Mar 4
Six months after my first chemo, I was starting to feel like a sexual being again. But I quickly found out that my vagina was not the same as it used to be. After a few months of using Vagifem low estrogen vaginal suppositories, sex was not as painful. But that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted sex to be more comfortable.
The Sari Center offers integrative cancer care therapies for patients and there caregivers. Over my 14 months of treatment, I used many of their services. Every single week. Hypnotherapy, acupuncture and massage were my mainstays. But it’s not just the services that helped; as important were the people there.
I pulled together a list of the tips for getting through chemo, and the side effects, that helped me the most.
I am forever changed physically and emotionally. Maybe some of it’s for the better. I’m not ready to pass judgement on that part of it yet. But I know for sure that some of that change is not good. Not for me. Not for my kids. And definitely not for my husband.
Though I want to sprint to the cancer treatment finish line, to be done with this, and for my body to start healing, I don’t want these next few months to go by too quickly. Because I’ll never get them back. And I don’t want to let cancer steal them away from me.
When I was done I went back out to the bedroom and turned on my iPhone flashlight to check the condition of the sheets. Only a teensy weensy bit of shit had gotten onto my new West Elm sheets. I was relieved and figured I could lay a towel down over the spot and deal with it in the morning.
The intimacy between us that day was the same intimacy we had when I used to wash her little locks of hair when she was a baby. And hold her tighter than tight when she was scared. Pure intimate moments don’t come often between parents and teens.
I wanted to be that girl. Have that hair. Touch that dog’s lip. Go wherever it was that she was going because any where would be better than where I was going. I was going to mark myself with the first visible sign that I have cancer.
