Australian Story (1996- )

Tonight Australian Story looks at the side effects and impact of an important drug on users and the warnings they seek to share.

Liz Heggaton and Tim Baker should never have met. She's a recently widowed sheep farmer from Western Australia; he's a surf writer from northern NSW. But a shared traumatic experience has brought them together to highlight the potentially deadly side effects of a widely used treatment for prostate cancer.

Tim Baker was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer at 50 and put on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), a hormone treatment that works by blocking the testosterone that feeds the cancer. While the treatment was effective, it had side effects that he likens to "chemical castration".

"It absolutely feels like your masculinity is being taken from you," he tells Australian Story. "I consider myself entirely asexual. It causes breast swelling, genital shrinkage, loss of muscle mass. I think emotionally, it just leaves you feeling really, really vulnerable."

There were times he felt suicidal and as a form of therapy he started writing and speaking publicly about his experience.

When Liz Heggaton heard Tim on a podcast, she had the terrible realisation that her husband's suicide months earlier could have been a result of him being on ADT.

Liz's husband Craig was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 56 and had his prostate removed. But four years later the cancer returned and he was put on ADT, despite having a history of depression. He took his own life not long after.

"If only we'd been forewarned that this could be a side effect to this drug," Liz says. "What was going down for Tim could well have been what was going down for Craig."

Liz and Tim recognise that ADT is a lifesaving treatment and men should not stop taking it. But they insist much more needs to be done to prepare patients for the potential psychological impacts of the treatment.

"I think every man and their partner, if they're going on ADT, need to be counselled to ensure that they're fully warned how their body's going to feel when they commence it," Liz tells Australian Story.

"I know Liz isn't going to cop this lying down," Tim says, "and she wants there to be a legacy for her husband and for him not to have died in vain."

Producer: Ben Cheshire