MEN'S HEALTH: He underwent vasectomy and doesn't regret it

“I had got the number of children I wanted. And my wife does not use any other form of family planning because they have very bad side effects on her.” Michael tells Edwin Nuwagaba why he opted for vasectomy and that he is proud of the decision.“
Most men think that when you have undergone vasectomy, you can never sexually function. They think you become something useless but that is not true,” says Michael who has successfully undergone a vasectomy. Due to the desire of every man to be sexually active, many of them have doubts and have shunned vasectomy as a family planning method.

While Michael has spoken to some men at family planning workshops, he is still not confident enough to come out to the public. I ask him why he doesn’t want his full name used in this story if he is proud about it, and he tells me he’s still resented by colleagues. He is afraid that for instance, his workmates might turn him into a joke, and regard him as a ‘useless man’.

The 40- year-old, who actually looks younger than his age, is the father of two boys and one girl. His first born is six years old, the second is three years old while the last born is only eight months old.

So what compelled him to go for a vasectomy? Couldn’t he use condoms or any other contraceptives? He says, “First of all, I had got the number of children I wanted. And my wife does not use any other form of family planning because they have very bad side effects on her.” He tells me that his wife’s body would swell whenever she swallowed pills and even the Injectaplan had the same effects on her. “She used them for three months and stopped. The other option was for her to go for tubal ligation, but then I feared that that too could have side effects and I was not ready to take the risk,” he says. He was afraid that unlike vasectomy which is a simple operation, tubal ligation was more complex given that it calls for cutting part of the woman’s stomach.

But that is only part of the reason he underwent the surgery. Michael discloses that he has always been by his wife’s side every time she has been in the labour ward. He has seen what his wife has gone through and thought it was time to give her an indefinite break, from the experiences. “I have seen it, and it is between life and death. Besides, even when we were still dating, I had always told her that I wanted only two children,” he says. But his wife had insisted that two children were too few. And now with three children, vasectomy was the best option. They both talked about it, and Michael assumed the lead role.

The day he went for the surgery was like any other Friday. Early in the morning as usual, he attended to his work and after lunch, went by himself to the headquarters of Reproductive Health in Uganda (RHU) in Kamwokya. “Basically, you are told to wait as the nurses prepare the surgery equipment. I was later told to take off my clothes after which I was given a theatre gown and headed to the theatre,” he narrates.

I ask him whether he had second thoughts prior to the surgery and he says; “I had gotten counselling two weeks ago, so I was confident. During the counselling, they ask if you are really sure and they tell you about the whole procedure and you are given a chance to ask any question you want.”

The operation did not take more than 30 minutes and he was done. The cost of this surgery is Shs30,000. Dr Peter Ibembe who is based at RHU, says there is a little minor pain a patient gets but it lasts only a few days. “I felt some pain and discomfort but within a week, it was gone. It was a slight pain and I always felt it when something touched my testicles,” he says.

Dr Ibembe cites the side-effects of vasectomy as blood clotting and slight pain, which he says can be treated by taking Panadol.
“People are still reluctant to have a vasectomy because of misconceptions, yet it is better than the operations women get because it is a simple procedure.” About only 500 men countrywide have undergone vasectomy, he says.

Does he really enjoy his sex like before? I ask him. “I have normal sex, nothing has changed. The erection comes, the sex urge is there and everything is just normal, and my wife and I still enjoy sex. I always tell my friends that if I wasn’t satisfying her, she would have divorced me by now,” he smiles.

He goes on to say, “For me, it was discomforting to use condoms, and now I am okay.” He tells me that before he went for the vasectomy, his semen was yellowish but after the surgery, it became whitish – and this is because the sperms were blocked from entering the semen.

After the surgery, one is asked to go back to hospital to check if the sperm count is zero. You are also advised to wait for about five days before having sex so that you can heal completely. And what did his family think about it? I ask. “They were supportive. They asked me whether I was sure about my choice. Whether I wasn’t coerced, and I told them that it was my decision,” he says.

Of course there is one question that always comes up, “What if something happened? Say your children passed away?” Michael reacts to this saying, “I don’t have any fears. If they died, I would say, that is God’s will.
My friends keep telling me that I ruined my chances of having children with other women. But I love my wife and I think I have a nice family,” he says.

Although some doctors in the western world have discovered some reversal methods, Dr Ibembe says that this cannot be done here in Uganda. “But even in those countries where reversal is done, it cannot be 100 per cent dependable,” he says. Some of the health centres where vasectomy can be carried out include; Kuluva Hospital in Arua, Mulago, Jinja and Mbale hospitals.