4 August 2011 by kathleen.

I was walking at the mall this week with a woman I hadn’t spoken to before.  In response to her question about my husband, I replied that my partner was a woman, and that we’d been together 36 years.  She was OK with that, so I thought we’d made a good start.

We walked some more, and chatted about other things, one of which was her husband and his recently-diagnosed prostate cancer.   Well, I am outspoken about prostate cancer, and its relation to SRS.  This was not a topic on which I wished to remain silent, especially when she said something about a New Treatment (there’s always a new treatment!) that I was pretty sure was not physically possible.

Now what?  Since I’d already explained that I didn’t have a husband, the cleanest way to share knowledge with her was to out myself.  I did, a short while later, explaining that I needed to share information with her.  Looking back on it now, I suppose I could have made up a story about my “brother” or something, but that could have gotten complicated.

The information I wanted to share was the value of an real, live support group — not a computer forum or chat room.  When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 2001, I attended some meetings at a local hospital: a group of men with prostate cancer.  I didn’t just get the stories the doctors wanted us to hear; I also learned how real people dealt with it, what treatments they had, or planned to have, what worked, what didn’t, etc.  One of those support organizations is US Too; another is Man to Man, but I couldn’t find a single, central website for them.

What I urged her to do for her husband was to encourage him to go to one of the support groups.  I give the same advice to you in case you know someone with prostate cancer, or should you be diagnosed with it yourself.

Posted in AutoBiog, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

16 January 2011 by kathleen.

Because of the prostate cancer I had, I have an unusably short vagina.  Up until the urethral sling surgery this spring, I had significant continence issues.  If this sounds embarrassingly intimate, it is because I want to share the complexities inherent in having both transgender and prostate cancer.

I have not dilated for 6-7 weeks, because when I dilate I have difficulty urinating for hours afterward. Right now I am at a decision point: if I don’t resume dilating soon, the very short vagina I have will close up. If I do resume dilating, I risk even more urinary tract infections (I’ve had three since the surgery mentioned above), or damage to the urethra.

It’s not like this is anyone’s fault, actually, except maybe mine if you are of the belief that we are each responsible for our own health and our own disease. When the urologist told me in the spring of 2001 that the biopsy was positive for prostate cancer, I was not surprised. There may be men who have hated their maleness more than I — but not many. Living with intense negative feelings often has distinct if untraceable effects on the body.

I suppose I should just let the vagina go; it’s too short for intercourse anyway. I want to keep it for emotional reasons, and because I spent so many hours trying to keep what depth I had,  Then at my gynecologist’s suggestion, I pressed harder and sought to deepen with dilation what the surgeon was unable to create with the scalpel. It was the deepening that began to interfere with the urethral sling with which I was fitted last April.

Writing this out helped me to clarify the issues in my mind. (Thank you for listening!)  Being able to pee is awfully important. I think I’ll go for preserving that function first. I’m going to follow up again with my urologist, but I think the answer is pretty clear.

The situation prompts me to urge once more that if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, and you are transgendered — even if you are absolutely, positively, 100% sure you would never in a thousand lifetimes want SRS — you must discuss transgender with your urologist or oncologist. Chemical or surgical castration may cure both problems at once: stop the cancer’s growth and ease your transgender issues. Than can only happen if you talk frankly with your doctor.

Posted in AutoBiog, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

21 November 2010 by kathleen.

There used to be a little quiz circulating among crossdressers and the transgender community: If there were a pill that would make your need to crossdress go away, would you take it?  Would you take a pill if if could make you “normal”?

In the early 1980’s I began attending group therapy sessions with a non-traditional therapist and hypnotist.  He did a lot of marriage counseling and smoking cessation, but he also had a general-purpose therapy group, too.  After a few months, he revealed that he didn’t think there was any such thing as “transgender” and, he said, the established experts asserted it was incurable.  He implied very clearly that he didn’t agree with that position.  I gathered he intended to demonstrate that the experts were full of s–t.

Over the next 7-8 years I gradually absorbed “the pill” rather than swallowing it whole and all at once.   The therapist had been very effective at teaching control of thoughts and emotions, so effective that by the time I stopped attending the group in the early 1990’s, I was adept at anesthetizing myself.  I did it so well that I didn’t realize how depressed I was.  I had also absorbed some mental, non-theistic-prayer techniques and began to apply them to hastening my death.

