VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Your Movember donations don’t just go toward finding a cure for prostate cancer, but also to help men and their partners adjust to life after the disease.

It’s not exactly the death sentence it used to be, but even those who survive prostate cancer are never quite the same as they were before the disease.

“If you get prostate cancer diagnosed early, they can remove the prostate gland and therefore have cured the cancer.  But then the person has to live without a prostate gland and so often men have erectile dysfunction, what used to be called impotence,” says UBC Urologist Dr. Richard Wassersug.

He specializes in what is called survivorship, a new and wide-ranging field that helps patients and their loved ones adjust to the changes treatment brings.  That can include everything from diet and exercise to couples therapy.  “The good side is we can live longer after the treatment, the bad side is we have to live long with these side effects.” 

Wassersug says with the proper funding in place, he’s hoping a comprehensive survivorship program can be launched out of the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at VGH sometime in 2013.

Check out and donate to News1130‘s 2012 Movember team.