Review: Sex After Cancer talk

This is a week late, and worse, it's not going to make any sense. I've been rushing to finish my PhD, and the only reason this is getting done now is because A) I need a 5 minute break and B) the notes about this are in the way of my notes about my statistics.

There were 2 sessions: lunch and evening. The talks were mostly the same. Here are the not-so-coherent highlights

Bettina Arndt:

• started writing a book about how couples negotiate sex in their relationships
• in many couples she interviewed, the man had prostate cancer
• she found that it was important to counsel couples together, because sexual needs/wants may have been disparaging between partners even before prostate cancer, and after treatment things get compounded and worse
• talking together can be an opportunity to create a better sex life, especially from a woman's point of view if they haven't always been keen on "boinking" (seriously--Bettina used the word boinking in her talk)
• communication between the partners is the key to continue or renew a sex life
• she found many men lose interest in sex due to erectile dysfunction, and the women feel undesired
• likewise many women lose interest in sex as they get older, and this hinders sexual rehab for the men. For example: trying to plan when to take a dose of viagra or cialis to coincide with intercourse, but then the woman isn't interested once it starts working

One thing I noticed, and I guess would criticize, is that while she did mention single men, there was an overemphasis on couples.

Jo Milios:

•  provided an overview and update on prostate cancer statistics and treatments
• in Oz, there are over 22 thousand new cases of prostate cancer every year
• compare that to breast cancer, which has 12.3 thousand new cases a year
• despite having 10,000 more cases, for every $1 spent on prostate cancer research and support, $200 gets spent on breast cancer. This is because women have been better advocates of their health rights for the last 50 years
• interesting fact: there is a world map of penis sizes out there. It looked like it might have been published by the World Health Organization. It stated that the largest penises are found in the Sudan, at an average of 10.3" when erect, and the smallest are amongst Asian, at 5.3" on average when erect

Walter:

  I've actually talked about this guy before. He's a 37 year old who has had prostate cancer. He's also a complete monster in the gym--an absolutely amazing guy, both physically and personality. He and I get along well. He talked about how he was frustrated with the lack of support and knowledge for young men who get diagnosed with prostate cancer, as the disease is typically considered an old man's disease. He talked about the financial stress it put on him, as well as the stress of how he's going to have a family. Coincidentally, he just found out his wife is pregnant. Lastly, he talked about how if you send claims to an insurance company's complaints department, and continually harass them, you can eventually get them to pay for a penis pump as part of your medical costs. On a similar note, a Dr. Miller, who was at the lunch only, said that all insurance companies in WA except HBF will pay for at least the one kind of penis pump that he recommends to his patients.

David Sando:

 David is the president of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. He gave a brief talk about his own experience after prostate cancer trying to recover his sexual function. Easily the best talk of the evening, because it was personal experience and candid and short. He described how he tried every form of sexual rehab in turn, moving on to the next one as the prior one stopped being effective (pumps, injections, pills, and finally a prosthetic penis). His talk really inspired hope, confidence, and a sense of normality about using all these tools, and how you really can have a normal sex life again.

Ok, that's all I can remember. Sorry this has been so useless. I'm getting back to work on my statistics now. Don't expect anything brilliant from me for the next several weeks. I will leave you with this one funny quote from Bettina that I wrote down.

I guess I should provide some context: this is an excerpt from a letter that a woman wrote to Bettina about her husband, after he had erectile dysfunction. She described her husband's erection as "a magnificent pinnacle of manhood that's now shriveled up like a weed that's been sprayed with round up"