Ok so I am jumping a bit ahead today, well wayyyyyy ahead of where I was yesterday with my post, but it is a suggestion that I got on Facebook for my blog today and I think it is a brilliant idea. I don’t think it could come with better timing either!
Chemo And My Libido:
Lets start this off by saying…CHEMOTHERAPY IS A BITCH! Not just on the sexual level but on every level. It kills your energy, your hair growth, your white cells, and well the list could go on and on and on. I remember when I was getting ready to start chemo, I had a girlfriend at the time. She and I hadn’t been dating long really, and I mean we are in our 20′s so there was a partial sexual basis in our relationship. I know that in the beginning I had not problem keeping an erection, before chemo that is, but once the time got closer that was a definite mental effect on my body that made things well…hard… Really I guess that is not the word to use because the problem was… it wouldn’t stay hard haha. I have to say right now this is not something I ever saw myself talking about before! Anyways, I got these crazy thoughts in my head, which were things like:
What happens if I can’t keep it up anymore?
What happens if who ever I am with can’t deal with this?
WHAT THE HELL DO I DOOOOOOO?
Well all those answers would come in good time… but for the time being I was FREAKING out! I had said something to the girl that I was with at the time about it, and she simply said that we would “figure things out” and “it will be ok”.
I really got sick of hearing shit like that during my months of chemo, but right then I believed it. So I mean before I started chemo I had some issues because of the mental stuff that was going on in my head. I kept thinking to myself before I started chemo that no one would be interested in someone who looked like… well a chemo patient. I was counting on losing weight, color, and all my hair for that matter. I had so much I was worrying about, and so much that was on my mind that I couldn’t even really think about having sex. With that said it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to try to get the most of it while I could with the girl I was seeing.
The problem was though that I would try to do it, and in the middle of it just run out of gas… This of course is something that would frustrate me to no end… I know I use that word a lot… frustrate… it is the best way to describe my feelings for how I felt without using words like hate, despise, or whatever… After this experience I really got upset, I mean I even had trouble doing things myself. I even went to the Fertility Clinic, which let me tell you is one of the most awkward places to go in my opinion. I mean who the heck would be comfortable going into a little room with an over abundance of adult materials and a leather couch and doing your business into a cup anyway? It was hard enough that I had to think about the fact that I was doing what I was doing into a cup let alone in a little room…in a building… where everyone knows why you are there! Granted I was going there with the purpose to hopefully make sure that someday I may be able to have children of my own, which is a whole different topic that of course ties into this that I will touch on later, but come on!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I went to the fertility clinic and even there when I was trying to “handle things myself” I had an issue and I hadn’t even started chemo. So about a week later I started my treatments, and I wasn’t really expecting a huge effect on my libido and I didn’t really thing I would care about it anyway with all the stuff that I had going on. Turns out I worried about it much more than I ever thought I would! I went through my first week of chemo with no real bumps in the road and the girl that I was seeing would come in and see me, and it made me realize how much I really did miss being close to her… Now with that said I was by no means in love with her or anything like that, but we had a pretty intimate relationship though it didn’t mean much. She had a lot going on, I had a lot going on, and things just sucked.
Well after that first week of chemo I went home, and I was actually feeling semi-decent! So the first night I was home things got a little hot and heavy and we decided to try… why the hell not right? Well it would be this night where I would discover something that I coined the term for last night, which pardon my language here, I am going to call “ChemoDick”. For those of you that may be wondering what that is, I will explain it to you. Last night while having a conversation the term, “Whiskey Dick” came up. Well if you know what that it then you would know that when a man is that drunk most the time they have a really tough time keeping an erection.
I don’t know if anyone else has ever experienced that has been going through chemo or radiation for that matter, but it is something that is frustrating to no end. At least when you are drunk it may seem kind of funny, or seem kind of just ridiculous… but when you are going through chemo I know this. When you want to have fun and you feel up to having fun, if something else is going to stop you it better not be another effect of chemo because you will go absolutely ballistic. Once again this is going to go back to something that I brought up in my last post. I was embarrassed… actually I am not entirely sure that I brought that up last time, but if I can’t perform I will be extremely embarrassed…
This was one of my biggest problems in my mind at the time… who knew how long it would be before I had sex again, and for some people sex is an important thing. To not be able to do it though felt like anything fun that I could do would come to an end. Though the thing in my mind at the time wasn’t what else can I do with my partner that would be fun, it would eventually come to me when it was too late…
Once it was too late that was just it, but in the mean time I guess there were other intimate things that could be done to try to substitute for what I couldn’t do. I really think that it was my physical weakness and tiredness that was keeping me from being intimate. I mean I could get an erection but when I went to try to use it was the problem. I would get my body moving, and at that point immediately get tired, frustrated and lose my drive and want to do it. I mean if I had thought about different things to do at the time we could have tried other things like her on top, oral, just playing, and things like that. In my frustration and anger though I did not think of these things…
I am hoping that this blog can give some insight not only on the mental side of cancer and sex, but also the physical side of cancer and sex. I only really touched on chemo, and I really hope someone can touch on radiation therapy and sex for me and give me a guest blog, male or female, or as many as I get I will post on here!
Just remember, because there is a mental block doesn’t mean you cannot overcome it. It might just take time and working at it… There are a lot of messed up things in life that could make things difficult like cancer and the treatment that goes along with it. Don’t give up though, not on any part of it… not even your sex life… I am going to write more blogs about chemo and my libido, and this is just towards the beginning of chemo… Things got much more difficult later on, and it was quite upsetting… but that my friends is for another time!!
Until next time keep your head up and… Don’t Worry…There Is Sex After Cancer,
-Drew
