To echo a previous post, I write this with
my wife’s consent and endorsement.
Apart from shit, another thing you’re not
warned about in chemotherapy – I guess, chronic illness in general – is what
will happen to your sex life.
Oh, yes. Before anyone gives me the smug
and obvious: don’t bother. I’m not talking about what’s obvious, I’m talking
about what’s acceptable to talk about. If you need to know the difference,
you’re too jejune to understand why publishing a problem is important.
OK. The kids have left, the adults can
talk.
It’s bad enough that nobody warns you that chemotherapy can lead to an
utterly catastrophic and unpredictable case of the shits. It is, perhaps, worse
that doctors don’t say “we will save your life, but only if you’re ready to be
celibate”.
Let me recap for people who haven’t read my
previous posts on my wife’s health – Ms T to those who don’t know her, and
those that know her don’t need her name.
She suffers from an extremely nasty and uncommon immune
disorder. Since her T-cells have decided that blood vessels are The Enemy to Be
Destroyed, the T-cells have to be suppressed. Otherwise, her arteries die.
Major arteries that became useless prior to treatment included the celiac, one
carotid, and one renal artery.
Unlike a cancer patient, for Ms T, chemo
will be forever. If it ceases, she will die.
Now, let me present a timeline of 2012.
January: liver infection
February: replacement of celiac artery,
involving a 14-inch belly incision, like a failed seppuku, matched on her left
inside thigh (where the replacement blood vessel came from).
March: bone marrow failure with blood
transplants in ICU
April: further surgery because the major
scar wasn’t healing right (immune-suppressed, surprise me!)
May: What we thought was an infection emerged
in an intimate spot. Later, this would be diagnosed as a tumour. Tumours are a
risk of immune-suppression, because (obviously) there’s no response to abnormal
cells. This month also involved the removal of a fast-growing facial skin
cancer of the same origin.
Forget June to August: the intimate tumour
was being treated as an infection, and sex was out of the question. A
gynecologist finally diagnosed the growth, and surgery was scheduled for
September.
September: removal of a vulval tumour.
Write off this month and October for healing.
October: Post-op infection that gave us a
second tumour scare.
November: All clear from everyone.
In other words: with very rare and sporadic
– and occasionally drunken “fuck it, let’s try anyway” exceptions – the year
2012 from January to November offered almost no opportunities for intimacy.
It’s probably worth saying, at this point,
that Ms T and I have, in our relationship, been lucky beyond any possible
expectation. We met in 1987, and moved in together in the same year. We have
argued, mortgaged, parented, starved, prospered, cared for my
mother, raised our sons, and never lost the delicious tingle of touching each
other, holding each other, the joy of a kiss or the electricity of a hand
on a cheek, fingers on the arm, words we whisper when nobody else can hear. She
can catch my breath in my throat, and our sons are a wonder and a joy (and, to
be truthful, too damn loud and boisterous to tolerate!).
And for nearly a year, we were, perforce,
celibate.
Since circumlocution is not my style, and
since Ms T has okayed this: the bio-availability of a cyclophosphamide infusion
is not 100 percent. Some of it is excreted: via the kidneys, sweat, tear ducts,
and other fluids.
Which means that even some aspects of sex
that we might both enjoy are denied us. As she said when we were discussing
this post: “Oral sex is out. I don’t want to kill you.”
Is the picture forming? Good. There’s more.
In all of this a couple of other aspects
arise.
The first is that a secondary treatment
that Ms T suffers is high-dose steroids. These have a side-effect that skin and
membranes are paper-thin.
Go on, fellas: any careless move
during sex will bleed. Now, if you love your wife: try maintaining an erection
after hearing the word “ouch”.
Really, it doesn’t work.
And the other problem is me. I’m an erotic
wreck, brought down by worry and stress, business and mortgage, the fear of
losing my wife and the fear of losing our life. I have nothing of a stiff
teenager left to offer.
