A cancer patient thinks about manhood

Before I even start, I need to thank over 100 of you, dear readers, for the flood of emails and advice and encouragement and just plain love that you have been sending me since my cancer diagnosis. As a result, it feels like we have an ongoing conversation.

I've just finished six weeks of radiation, five times a week… and I've been on chemotherapy since January. It's time to report in and tell you what I've learned.

Prostate cancer feeds off testosterone. So the first remedy for prostate cancer is to take a hormonal chemotherapy that suppresses testosterone in men… getting the testosterone level down essentially to zero and starving it to death. Mission accomplished. A healthy PSA reading in men should be 0 to 2. Mine was 35. After four months of chemotherapy, it’s 0.09. Looks like I might live.

But here's what's interesting. I have reached what one of my doctors cheerfully described as “castration levels.” I'm a man with no testosterone. That I should receive that information as good news suggests a deep change in my life. So I've been thinking about what that means.

In the higher mammals, breeding seasons pump up the testosterone in males until they literally bash each other's brains out or chew each other to pieces — just to have an experience that lasts less than 30 seconds. We have more reasoning power and so one might expect us to be a bit better behaved. But humans also have alcohol, which the higher mammals don't, and that might take away any advantage we might have had.

There's no question that with no testosterone, I do feel differently. I'll get into that in a moment. Meanwhile, I asked my wife of 43 years whether she noticed any difference from before chemo. And she said no. I've been pretty much a romantic all my life.

So what's the difference? From the time I was a child, I was as comfortable with girls as I was with boys. It's one thing to want women. It's another thing to actually like women, to want to talk and see how they understand the world. A lifetime of that and empathy comes fairly easily. So that’s not changed, but something unexpected has happened. At least in part, I think and feel like a woman does.

Now let's get something straight. All women and all men do not feel like all other women and men feel. We are individuals. Having said that, my daughter and I went to see the movie "Civil War." The directors wanted to show us what it would look like if we ever lost control of our fears and hatreds. As a columnist, it was an interesting and terrifying exercise - and I appreciated it. But I realized I had not responded to the film the way I would have a year ago.

A year ago, I would have been analytical, like an old history teacher. But this year, I drove home disgusted by men. “Are you an American?” asks a young fellow armed with an assault rifle. The guy he's pointing the rifle at whimpers yes, he is. At which point, the militiaman with the gun asks, “what kind?” He's ready to be a one-man immigration service and casually expunge anyone who doesn't meet his personal criteria.

Most women wouldn't do that. The women of Russia did not invade the women of Ukraine, for example. More than anything, I was left with this profound feeling of sadness and disappointment.

Right next to this life we are living… better yet, inside it, is this sweeter more illumined life. Why we don't take this second sweeter option has been the central mystery of my life. I remember writing about it in college. But now that I have no testosterone, this question has taken on an almost maternal feeling.

What mother ever rocked a howling baby, cradled him, nursed him, walked him back and forth from the living room to the kitchen night after night… fed him, loved him, lifted him up… hoping her son would grow up to use an AK47 against anyone he thought didn't belong? Or die at such a man’s hand?

Now I think that hormones — at least in humans — do not compel us. They nudge; they whisper in our ear. But if we have been encouraged to believe as men, that following our testosterone wherever it leads is a manly thing to do… the movie Civil War seems as reasonable a destination as any. There has to be a better thing to do with this testosterone of ours.

There are things I have always known but since my chemotherapy, I am feeling them in a more vulnerable and poignant way. It's an experience, and I'll let you know as soon as I understand it better.

Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him atcolumnresponse@gmail.com.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Brown: Pondering manhood and the consequences of testosterone