When Your Motor Lets You Down

Last summer I bought a motorboat, with an outboard motor. I love getting out on the water, whizzing around having fun, but I’ve learned that the motor is temperamental. Sometimes it starts first time, bursting into life with virtually no coaxing. But most of the time, it requires a bit of extra attention to get it started, and then it can easily sputter out, leaving me stranded in the middle of the boating channel, impotently trying to get it started again.

Chemo and fertility

When I was diagnosed with cancer, the lovely nurse who was briefing me on the treatment protocol mentioned that chemotherapy could make me sterile. With three wonderful nearly grown kids, I wasn’t too worried about that, and declined the opportunity to ‘bank sperm’. (I should have gone alone just to see what the reading material was. I wonder if they have ‘Boating World’). What wasn’t clear to me was that the chemo would leave me like my outboard motor – unreliable, at best, and sometimes apt to cut out right in the middle of some exciting adventures.

It seems to be not often spoken about, this impact that chemotherapy can have on your sex life. As a patient, you accept that while going through chemo there will be direct impacts on your body that may mean sex is off the table for a while, for many reasons, for both men and women. During treatment, its something you have to work out how to live with (or without). I understand from female friends who’ve been through chemo that it has an impact on their hormones, and their body’s readiness for sex (pain, dryness etc). I haven’t talked to other males about the impacts on them (impotence or unreliability) – mainly because we males are terrible at talking about stuff like that.

You're not alone

So for the other males out there reading this, for whom chemotherapy has tossed a spanner into the workings of their outboard motor – I can tell you, you are not alone. It’s a little-discussed but commonly felt side effect, and unfortunately for us, it can be a permanent condition. Getting the motor started is more difficult, and keeping it running smoothly for enough time to have a decent outing is even harder (if you’ll excuse the phrase).

Your doctor can help with some medication to try to keep the engine going but in my experience these only work up to a point (again, if you’ll excuse the turn of phrase) and give me a headache that makes me want to find out ways to sort this mechanical issue out if I can.

A quick google search reveals some other things to try or ways to deal with this. I don’t have the answer yet, but I’m working hard to solve it and get that motor humming again.