By the late ’90’s, I was convinced that

• Transsexualism was a hoax
• Doctors and therapists were selfishly bilking desperate people of their money
• No man could become a woman — and no woman, a man — because of all the socialization in early life could not be replicated later
• Gender was more than primary sex organs — there are skeletal and metabolic differences that cannot be corrected surgically
• I could never, ever live my life as a woman

In the 10 years I struggled to die, I succeeded in acquiring prostate cancer — at age 53, unusually young.  I chose surgical removal of the prostate. My depression at the time was so deep that as they wheeled me into the operating room, I continued to pray that I would not wake up after the prostatectomy.

I write this now to illustrate the range of opinions with which I have experienced my transgender. I have not always accepted transgender at face value. I lived in an emotional straitjacket for over 20 years as I struggled to deny the validity of my feelings and the truth of my essence.

Actually, it was acupuncture that broke my depression. In 2002 I sought treatment for persistent back pain. After 8-10 sessions I realized that my back still hurt, but I now felt so good that I no longer cared about the pain. That awareness led me to realize the depth of the depression in which I had been living, and was the beginning of climbing out of those depths. Several years later I made the breakthrough to Jesus Christ that I mentioned in this post.

I write this today so you will know that my transgender is not unexamined, that I came to accept my own nature only after protracted denial.

Posted in AutoBiog, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

31 July 2010 by kathleen.

Several people have asked me at one time or another, What’s it like taking estrogen?  Once I started writing, the story grew a little larger than I prefer for a blog post.  In a nutshell, here’s what happened

1. My nipples “popped”
2. My nipples became prominent
3. My nipples became very sensitive
4. I experienced what I can only describe as “hug hunger”
5. I began to feel a mellower male response
6. My facial features softened
7. I became calmer and more patient

For more detail on these experiences, please see the GenderSong reference page My Experience with Hormones.

Posted in General MtF topics, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

5 July 2010 by kathleen.

I was interested in a blog post about transsexuals and marriage at enGender, Helen Boyd’s web site: what is it like for a couple going through transition?

If I were still the man my wife married, this would be much easier to explain. I did my best to be a sensitive and supportive husband before my transition, but I know there were many, many times when “we” did what “I”, The Husband, wanted.

Our relationship isn’t quite like that any more; I am not empowered to speak for my spouse/partner/friend the way I was empowered to speak for her (or thought I was, anyway when I was The Husband. It is very hard to write this without putting words in her mouth — which is what I try not to do… especially not any longer.

The story of our relationship through transition and SRS is influenced by the prostate cancer I had.My prostate was surgically removed just a few weeks after our 25th wedding anniversary. I was 53 years old at the time, which is somewhat young to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Usual or not, it left me with erectile dysfunction.

The silver lining in that otherwise dark cloud was that both of us were challenged to explore non-genital affection. By the time I started estrogen, I was accustomed to giving and receiving pleasure with parts of my body other than my male organ. Consequently, less changed for us on the physical side when I began taking estrogen; or rather, a change in style of affection occurred long before my transition.

In my opinion, one purpose of love-making between married persons is to affirm that each loves the other. If I don’t want to have sex with you, or you with me, I begin to doubt that you love me, or even like me. Without that confidence in a spouse’s affection, sexual tensions mount and trivial events become monumental emotional storms. Just touching you affirms that I love (or at least like) you.

The other side of heterosexual relations is that, at least in some jurisdictions, the husband has the right to demand that his wife submit to his sexual desires. That right — whether or not it is ever exercised — establishes a barrier between husband and wife, just as there is always a barrier between master and slave, no matter how much affection the master has for the slave. From one couple to the next, the barrier may be higher or lower, but legally it always exists in a man-woman marriage.

The mutual invitation to pleasure between persons in a same-sex couple is conducive to eliminating the barrier that arises from legal possession of the wife by the husband. That is not to say that all same sex couples have healthy, equality-based relationships; that is patently not the case. The legal and cultural basis for inequality, however, is not present.

I believe it was the tipping of that balance, the change from less equality to more equality, that gave me some uncertainty during my year of RLE. No, I was not the sort of husband who regularly said, “Woman, get on your back!” Nonetheless, I am aware that I, the former Husband, for the most part assumed I would have my way; male privilege was assumed. I knew I had to relinquish that privilege, and two and a half years later, I’ve almost let it go. More about male privilege in another post.

To answer the original question, I can say that for me there was some anxiety that the stresses of the transition could drive us apart. I strove — and still strive today — to prevent that from happening by being patient and affectionate. Keeping the marriage together, keeping it vibrant and satisfying: that is not business-as-usual. It requires attention, love, and care.

