There will be some on this forum who will hate me after reading this post. Some who may applaud me and wish me well. I have always been brutally honest throughout my journey about my feelings and emotions and I do not intend stopping now so I make no apologies for the following unbelievable but true story of the past few months of my life. After all, the reality is that we all have issues of one kind or another to deal with. Mine are not exclusive but my story is.
Anyone who knows me on this forum will know that I have been a committed and very happily married husband and father - with the most loving, terrific, supportive wife. Well that was the public persona. Let me tell you a little story of hope for those who might think their life is over and that all is lost.
For about four years, since my post surgery PSA started rising again and my cancer became incurable, I kind of gave up on life inwardly. Outwardly, I was bold and brave Bazza, the "you're so strong Bazza." Inside, however, I was an emotional wreck. I'd put on over two stones, laid down all day doing nothing but eating. I'd given up on life and I also drank too much. More importantly, the cracks that were in my marriage pre 2010 when I had my surgery and subsequent treatment began to open up more and more over time and although we both denied it outwardly, we had, after 32 years, grown apart. Sex was dead. I put that down to my low self esteem, low libido and ADT. I didn't care. Nor, to my chagrin, did she.
In May this year after a year on Enzalutamide, my mind was fogged, my body tired and I was constantly bickering with the Mrs. I decided I needed some spiritual influence to try and turn my negative headspace around so I came off the tablets and went back on Prostap. I also began to investigate rural retreats where one could do Shamanic drumming, be with horses (equine therapy), talk into the night with like minded souls about the meaning of life over a roaring outside fire and live in a rural idyll. In short, just get my head in a more positive place.
Toss a single grain of sand into bucket full of the stuff and the chances of finding that one grain again are millions to one against. The randomness of that sentence will become clear as you read on.
March 1982
As a 19 year old boy working in a camping shop, life was taking me nowhere - or was it actually crafting my future? One cold day in March, a vision walked into the store looking for a Saturday job. She was beautiful beyond words and the second I saw her and she me, there was an almost spiritual connection. On her first day at work, I asked her out. She was just 15, still at school and not 16 until the July. I was smitten. For five months, we enjoyed the most hedonistic and wonderful journey of discovery together and spent every living moment of it with each other. As young as we were, we were both deeply in love and planned to live together when she left school.
However, fate took its toll and the pressure of her exams, her age and the fact that she'd just discovered that her mother had given her up as a baby to her grandparents and had spent her entire life believing they were her real parents took its toll and so we went our separate ways. The following year, I met my future wife, the person I am with today. We never saw each other again.
However, and despite the passage of time, I never forgot about this girl who had had such a profound effect on my life. I would drive past her her house for the next ten years remembering, wondering what might have been and what was happening in her life now. I eventually married and had two daughters. I later found out that she had also married much later at 29 and had had three daughters. And that was it, or so I thought.
Looking through Facebook for rural retreats, I couldn't find what I was looking for in the UK so I decided to look further afield in Spain and France. On one particular page, I saw a face vaguely familiar on the home page of a sanctuary for people who needed emotional help and when I read further, saw her unique surname. It was my first love. She ran the company! Completely unhappy in my marriage and slouched on the couch two stone overweight with a rising PSA, I made contact and confirmed it was actually her! She had had three daughters, all grown up, had divorced six years ago and now ran a retreat in the depths of southern France offering exactly what I was looking for!
Our first text exchanges were strangely familiar, not awkward as one might imagine after all these years. Within days, we were remembering the depth of love we shared and our regret that it was the right person at the wrong time. I told her my complete story about my cancer and thought that would be it. That she wouldn't be interested. Instead, she invited me to visit for a weekend to see if she could help ease my troubled mind offering those exact therapies and practices I had been seeking. Over a period of weeks, we were texting each other daily, hourly and then almost constantly. I found a new lease of life. I dramatically cut the huge portions I was eating, gave up alcohol, started exercising and shed the two stone of weight that had made me feel so down over the past few years. In short, I felt alive again. I wanted to impress this woman, not put her off!
