www.incontinentsupport.org

Here is my response to the question. I am incontinent because of prostate surgery. 12 Years. I knew I would be incontinent for at least 3 months...which became 6 months and then a year, and then 12 years and counting. If I had to do it over I would have chosen radiation...not because of the incontinence and diapers and all that goes with that but because of the impotence that also can be part of the "cure". I had the best surgeon in Boston, the cancer had not yet metastasized, but was close, 17 days after being told I had cancer I had a heart attack, (actually it had been going on for 2 months... I just got away with it for a while. The heart thing (2 stents) screwed up the cancer surgery for 3 months. I was not worried about either the heart or cancer...between Viet Nam and loosing my wife at 51 not much scared me...or I just didn't give a F... It is the impotence that, starting at 56, has me looking back at options and wishing I had chosen Radiation. Actually...with all of it together I may have made no choice and let nature take its' course. I know everyone fights all sorts of things to stay alive, live another year, month, day. Death is death, it will come and we can not stop it. So...your friend has to weigh more than being back in diapers...and again that is a small chance, lucky me. Sex is a big part/need/emotional thing that is not as easily "diapered" as incontinence. And BOTH may be his future. He has to weigh ALL that the future may hold and roll the dice. But he better think long and hard at where he will be if one or both "side effects"(cute little medical cliché for major oops), hit him. We can all say "Diapers are not all that bad..." but... yes they are. He needs to think long and hard and gather all the info he can. Even then he will not have any idea of how HE will do dealing with it all. We make choices and sometimes we are the bug...and sometimes we are the windshield. I wish him the best. He, and no one else, has to make the choices that have to be made. Papa

Passing up that 7% better outcome because of an associated 10% increased chance of becoming incontinent is just not worth it! Kind of like the others have said, you can live a full life with being incontinent, but you can't live at all with being dead. Tell your friend not to underestimate getting rid of that cancer. Any increased chance of getting rid of it is worth it if all you have to worry about is incontinence as a trade off.

Dang Papa. Tell us how you really feel!

We all have different opinions of many things, and this gives you an entirely different perspective to consider. It isn't just diapers, and your unit may stop performing as well. Yes, this happens less with modern surgical techniques, but it is still a risk.

Another viewpoint from that perspective- My father in law went through bladder cancer and he lived another 20+ years. He never regretted it, and neither did his wife, even though his penis was "pure decorative" as he would put it. He lived without his bladder (stoma and bag) for a very long time. At that point, he was ready to go home and he asked for "no heroic measures and no more dialysis". He loved every day he got to spend with his children, grands, and greats.

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- Tom

I have spent a lot of time thinking through this question because there is a history of bladder and prostate problems in my family. I have had chronic, nonbacterial prostatitis since I was a teenager. I started wearing pull-up diapers on an occasional basis in my twenties. I'm 38 now, and I wear a fitted brief pretty much all the time. Diapers were weird for the first year, and then I got used to it. It's like anything else: you just move on with your life.

Prostatectomy is a pretty standard procedure these days. If you do it early enough, you can virtually eliminate the likelihood of metastasis. Personally, I would rather wear a diaper every day for the rest of my life than have to worry about the possibility of adjuvant therapies for secondary tumor growths. This is just me, but if I were diagnosed with prostate cancer, I would find a competent surgeon and go for the surgery as soon as possible.

Noe

I hesitated to chime in here, since I can't be a member of the boys' club, but I want to thank Papa for his service to our Country. I'm sorry for his loss and other setbacks, and I completely understand his point of view. However, it isn't a given that the road not traveled was a better choice than the path we chose to take. We only get to see one landscape, base our opinions on the input we receive, and speculate about what the other route might look like. We make informed decisions based on hard data because that increases the odds that we will come away with the best possible outcome. IMHO, there's more to life than sex and/or peeing in a toilet as opposed to a diaper. I'd choose the best option for saving my life.

btw, neither the bug nor the windshield wins - one gets smeared, and the other gets smeared on....

W.

Thank you Wetters for such a grace filled message. You are a great choice for watching over us and the clumsy things we say.

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- Tom