I went back to my consultant and then they try you on Viagra, Cialis, injections, there’s a whole host of things that you can try to get your erection back, because the reason you don’t have an erection, because there’s nerve damage when they remove your prostate that can’t be avoided, they just try and minimise the nerve damage, but there will be nerve damage, and you will lose the function for a period of time but the nerves apparently, they heal very, very slowly, nerves heal very slowly, and he, sort of tried to reassure me that you know, I’d probably get the erection back after maybe four years, you know, I was thinking, four years, I mean, that’s like a lifetime, so in the meantime you can try different things, and yeah, that was very difficult, and very difficult for my wife, yeah, but because she’s so supportive and so caring it was less difficult than it might be.

So you’ve no side effects now?

Not now, no, no, no. Two years after the operation was the first time I actually got an erection without any medication or injections or anything like that and it’s been fine since, but I think I’m one of the, a very small minority who have got you know, any function, much less full function back, but you don’t realise that, because when they say, oh yeah it should be back in four years, when you research it you realise that the majority of guys haven’t got it back at all, and some might have you know, maybe forty per cent back, if that, so I don’t think they tell you much about that in the beginning which I think is wrong.

So it is very unusual then for, to be in the position that you’re in?

Very unusual, yeah, very unusual.

And do you tell men that, when you’re speaking to other men?

Yeah definitely I do, yeah I do tell them about it, yeah, yeah because they’re not even aware of that side effect, and when they are told you can see their faces drop, but yeah it’s, yeah I’m just one of the fortunate ones I think.

You got your diagnosis, and you were looking on the internet, what sources of information on the internet did you, get?

Mainly I was looking at the recovery from prostate cancer, especially when you’ve had your prostate removed, because I know there are side effects, but obviously for everybody the recovery’s totally different, you know, some guys you know, never recover, they don’t recover from erectile dysfunction, some get it back, some get it back, you know, just a proportion of it back, some never ever get it back, also I went on websites where you’ve got chat lines with guys who have had prostate cancer, and it was quite interesting to you know, to read those, some of the comments and be involved in some of the comments, and people gave me suggestions back and forth, what you could try, and yeah it’s quite sad, you know, some of the guys, you know, married, and it’s been like ten years and they haven’t been able to have you know, have sex with their partners because of the erectile dysfunction, so they were quite open on this chat line and I found that quite moving really, but very helpful.

Are you still involved in those chat lines?

Not in the chat line no, I’m not now, no.

So when did you stop being involved, in that?

I think once my erectile dysfunction disappeared, which was like two years after the operation, I think I stopped going on the chat line after that, but still you know, involved with talking to people about it, you know, but yeah, I didn’t go on the chat line anymore.

And have you been involved in any other support groups?

No, just the Prostate Cancer Charity, that’s the only one.

And I have to say that they were, the surgeon who did my operation must be a very, very, very skilled person because I have had no real side effects at all, apart from the gentleman’s department shall we say, about the impotence factor. I found that my libido did not really change, and I found that the physical side, well, yeah, well I have to say yes, that did change, because I think psychologically you’re in a very difficult fragile condition, a lot of men won’t admit that because it’s a macho thing, you know. The possibility is still there. Now I have Cialis from my own doctor, which I very rarely take, but I can, I still achieve erection, I wouldn’t say as often as I used to, and that’s understandable because I’m not in the first flush of youth, you’re still, you’re still a man and that’s an important factor to you, and the, one of the biggest problems, is, (laughs) this sort of dimension, the sort of size, now most men are, most men like to think the size is everything, but you’ll find that, in the type of operation I had, it tells you in the literature, that, the penis will shorten, and I have to say, I you do shorten slightly, but it’s of no significance really, you know, I’m now sixty, I’m now sixty-eight.

Do you suffer from impotence at the moment?

No, no.

So you haven’t had to deal with that?

I can rise to the occasion shall we say, but no I don’t suffer from impotence, at the moment, at sixty-eight, you’re not as sexually active as you were a few years back, you know, but in my case, I, again, I don’t want to give too much of my own personal life away here, but I’m happy if it helps somebody, don’t think it’s the be all and end all, it’s not, there’s the emotions there, emotions and I think it’s just as important to have affection, to your partner.

