A West Island man is making it his mission to end the silence surrounding one of the most common birth defects in boys.
Terry Lefebvre will be at a conference in Toronto next week, talking to other men about how he overcame his embarassment and depression, and is now in a position to help others deal with hypospadias.
Hypospadias is when the opening of the urethra is misplaced on the penis. It sometimes involves curvature of the penis as well. Boys and men with hypospadias sometimes spray when they urinate, and as a result have to sit on the toilet.
Lefebvre had a severe case of hypospadias, and endured rounds of surgery as a child and young man.
Along the way, he endured taunting and humiliation.
"I was picked on, I was bullied, I was laughed at. And at one point, I just broke down," he says. "Well, it wasn't easy, when you're trying to be accepted, when you're trying to find a place in the world where you belong, where people understand you."
Lefebvre found dating especially hard.
"Every time you're not accepted by that person, you have to continue going, it's just at one point, I'm repeating myself and nobody wants me. I don't belong," he says.
Lefebvre is in a good place now - he's married and has been working at the same business in Lachine for 39 years.
And in terms of breaking his isolation, he says attending his first hypospadias conference in 2014 was a turning point.
"Oh, I don't feel alone any more, and I do feel that it helps," he says.
Lefebvre now sits on the conference's board of directors, and will be at the event next week, in Toronto.
He wants men to know that they don't have to suffer through hypospadias on their own, as he did.
"I want this taboo to be over with," Lefebvre says. "I don't want people to sit back and say I'm alone, I can't talk to anybody."
There's more information at heainfo.org.