Changes after Prostate Surgery: Tina Tessina

Many of you have been reading and asking about prostate cancer, how it affects sexuality, how spouses/lovers can communicate and keep their love strong while living with it. Some of the most widely read posts on this blog have been those dealing with prostate cancer, such as “A man asks about sex after prostate cancer” and “Grace Period: a novel about living with prostate cancer.”

In response to your interest, I’ve asked Tina Tessina, Ph.D. to comment on this subject. Besides being a psychotherapist and author, Tina writes from experience: her husband is living with prostate cancer. Here are her comments:

The changes that come after prostate surgery are, like all changes, not easy. We don’t like to have to deal with changes, especially those that confront us with our mortality. But, I can happily report, with some encouragement and enthusiasm from me, my wonderful husband is quite functional sexually. His surgery was in 2002, he just got another ‘undetectable’ PSA test, so we are blessed.

For us, the blessing is in how heightened our love and appreciation (which was pretty good before) has been by the threat of terminal illness. Richard is lucky — they got it early, it has not spread, the surgery went well. His second surgery to have an artificial sphincter put on his urethra, also went well.

Others, I know, have a more difficult time. But, as Gerald Haslam wrote in Grace Period, “Live for the moment, since that may be all you have.” Richard and I decided to do that in 2002, and we’ve been making the most of our moments ever since. Every day is a gift, another cup of sweetness, and we drain it to the last drop. One of our joke lines is “I’d like another one of them there drinks,” from Scrooge, referring to the Cup of Human Kindness given to him by the Ghost of Christmas Present.

For some couples, the tension of serious illness creates crabbiness and bickering. Richard and I have never wanted to waste time arguing, and we haven’t for a long time. I don’t believe it helps anything that’s going on. In my newest book, Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Squabbling About the Three Things That Can Destroy Your Marriage out from Adams Media spring 2007, I help couples who are fighting learn new methods of getting along so they can enjoy their time together.

For more, see Tina Tessina’s Dr. Romance Blog. Dr. Tessina is a psychotherapist, author of several books including It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction, How To Be a Couple and Still Be Free, and The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again. She writes the “Dating Dr.” column on www.CouplesCompany.com and “Dr. Romance” on Yahoo! Personals.