Posted in Being/staying married, AutoBiog, General MtF topics, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

17 April 2010 by kathleen.

It’s been thirteen months since my surgery; I’m still dilating daily, for 30 minutes or more, and twice daily on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.  Because of the prostate surgery, I still have an unusably small vagina — can’t use it, but I’ve at least got one!  I’m taking advice from my gynecologist and doing my best to deepen what I have.

Dilating is still painful, too, during the dilation and for a few hours after.  Owing to some complications from the cancer surgery, my clit frequently itches and frequently hurts; it rarely feels good at all.  It’s a good thing I didn’t have surgery for the sex!  Since I have no prostate, there’s nothing but the clit to stimulate.

Because I didn’t have surgery for the sex, I feel wonderful!  No kidding: I’m happy to be alive.  It is a joy just to be able to walk  down the street.  I can think of several things I would have done differently about the SRS had I known — but now I just enjoy what I’ve got.

Seriously, though, if you know someone who has had a prostatectomy and is now considering vaginoplasty, there are some things they could know that might make the journey a bit more pleasant.

Posted in M-to-F surgery, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

8 March 2010 by kathleen.

The surgery scheduled for today has been postponed.  When I spoke to the surgeon before they were supposed to put me under, we discussed my cough. When I told him how much I was coughing, and how hard, he agreed that I stood a significant risk of tearing the tissues around the sling.  He said he was willing to go ahead; I suppose that means I am financially responsible.  When he described the risks, though, it seemed clear to me that to proceed today would have been unwise.

It’s a let-down, but I’m choosing to believe it is God’s will that this surgery take place at a different time.

Posted in AutoBiog, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

7 March 2010 by kathleen.

There is life outside of gender!  Tomorrow, March 8, 2010, I will have an Advance® sling to correct a bladder problem that the urologist assures me arose from the prostate surgery I had in May, 2001.  Actually, I don’t know if I will get the male version referenced above, or its female equivalent.

The problem began nearly two years before my SRS, and has nothing to do with it; it just happens to be in the same area.  My surgeon tried hard but was unable to coordinate with a urologist to have the sling installed at the time of my vaginoplasty, and so I’m having it now.

I am really excited — and more than a little worried.  The device insertion itself is a short operation (only about an hour).  If it works, I will be able to live without a bladder protection pad between my legs.  I might even begin to feel my labia without a wad of cotton surrounding them.  In short, I will have something like a normal life again.  I might even be able to think about having sex without peeing on my partner!

I don’t know if there is a Plan B if the sling doesn’t work.

I am anxious because I still have a cough from a cold that began before Christmas — almost three months ago.  Can I cough hard enough to tear out the sling after it’s been inserted?  I hope not, but when the mucous fills my bronchial tubes I can cough pretty forcefully so I can get air into my lungs.

I’ll post a followup to let my readers know how it turns out, though it may be six weeks or more before I’m sure.  Until then, I pray that God’s will may be done in my life.

Posted in AutoBiog, Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

26 November 2009 by admin.

I wrote up the first draft of an article on prostate cancer and SRS.  Please see GenderSong references pages. Most illustrations of the prostate are side view, because the relationship of the prostate to the bladder and urethra are clearest from that angle. The most relevant angle for discussion of SRS, however, is front quarter view. I’m looking for an image to which to link. Till then, the text alone will have to do (boring, I know:-( )

Posted in Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »

25 November 2009 by admin.

Surgical removal of a cancerous prostate leaves a gap between the end of the now-cut urethra and the bladder.  The surgeon could pull the urethra up to the bladder and stitch it there, but for many/most/all men this would make erection painful as the penile skin is stretched.

To remedy this, the surgeon pulls the bladder down toward the pubic bone, and then sutures the urethra to the bladder.

This is an elegant solution which neatly solves the problem for men who are not transgendered, and for transgendered men until they have vaginoplasty.  It becomes an issue then because the neo-vagina is normally created next to the prostate and below the bladder.  Whoops!  The bladder isn’t where it’s supposed to be — there’s no room for a normal-sized neo-vagina.

I’ve got to talk more about this soon.  I’ll put an article into the GenderSong Reference section.

Are you a transgendered male who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer? Send a note to prostate-cancer@gendersong.com.  We’re not selling anything, but we may have some information that may help.  Please let us know, too, if you have had radiation therapy (either pellets or external beam) instead of surgery.  I have no idea what happens to the bladder and the urethra with radiation.

Posted in Prostate cancer & SRS | 1 Comment »