Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
My husband's prostate problem means that our lovemaking is, unfortunately, all about me.
May 7, 2001 | The night is unseasonably warm. Outside our window, the lilac buds are getting ready to open. I strip to my salmon-colored T-shirt and get into bed beside Sam. Tentatively, I kiss his lips. Tentatively, he reaches for my breast. The sheets remain cool. We lie on our sides, breast to chest, pelvis to pelvis. He strokes my back with long caresses. I run my hand through his hair. We snake together our wet tongues. Still no heat. Several times my hand wanders down his neck, his firm chest, his tender stomach ... I am afraid to reach lower. Finally, Sam takes my hand in his. He guides it between his legs. And then I know, too.
"It hasn't been long," I say quietly. "The doctors said it might take months and months to get it back."
My husband's prostate surgery was in January. His recovery was long and slow. Now it is April, and we are just getting around to sex again.
"Want me to try?" I ask.
"Don't bother," he grunts. "It's useless."
Over the next several weeks, we reenact this scene again and again. We try bourbon, incense and slow massage. I use my hand and my mouth. But no matter our mood or our technique, nothing happens. "I feel like an amputee with a phantom limb," complains Sam. "I can still sense what it's supposed to do."
After these failed sessions, Sam falls immediately into a deep sleep, as if exhausted by his labors. But it is a troubled sleep, punctuated with turnings and rumblings. I lie awake and stare at the white ceiling. I, too, am troubled. I am in shock to lose the power I first discovered at age 13 when I slow-danced with Neal Yanofsky at his bar mitzvah party, surprised to find a stick pressing against my leg. Now that my husband can no longer get it up, I too have lost my prowess, at least around him -- the ability to dramatically alter male physics by my mere proximity.
We soon discover there is a whole industry devoted to penile hydraulics. First on our list, of course, is Viagra. Sam swallows the pill and we wait out the requisite 30 minutes for the medicine to take effect. Viagra works by relaxing the nerves, thereby indirectly increasing the arterial blood flow in the penis, a necessity for erections. Do our before-foreplay activities jinx things? I take a hot shower; he watches a shoot'em-up episode on TV. In any case, once we get in the sack and try to get things rolling, Sam suffers a massive sinus attack, which is related to one of Viagra's side effects. The medicine dilates the vessels in his nose, that secondary sexual organ, bringing up mucus, and making him sneeze a yellow, viscous fluid onto the sheets. It pools on the sheet like some cruel jokester's idea of fake come.
A call to a toll-free number and a prescription from Sam's HMO buy us a vacuum erection pump, called ErectAide. This arrives in its own green travel case, accompanied by an instructional video: "ErectAide allowed us to reclaim our sex lives," proclaims a trim, silver-templed gentleman. Beside him sits a smiling woman dressed in a sweater twin set.
Assembling the plastic cylinders and rubber suction rings intrigues Sam, an engineer by inclination if not by training. He fits one to the other and voilè! -- the cylindrical tube fits neatly around his genitalia. Standing with legs apart and knees slightly bent, he gingerly pumps the lever. I sit on the bed and scrutinize the procedure. After about 10 minutes, his penis stiffens and rises, an injured bird taking flight.
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