Prostate cancer treatments often lead to ED. When this occurs a number of patients become severely depressed and refuse to remain physically and emotionally intimate with their partners. I invite our viewers to respond to such a dilemma posed by one patient’s wife in her recent letter to me.
When prostate cancer treatment has wreaked havoc in a couple's lives, what would you say to both the patient and his spouse either separately or together?
Please offer your solution now in the comment section below the questioner's letter. I suggest you write your response in the form of a note to this wife and husband to help them reconnect. This interactive approach will give you a chance to weigh in on these serious concerns, based on your own experiences and readings.
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Dear Rabbi Ed,
After his prostate cancer diagnosis my husband had extensive radiotherapy treatment. He had 73 radioactive seeds implanted in the first month and 35 subsequent external beam treatments. The radiation center advertises that they spare the sex nerves because they don’t use surgery; they don’t bother to advertise that the nerves are probably destroyed anyway with radiation.
I fear, too, that eventually he’ll change his mind about refusing a VED, but then it might be too late. I mention this since the side effects of radiation are permanent and irreversible if you wait too long to do something about them.
-- D.H.
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