Low Testosterone Confessions from a Desperate Wife
Our story began 24 years ago. I was 27, he was 37. Funny thing is we both thought the other one was within 5 years of our own age until our 3rd date. We had been set up on a blind date by mutual friends.
I knew within a week of meeting him that I would eventually marry him. We became instant best friends and still are. First and only marriage for both of us. Everything over the last 24 years has been amazing. He treats me like gold. We occasionally will respectfully argue about something but we rarely ever fight. He gets me. I thought I always got him. We never imagined low testosterone would affect our marriage.
Sexual Performance Issues
A few years ago, that all changed. We had spent the majority of our marriage being intimate 2-3 times per month. It was far less than I would have ever liked but, I figured it was normal and what it likely was for most couples. I look back now and realize he has probably had low testosterone for our entire relationship. The major turning point though was in early 2019. For the first time ever, he was unable to perform. He was devastated and embarrassed and shocked. He had no idea what was happening. I told him it’s perfectly normal (hoping I was right but didn’t really know) and that having coitus (as Sheldon Cooper would say) was only a small part of being intimate and certainly not the “be all, end all”. The next few times went perfectly fine and then it happened again.
The Diagnosis
I finally got him to agree to talk to his Dr. about it and he was prescribed 20mg of Sildenafil (aka Viagra) with instructions to figure out the dose that works best for him, up to a max of 100mg. That worked great but our romantic nights dwindled down to once a month, at best. Then in Nov 2019 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was scheduled to have 1/3 of his lung cut out on Jan 3, 2020. I remember sharing a moment on New Year’s Eve of 2019 and then crying myself to sleep afterward, hoping that it would not be our last time ever. My fear was he might not survive the surgery or recovery process.
Post Cancer Sexual Performance
Fast forward to early March 20’. The surgery went great and they got all of the tumor and had no reason to believe it had spread anywhere else at all. So, they gave him the option of doing adjunctive chemo for 4 months. He didn’t technically NEED it but, if he did it, it would increase his chances of it not returning again later. We agreed we’d rather have that extra insurance of helping reduce the possibility of a recurrence.
The chemo was rough but not nearly as much as what most people experience. He was tired ALL the time and had no energy at all when he was awake. What wasn’t normal was that he became mean. He was absolutely rude and hurtful and grumpy on almost a daily basis and he was NOT the guy I fell in love with and married. But, I just tried to stay patient and understand that this is an incredibly rough process he was going through. The chemo completely destroyed his immune system so his oncologist gave us both strict orders to NEVER go out or let anyone into our home until he was done with chemo and back to a safe level of immunity. So depression then set in and he was put on 150mg/day of Wellbutrin. That seemed to help a little bit.
Reintroducing Sex into Marriage After Cancer
By August he was ready to engage in any intimacy again but, this time, he had a total “equipment failure.” I told him this was perfectly fine and it just takes time to get that back after cancer treatment. A couple weeks later, he initiated it again and this time took 100mg of Sildenafil. But, no luck. He was super humiliated and said he would have never gone through chemo if he knew it would have taken away his “Man Card.” By this time, he was also becoming very emotional and would even get very choked up at sappy commercials or hearing certain songs and he was starting to get a little “fluffier” and less muscular. In a nutshell, he just feels like crap!
Support Group
I turned to a support group of wives who have husbands going through cancer that I had joined several months prior. I found a couple of posts from others who had very similar stories. There were dozens of comments trying to console the poster and re-assure her it wasn’t her……chemo just kills their libido and causes ED and you just get used to it over time. There’s nothing you can do about it. Some were saying it bothered them the first few years but it’s been 15 years now and they have learned to be happy with being celibate. I was devastated and cried for a couple of days. But, I refused to just believe that there is NOTHING that can be done or that I would just have to get used to it. I mean, if that was true, I would…..I would never leave him, ever.
Bad Advice from a Friend
Then I started to talk to a close friend (online only) of mine. This seemed like a safe person to discuss this with and her husband had also been through cancer and chemo. She got back to me later and said she had some bad news. She had spoken to her husband about our situation and he told her, “There’s only 1 of 3 things. Either he’s gay, or he’s cheating on her, or she just doesn’t do it for him anymore but doesn’t want to leave her because of that”. She said she wished she could disagree but was sure he was right. I knew he is not gay. I knew he was not cheating on me. So, I came to the conclusion that it HAD to be me. I sunk into a deep level of depression and just wanted to die.
It took me a few weeks but, I knew I had to find out for sure. I was going to just have to ask him point blank if it is me. If that was the case, I did not want him to spend the rest of his life feeling stuck with someone he no longer loves or finds attractive in any way. I’d rather let him go to try to find his happiness again than make him stay and be miserable….which, in turn, makes me miserable, too.
We ended up talking for about 4 hours. It was the hardest, most difficult conversation I’ve ever had in my life. I think it probably was for him, too. He was profusely apologetic that he ever left me to even think that was a possibility and reassured me that he is completely attracted to me still and loves me more than anything else in the world. He said, “I don’t just love you more than anything in the world….you ARE my world!”. He finally admitted that it was him and that he just has no interest in sex at all. He even tried taking Sildenafil a couple of times to see if he could just get it to work on his own and he said, “It’s just dead. Chemo killed the little bastard!” I explained to him that Sildenafil only helps with functionality and blood flow….it won’t work if there’s no drive. Of course, that brought him little comfort.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Now it’s early February 21’. I refused to accept that this is just how it is and, “nothing can be done about it”. So I began researching and was blown away to discover that he has every single symptom of low T. I looked into it further and chemo usually does destroy testosterone. Looking back throughout our marriage, I also realize now that he probably already had Low T and now the chemo just knocked it down completely. I knew he’d never talk to our family doctor about this. His pride is bigger than ANYTHING, including his love for me. So, I asked if he’d let me talk to his Dr. about it and he agreed.
I finally got his Dr. to agree to test his Total T AND his Free T (he initially ordered JUST a Total T). His total is at 302 (awesome for an 80 yr old!) and his Free T is 5.9. We got the results through our med portal and it showed that even though it was on the very low end of the range of 300-1100, 302 is still technically normal so “nothing needs to be done”. I was so, so disappointed. Here I thought I had figured it out and TRT would certainly help him a lot. Because it’s in my nature to find solutions to problems, I kept digging and it was then that I found out all of the REAL information about low T and realized he actually DOES need help! I contacted his Dr. again and he just chuckled and said, “No, Dear. He doesn’t need any. That only works if it’s not from normal aging. I’ll call in a script for him for 20mg of Prozac”. This is when I flipped my shit and completely went off on him and told him to take his impotency causing & libido destroying drugs and shove them up his own ass. Ok, I might have not actually said it quite like that but….I WANTED TO! Haha I explained to him that Prozac would be the worst possible thing to put him on at this point and sent him multiple links to medical articles about treating low T and he agreed to let him try 2mg a day via an Adroderm patch. Without insurance, the CASH price on that WITH Good RX is $693! Yes, that’s $8,316 PER YEAR for something that has horrible reviews about positive results and many complaints about patches not staying on and usually causing very bad skin rashes. Umm, no thanks! I then asked if he could prescribe IM injections and he then replied that he really doesn’t know much about treating this condition as he never has before! He said he’d refer him to a urologist instead.
The Solution
We have decided to skip the next 2 years of poorly educated doctors on this subject, experimenting to see if they can figure out what might work. We are now moving forward with Matrix Hormones for assistance with getting him on a treatment course and are very hopeful and optimistic!