Well there, there are problems, the nerve sparing, the nerve sparing worked, but quite obviously, I have to be, I have to be fairly open about this, you no longer ejaculate, which may or may not be an issue of itself, but I do not, while I can get an erection, I, it is non-orgasmic, that has bothered me, it has bothered me, mainly because, for about, well once I was able, for a short period after I was able, post-op, it was orgasmic, but only for a short period. Now they don’t talk to you too much about that, even when you ask in the hospital, so, my interpretation, and it’s my interpretation, it’s not a medical interpretation, is that something survived the operation, which died shortly afterwards, and I’ve only recently, I’ve only recently discovered, talking to one of the, not the doctor, but one of the support nurses, I couldn’t tell you her title, who gave me a bit of a surprise whenever she said that the nerves which control orgasm and the nerves which control erection, are a different set of nerves, now, I have not gone into that, because all of a sudden it says, well, are they separate, were they treated separately, I didn’t want to go there, because at the end of the day, there’s nothing going to be able to be done about it, the doctor did his best in the operation, and if a set of nerves died as a consequence, that was a risk you were running, that was the risk, and you knew that risk, it wasn’t as if you weren’t told, you knew and that was part of your decision.

The main side-effects after the operation to me were the incontinence and I can say I was impotent as well; I didn’t get any erections, which I think people should know. But again it was a big operation and there are things that they can do for you, weve tried a couple of things. I hasten to add Viagra didn’t help. What works to a certain extent is theres a thing on the market called Muse and that’s an injection that you put into the penis. It can be very successful for some people, I would say for me it’s 75% successful, so it hasn’t ended altogether.

And do you mind me asking were there any, was there any effect of sexual functions after the operation?

Yes initially we, and I say we because my wife and I felt it was very good there was a sexual experience after the operation, whether that was pure excitement or what I don’t know, but the it became very limited, and from that point of view it’s become almost impossible to either have an erection or maintain an erection. That isn’t a huge problem to me and my wife, weve learnt to come to terms with it, it was something we didn’t want and we would’ve preferred not to have had but I think the bonus with that has been in the fact of it’s secondary to everything else. We are here, both of us are here, me perhaps mainly and we get on with our life.

Do you mind me asking do the hormones affect sort of sex drive at all?

Well I don’t have any [laughs].

Was it the same before and after or different?

After the operation of course, no you don’t lose your sexual instincts then, but since I’ve been taking, having this implant he did say to me ‘You’ll become impotent, impotent I should say,’ and low and behold I have. But at 70 I’m not that worried, it hasn’t altered any relationship between myself and my wife. I mean by the time we were reaching 70 it wasn’t exactly the end of the world and it’s just something, it just doesn’t happen any more that’s all. I mean you don’t think about it, I mean I’m, I think our relationship is fine, we’re just as affectionate as we always were but no there isn’t any sexual activity.

How did that make you feel as a man having female hormones?

Terrible, that’s when your masculinity really goes. Forget about the sex drive when you get them implanted in you, you just get a crazy mixed up kid for want of a better word because you’re doing these terrible things, you know it’s not you, you know it’s not part and parcel of your upbringing because as I said you’ll snap, you’ll rant and rave, you just, your total outlook on life is different. It changes your attitude and your attitude to the ones that you’re living with, your attitude to your family, you just don’t want to know them. And I suppose it’s the fact that you’re having foreign bodies implanted into your body because all your male hormones just disappear and because they say that the prostate cancer feeds on the male hormones so they replace it with the female hormones so as that’s the initial start of the treatment that you’re starving the cancer and then you go on to the, in my case onto the radiotherapy.

And how do you think it makes men feel these side effects of hormonal treatment?

Well in a younger man I think the impotence would worry them because it might affect their married life, it depends how the relationship between the husband and the wife is. In my case as I say weve got 3 grown up daughters now and the wife isn’t bothered in any way so it doesn’t interest her any more so we get along quite well together you know. She says, actually the hormone, she thinks the hormone therapy has done me good because I’m more even tempered [laughs].

Oh does she.

She says I’m more relaxed now than ever I’ve been in all the years shes known me.