Meanwhile, my marriage was going from bad to worse and the bickering had become constant rowing. Something had to change and I was the changemaker. Having been completely faithful to my wife for every day of our long and otherwise happy marriage, instead of doing the cowardly thing and going behind her back having an affair, I told her one evening about what had been going on and that I was going to France for a couple of days. Naturally, she was devastated when she found out who it was but there was also a steely rejection of me which again was natural, perhaps indicating that, for her, our time had come also.
I booked three flights. One two days after my arrival in France, another seven days later and, if things went really well, a third two weeks later. My wife told me that if I went, it would mean the end. I told her that I felt very bad about this but something much stronger than the weak glue holding our marriage together had taken hold and I just had to explore the possibility of what could have been. I didn't know how long I had left to live but if I did not go to France, I would forever regret it.
In July, I embarked on my flight looking leaner, slimmer and fitter than I had done for years. I felt extremely nervous like a schoolboy, like that 19 year old all those years ago. Exiting the arrivals hall, I was more excited than nervous although at first couldn't see her. She had grey hair now and I struggled to see her in the crowd, thinking I was looking for this huge mane of curly brunette hair. I had forgotten that a third of a century had elapsed. Then our eyes met and the look, that powerful connective look we shared as teenagers was there as two huge smiles lit up the hall. We ran towards each other and embraced, me dropping my case and we just held each other both in tears without a word being spoken for a good ten minutes.
Needless to say, I didn't take the first flight back, nor the second but stayed the full two weeks. In that time, all the things the medics had told me, the effects of the drugs, etc, became irrelevant. My libido was back with a bang (pardon the expression) and everything worked as it used to. Even the old stamina came back. After two weeks, I returned for my bloods. My PSA had fallen 50% and my T by 30%. My nurse explained that often endorphins can take over and assist one's ardour and if you are aroused enough and in a good place mentally. things can and often do happen.
Upon my return, my wife handed me the divorce papers I fully expected. It was a very sad ending to a once very happy and devoted but long dead relationship. I took full responsibility for my actions and I signed them then planned my next trip. Since then, myself and my new partner have lived with each other for a month and life is so good.
The deep bond of love we shared as youths has developed, as we now are in our middling years, to a relationship where I want her and her lifestyle permanently. So, in October, I move to France permanently to live with my childhood sweetheart. To say it is serendipitous would be an understatement. I rather liken it to the grain of sand analogy I made at the start of this post. Who would have ever imagined such a fortunate end to a life which, since 2010, has hardly been a bed of roses.
My most recent bloods showed a further fall in PSA and, ironically, also my Testosterone level, although when I am with my new partner, I have never been more sexually active. This all makes me wonder whether a man's loss of libido is equally shared in the mind as it is with the obvious effects of chemical treatment. For me, I feel 25 again. It may be a honeymoon period. It may wear off. What I do know is that life is random, unpredictable and if you'd told me a year ago that I would be living in France with a girl I loved so very much and thought I'd lost to the sands of time, I'd have said you were as mad as a box of frogs.
In the final analysis, and for those wondering about my wife whose devotion, support and care I could not have done without, I will always love her, protect her, have her back, ensure she is completely financially stable and we have divided our assets in such a way that she will not need to go through unnecessary court battles. Everything is amicable and as I write this post, she is in the kitchen making me a cup of tea. Its divorce about as amicable as it can get. I will love her forever. She is a beautiful woman inside and out but the simple truth is that our marriage began to die shortly before my diagnosis and I feel that she only stayed with because she was a deeply caring person. I will forever be grateful to her and hope that, the attractive woman she is, she will find new love. I am sure she will - and since this has all happened, I have seen a positive change in her, she is so much more positive about her future than she was with myself, a person who had given up on life. How unfortunate that it took something like this to be the harbinger of change,
The fact remains that I have metastatic cancer and one day, all the hope, the sex, the lifestyle and wonderful French wine will not stop its inexorable course. The simple truth though is that I am enjoying my last years and will now die much happier and on my terms. I'm not sure if there is anything after this existence so would have always regretted not doing this on my deathbed.
In 1982, I watched that beautiful young girl's face as she walked into the distance and out of my life presumably forever. However, serendipity called in the depths of my despair and hers will now be the last face I see for the final time. At the moment, it is so good to be alive, good to be so loved in every way and despite my condition, I feel like a 19 year old all over again!
Edited by member 04 Sep 2017 at 04:53
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