Fla. Gay Man Opens Up After Having Partial Penectomy for Cancer

A gay man from Florida is opening up after being diagnosed with a rare penile cancer and having a partial penectomy, the Daily Mail reports.

Wayne Martin, 31, was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, which infected his urethra. He was forced to undergo radiation and have a partial penectomy to remove the tumor. The procedure, however, prevents him from having penetrative sex, according to the newspaper.

Though the treatment was successful and Martin is now cancer-free, the side effects have impacted his life: he has frequent urinary tract and bladder infections.

"Due to the amount that was taken off, I am now no longer able to pee standing up, which requires that I sit to use the restroom," he told the Daily Mail. "As you can imagine, since I lost this amount of my manhood it has affected my sex life."

Martin, a government employee of Tallahassee, Fla., added: "Mentally, I have slowly come to terms with the fact that it is just a battle scar in this journey that we call life, but in the beginning I was very depressed and moody. I didn't want to be near anyone, and when I was I would break down in tears because of everything. The hardest part I suppose, even though I'm gay, is knowing that I will never be able to have biological children."

"I am an only child and mother passed away when I was 17, so I had always wanted to do what it took to give my father a grandchild - but now I can't," he continued. "This still eats at me daily if I'm being honest. I find myself wondering if I will ever find a partner in life.

It seems that in the gay culture, all people care about these days is how skinny or muscular you are and how big your Johnson is," he added. "So needless to say, when I tell people my story, nine times out of 10, I never hear back from the guy because he isn't willing to be with someone who has gone through what I have."

Martin said he wanted to share his story to raise awareness to young men that cancer can affect anyone at any age. He also wants to raise money for his father, who paid for his bills while he was sick.

"I would have ended up homeless if it wasn't for him," Martin told the newspaper.

The Daily Mail reports it is believed Martin is one of the youngest victims of the rare type of penile cancer. He told the newspaper he was diagnosed with the disease on his 29th birthday after noticing symptoms eight before receiving the bad news.

"It started out like it was torn skin from rough activity, and I just treated it with some antibacterial cream and didn't think anything of it until it started to grow," he said. "By January 2013, I knew I had an issue when the cut was getting larger. It was no longer just a rip, but had become a white mass on the bottom of the head."

After suffering, having to take up to five baths a day because water was the only thing that soothed his pain, Martin eventually went to a doctor, who told him he either had AIDS or penile cancer.

"The doctor saw me for no less than a minute and told me that I either had AIDS or penile cancer," he told the Daily Mail. "He asked me when the last time I had been tested for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, and I told him that I had been tested a week before and they came back negative. He referred me to a dermatologist to get a biopsy, but that dermatologist was unable to get me in for two months so I reached out to a professor who knew of a free clinic."

Martin was then referred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga. where he was officially diagnosed with penile cancer.

Read Martin's full interview with the Daily Mail by clicking here.