Heartbroken Man Who Lost His Penis To Flesh Eating Virus Tells Wife She Can “Look For Sex Elsewhere”

There are some times where the thing that’s meant to save your life does more damage in the end. This was the case for 61-year-old Andrew Lane, who went into the hospital to fix his prostate cancer and literally left without the ability to have sex again. He contracted an infection known as necrotizing fasciitis, which is an infection that literally eats away at your skin, muscles and flesh in general. Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time someone has caught an infection that literally ate away at a body part: necrotizing fasciitis is a disease that can literally eat away at your body and kill you in a very short amount of time. While the infection itself is really interesting and we’re going to get into that, it’s more important to understand Andrew’s story, because he’s totally heartbroken by the situation, as it robbed him of his body image and sex with his wife. Here’s what you need to know about the man who’s heartbroken over losing his penis to necrotizing fasciitis, and what the disease is.

Meet Andrew Lane. Sixty-one-year old Andrew caught necrotizing fasciitis after a routine surgery and ended up losing a good portion of his penis. This robbed him of the ability to have sex with his wife and his body image.

He was at Southend Hospital in Essex trying to get his prostate gland removed. During the surgery, he caught an infection which developed into necrotizing fasciitis, and although he’s alive, his genitals were so badly damaged that he lost most of his penis and the ability to have sex with his wife of fourteen years, Sue.

He sat down with The Sun to tell his story. “As a man you never know how much you will miss your penis until it’s gone.” he told Sun reporter Steve Robson. “I went into hospital a cancer patient for what doctors said would be a routine operation and came out without my manhood.”

So much diseased tissue had to be cut away, his stomach now protrudes from his body. His stomach is protruding now because the outer tissue had been totally eaten away. He was forced to used a catheter and colstomy bag for two years, and even needed a special device to pee.

He spent eight weeks in the hospital after that. He’s only recently started to come to terms with what happened to him. Unfortunately, sex with his wife is out the window for the remained of his life, and he’s said all he and 59-year-old Sue can do is remember the good things about their sex life. “I do miss having sex with my wife,” he said. “I’ve told her she can look for it elsewhere.”

He’s now taking legal action. It turns out the reason he got necrotizing fasciitis in the first place is because his bowels got punctured during the first operation to remove his prostate gland. However, that puncture hadn’t been discovered for days, and during that time, the infection cropped up.

Andrew thought he was going to die. He called the experience horrendous, and ended up in surgery three times to have surgeons take more tissue from his body. “I lost from my belly button to just above the groin and I’ve not got much left of a penis.” he told The Sun.

Before this, he was pretty healthy. He told the Sun that he was really healthy before all of this. “I was super-fit before all this. I had a good body, but now I look like I’m nine months pregnant. I can’t ever bear to look at myself naked.” he said. Chances are if this hadn’t happened he’d be healthy still, so this is just that much worse.

The thing he’s really sad about is his inability to have sex. He calls it the most difficult part of the whole ordeal. “We’re a normal couple who enjoyed it as part of a healthy relationship and I do miss that.” he said. His case is going to be heard at the High Court this year, and the hospital hasn’t commented on the incident yet.

Necrotizing fasciitis is no joke. Necrotizing fasciitis is a bacterial skin infection that spreads really quickly and kills the body’s soft tissue really fast. Then again, that’s literally right in the name: necrotizing means “causing the death of tissues.”

It’s often called a flesh eating infection by the media. However, that’s not the whole picture here. Necrotizing fasciitis is actually caused by more than one type of bacteria. According to the CDC, some of the bacteria that can cause necrotizing fasciitis are “group A Streptococcus (group A strep), Klebsiella, Clostridium, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Aeromonas hydrophila, among others.”

The most common bacteria to cause necrotizing fasciitis is group A strep. Usually, this is an easy to treat infection that won’t actually knock you out all that badly. However, that all changes once the infection gets into your skin and muscles, causing necrotizing fasciitis. Once it gets into your skin, it spreads rapidly, infecting the fascia. The fascia are connective bands of tissue that surround the muscles, nerves, fat and blood vessels.

Luckily, necrotizing fasciitis doesn’t spread that easily. Most cases are random and don’t end up being linked to infections in other people. The most common way of getting this is when the bacteria enter your body through a break in your skin, like a puncture wound. In Andrew’s case, this was through a puncture in his bowel.

The symptoms start within hours. According to the CDC, symptoms cam include “Fever, chills, fatigue (tiredness), or vomiting,” which can confuse someone and make it harder to seek a diagnosis and treatment. Other things that can happen is red or purple swelling or even black spots on the skin. Oftentimes, patients who have this describe their pain as way more severe than the actual wound will look like. If you think this is happening to you after you get cut, go to a doctor.

The best thing is fast treatment. Treatment can be given with strong antibiotics being injected into the area, but a lot of the time that doesn’t end up working, and you might end up needing surgery. Unfortunately, Andrew Lane’s treatment was delayed thanks to the hospital, and it ended up eating away at his penis. However, considering how serious this type of infection is, he’s very lucky to be alive.

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