficult aspects of having prostate cancer — not just for me, but for my wife, too. Men often don’t want to talk about these changes, as if words and impotence couldn’t possibly coexist.

But we men need to talk about it. Silence is the enemy when it comes to any disease. If we can talk about it, it will help us, help our spouses and help those who come after us.

To read the entire entry

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/after-cancer-the-echo-of-desire/

or

http://tinyurl.com/5dkn46