Let's Talk About Sex

Parents, if you’re reading this, you may want to stop now. Not all parents, just my parents. Other parents should definitely read this. It’s hard enough having a healthy sex life once you have kids of any age (I have three teenagers; at this point it’s the fear and embarrassment of them hearing us that puts a damper on things). Throw a gynecologic cancer into the mix, and it’s very easy to watch your sex life pack it’s bags and flee in the middle of the night while you sleep.

Is this making you uncomfortable? Possibly, but after you’ve gone through treatment for GYN cancer, you find yourself opening up to various strangers, maybe asking questions in groups on Facebook for other women who have gone through GYN cancer, just to see if you’re normal. I got news for you – none of us are normal. But there are some things I’ve found to be pretty similar across the board. Please don’t take this in any way as gospel, because I am one woman and cannot really speak for all women.

To paraphrase my friend Tamika, you’ve had coochie cancer, now let’s talk about getting your groove back.

Sex after cervical cancer is not the same as sex before. Between surgery, chemo, and radiation, your body pretty much screams “ENOUGH!” Since I didn’t need chemo or radiation, I’m going to stick with what I know – how surgery impacted my life post hysterectomy.

My oncologist said I would be healed in four to six weeks. In reality, it took three months before I stopped feeling like I had been ripped apart, and put back together by Dr. Frankenstein. I couldn’t easily maneuver from lying down to sitting; I couldn’t go up and down stairs; I couldn’t sleep comfortably. Sex was the last thing on my mind. But my oncologist encouraged me to do it. He said that the more I had sex, the easier it would get. He promised me that I would still be able to have an orgasm. I thought “yeah, right.”

I had some minor complications from surgery: a hematoma and some blocked lymph nodes. In addition to the pain of healing from my hysterectomy, I was also in pain from those surgical artifacts. I knew I had to bite the bullet and just do it, but I was afraid. What if it hurt? What if I didn’t enjoy it? And my biggest fear of all, what if my husband didn’t enjoy it?

In August, three months after my hysterectomy, we went on vacation. We started to fool around when all of a sudden he said “Huh.” That’s not the kind of thing you want to hear in any sexual situation, especially your first time post-op for a cancer that was lurking in your cervix, waiting to kill you.

As an aside, you may think your vaginal vault is really long. It’s not. If you still have one, you can touch your cervix. Put your finger inside your vagina, and you will feel something that feels a little like the tip of your nose. That’s your cervix! When you have your cervix removed during a hysterectomy for cervical cancer, they build what is called a cuff. This is the fake cervix, but basically serves the purpose of not having a hole leading to the insides of your body. I can’t tell you if it feels like the tip of your nose, because even two years later, I am still too afraid to feel inside my own vagina. But that is my hang up, and I honestly hope it won’t be yours. Knowing our bodies by checking them manually is part of how we keep ourselves healthy (don’t forget your monthly breast self exam!).

Ok, back to the point I was trying to make. We’re on a boat in Grenada, trying to have sex for the first time since my hysterectomy, and my husband has just said “Huh.” I pull back and half shriek something along the lines of  “What the hell does ‘Huh’ mean?!?!” And he tells me he feels a bump on the top of my vagina. I immediately begin grilling him for details and make him feel it again so he can better describe it to me. He, naturally, says, “Why don’t you just feel for yourself?” to which I say “No, thank you very much.” Even though it is late, I start an email campaign to my oncologist, certain that with morning will come a directive from him to get on a plane immediately because something must be SERIOUSLY WRONG.

Needless to say, we did not have sex that night.

My oncologist did call me the next day. I wasn’t bleeding, so he wasn’t worried. He saw me when I got home. It turns out that what my husband was feeling was that pesky hematoma I mentioned earlier

We did have sex not long after that. And for the past almost two years, we’ve had it sporadically. The reason for this is because I was too inside my head. This is a very common phenomenon. I touched on it earlier, the fear of pain, of one or both partners not enjoying it, that things would be different.

I was getting ready to head to Cervivor School in Charleston, SC, at the end of January, and I was texting with my friend Erica the night before I was leaving. She mentioned something about distracting her husband with sex, and I commented that that wouldn’t work for me, as I wasn’t having regular sex with my husband. Honestly, sometimes it felt like a chore (if you’re reading this honey, I’m sorry for how that sounds). And then she said something that completely opened my eyes to what had been going on: She said she just had to get outside her own head, and once she relaxed, it was great. I’ve mentioned several times that I was too inside my own head, but it took hearing Erica say she was too for me to really get how much of an issue this was.

Because I had this mental block, of course sex seemed like a chore. It should be something passionate, intimate, and incredibly loving. And I had closed off the part of my mind that would allow me to feel those feelings. If I were to discuss this with my psychiatrist (and next time I just might, to see if he agrees with me; also, if you’re going through or have been through cancer, I highly recommend seeking mental health help, but that’s a post for another day), I bet my subconscious was having a conversation with itself that went something like this:

“You had sex, and at some point contracted a persistent strain of HPV. You had been avoiding going to see the gynecologist, so that HPV turned into cervical cancer. If you hadn’t seen a gynecologist when you did, the cancer could have been further along, and you could have died. Ergo, if you have sex, you are putting your life at risk.”

Ok, maybe my subconscious is a bit of a drama queen.

So I went on to Charleston for a weekend with women who got me, where there were no questions or stories too personal to share. One night, we had a Pajama Jam, and talked about sex. Tamika laid it all out. Lube is your

friend. Foreplay has to last longer than 15 seconds – 15 minutes would be great. Sometimes it just isn’t your night. And there are other things you can do, aside from intercourse, to please each other that are just as intimate.

I thought about it a lot. And the second night I was home, I went for it. We set the mood with candles in soothing, comforting scents. We went slowly. The foreplay lasted FOREVER (in the best way imaginable). And when we actually had intercourse, I easily had an orgasm. The next night we did it again, and I had multiple orgasms, one of which might very well have been the best of my life to date. I was out of my head, and it was wonderful.

I would love to end this by telling you that my husband and I have fantastic sex every single night, but that’s not the case. In addition to my sexual hang-ups from having cervical cancer, I am also a rape survivor, and that comes with it’s own set of baggage in the bedroom. So we’ll go in fits and starts. For a long time, I felt like I couldn’t say no, and I don’t feel that way anymore. Sometimes I’m tired and fall asleep long before the kiddos are in bed and it’s safe to risk making a little noise. The most important thing is that we communicate; otherwise it can lead to the more interested partner feeling unattractive and unwanted.

No matter what stage you are at in your cancer journey, I have several pieces of advice that have been given to me. I talked about them in detail earlier, but just to sum up:

·      Don’t rush yourself. Just because your doctor says you’re healed does not mean you have to have sex right that minute.

·      COMMUNICATE with your partner. Let them know what’s going on in your mind – why you don’t want to have sex, physically can’t have sex, or want to try, but can’t promise that you’ll be able to seal the deal.

·      Go slowly. Foreplay is key. Many women go into early menopause due to hysterectomies, and can experience vaginal dryness. Lube is your friend.

·      Get out of your head. Don’t over think it. Try to get things going, and see what happens.

Sex is a beautiful expression of love between two people. In a perfect world, having a healthy, frequent life with our partners should be as natural as breathing. But nothing is perfect, and cervical cancer means making some changes to your sex life, especially in the beginning. But it does get better. Give it time, don’t give up, and try your hardest to not be afraid.

  xoxo Jennie