What You Don't Know Can Kill You?

After my wife and I wrote our book together,  I've heard from hundreds of people coping with life without a prostate. There's a letter I received from a widow that I cannot get out of my head. I think about this tragedy many times each month. In fact this letter is what eventually moved me to begin writing a book about penile implants.
Here's the letter:

"My husband had a robotic prostatectomy.  It cured his cancer, but left him impotent. This killed his soul. We loved each other deeply and each of us knew that, but there was nothing I could do to heal his pain. If I tried to initiate intimacy, he would become anxious and push me away. Alternately, he would initiate intimacy when he had self-medicated with alcohol. This was difficult for me and never had a good outcome. Humor didn't go far, either. He felt damaged. He wasn't a group kind of guy, so he never received professional help for his emotional pain. He went deeper into depression. On August 7th he committed suicide. While his impotence wasn't the only issue that drove him to his decision to end his life, it was a major factor in his feeling life wasn't worth living.  It's heart-breaking for our family".

Here's a section from the introduction of the book I'm writing about penile implants:

When I received the news I’d be impotent for the rest of my life, I left that appointment without any hope things could be different. My reaction to the news I’d spend the rest of my life impotent immediately brought about a major depressive episode.

Ironically, the physician who gave me this news would later be the surgeon who performed my penile implant surgery. When he told me I’d be impotent for the rest of my life, he FAILED to mention penile implants as an option. I left his office that day feeling hopeless for months on end before I came up with the idea of a penile implant on my own. There are far too many men like me who were left feeling miserable, depressed and unaware there are amazing alternatives to restore erectile functioning.

Whatever is causing your erectile dysfunction, I want you to know there is hope. To determine how to best treat the underlying cause of your erectile dysfunction involves an act of courage on your part. The journey toward healing begins with you making an appointment to see a Doctor to evaluate the cause of your erectile dysfunction.

Rick Redner & his wife Brenda wrote an award winning book to help men and couples cope with life before, during and after prostate surgery. Here's the link:
I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where's Yours?