Cancer is a Four-Letter Word: A Pilgrimage into the Emotional, Sexual, and Spiritual Aspects of Prostate Cancer.

Chapter 1:  FEAR

Twenty-five years ago I visited my grandfather in the hospital.  Over the years I had listened to his stories of moving across France with the Marines and stopping the German advance at Belleau Woods, having a bomb drop into their campfire, and losing his hearing in one ear from a bullet.  Now I sat beside his bed, waiting to hear whatever he chose to share before his upcoming surgery.  He leaned his head back on the pillow and focused past the ceiling.  Finally, he spoke:  “The thing I feared most in World War I was having my balls shot off.”

This statement came back to me this year as I recovered from the same surgery he’d had over two decades earlier.  I am in my early fifties.  He was in his early eighties.  My cancer was detected early.  His late.  Mine was contained to the prostate.  His escaped.  My life expectancy did not change.  His life ended within a couple of years.

While grateful for my early diagnosis and treatment, I was surprised during my recovery by depression and a deep sense of loss.  As I journaled one day, Grandpa's story came back to me, and with it the realization that cancer is not a six-letter word.  It is four letters.  Fear.

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Chapter 6:  LOSS

Before cancer, I loved starting my day with jogging, then eating breakfast while reading the newspaper, then showering, and then sitting in the recliner to pray.  I gradually returned to the routine, except the jogging was slower, and the prayer quickly slid into sleep.  Reading at night resulted in the same.  I kept reading bits of Scripture and writing in a journal, but as the days of spring arrived, my spirit lagged behind the calendar.

Looking back, several things occurred.  My workload increased as we lost some key staff members.  I contracted a urinary tract infection the week before Easter, my busiest week of the year.  And I entered erectile dysfunction therapy, also known as my pump-pill-and-prick season.

I entered this whole new world hopefully, guided by a nurse specializing in erectile dysfunction.  The first aid was a pump.  Twice a day I greased the edge of the pump, like putting oil on an oil filter gasket to make a seal, and then put the long pump cylinder over my penis and flat against the surrounding tissue.  It is critical to leave one's testicles outside the cylinder!  Slowly pressing down on a lever creates a vacuum.  Slow is also critical.  The vacuum brings blood into the penis.  My new early morning routine consisted of push-ups, crunches, jogging, and penis pumping.

The second P was a pill.  These pills had become infamous on television commercials for their warning of a four-hour erection.  I was hoping for a few minutes.  Depending on the brand, erections could begin anywhere from one half-hour after taking the pill and be effective up to twenty-four hours later.  The pill, plus fondling, equaled erection.  Each person reacts to the drug in a different way.  I developed most of the side effects listed:  face flushing, flu-like symptoms, and headaches.  Creating a headache in order to make love became a deterrent, but was well worth the effort!  Planning replaced spontaneity, but it too was well worth the effort!

The third P was prick.  I was trained to give myself an injection in my penis that resulted in an erection within ten minutes.  The procedure involved cleansing the injection site with alcohol, twisting the penis so the needle would not puncture the nerves running along the top of it, and selecting a spot that did not have many veins.

Perhaps if I had drunk the alcohol, my courage would have overcome my fears.  I passed the first test of injecting myself in front of the therapist, though I did drop the needle and had to start over.  I successfully accomplished about six shots on my own.  There are reasons I did not become a doctor, and administering shots is one of them.

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