How Prostate Cancer Changed a Marriage

After thirty seven years of married life, occupying one half of a king-size bed, I’ve taken up residence on a queen-size mattress in the attic. My husband sleeps on--or tries to--in our bed, one flight below. It wasn’t ordinary marital discontent or the desire for solitude that drove me up the attic stairs. I didn’t go willingly. I miss our room downstairs.
Over four years since the hormone shots, since radioactive seeds were implanted in his cancerous prostate, I’m still hoping to return permanently to our bed; but we are already changed. All those years of habitual nesting, pelvis curved into pelvis, then lights out. Take nothing for granted.

What happened four years ago? Like so many couples, we're still trying to sort it all out. We're grateful for continued health, the blessing of remission. But hormones and seeds were supposed to have been "minimally invasive." Many post-treatment effects--some continence issues, erectile dysfunction and the near annihilation of libido--have transformed the landscape of our daily life together.

******

This is part of a book I'm writing; I'd value any input. Would you read it? Have you had similar experiences? I hope to let other partners' and patients' voices into the book, a book about the experience of Prostate Cancer, from the wife's perspective.
Please feel free to add your comments--I want to know who else has struggled with these issues.