Solutions
Hi Debbie,
I hope Brenda will still respond because I don't want to derail any responses that mostly address her original question.
The loss of gender is confusing to me because like most I was only given the understanding that I would "go through menopause". Based on what I see in discussions about garden variety menopause, THIS is quite a ways beyond "menopause"...!
If you are delicately trying to express that perhaps someone who has gender issues to begin with would be affected this way, I'm open-minded and puzzled enough at this point to appreciate and consider the question; but I can only say that as far as I can tell I had a normal passionate female orientation prior to treatment -- with no history of any bisexuality or homosexuality, and a solid male-female relationship with my spouse.
For me the change included a major loss of sense of taste and smell. Some of that happens to some of us during chemo, but mine has been permanent. I don't see how that would be related to any prior gender issues, and I don't know how that would be a mental state because it was entirely unexpected too.
For example, neither the affected and radiated breast nor the unaffected breast have any sensation of pleasure from contact of any kind. I can feel the touch, but it has no pleasurable meaning. As I've mentioned before, visual stimulation such as watching what I would have considered an erotic movie now is like watching apes bouncing around, and there is absolutely nothing sensual about it whether it is male-female or female-female. The usual advice is to "try other ways" like sexual toys, etc. They are just objects and have no effect. It is as if that whole part of my brain is just plain gone. I told my PCP it feels like I've had a lobotomy of that part of myself.
Basically I am wondering if it is related as much to the lack of testosterone as it might be to the lack of estrogen.
AlaskaAngel
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