Sex/Surgery/Chemo/ & "Coding Annie Parker"

I wanted to write a little on the delicate subject of sex, sexuality, romantic/sexual relationships etc after having a breast removed for breast cancer and then undergoing chemotherapy.

I began into surgery as the Amazon warrior woman: strong, confident that having my left breast chopped off was a fair price to pay for living my full alotted years, and did not define me sexually. My scar was a badge of honour: I was strong, I can beat this disease and do what it takes to get there.

And my husband initially said, "It is who you are that I find attractive, not your breasts, though they are sexy, I will find you just as attractive with or without them."

I did have a large seroma (blister-like formation between the breast skin and the chest wall, and a bad infection until after I started chemo, so have  not  been really well from surgery onwards. But my spirits were high and my mojo intact.

My husband has been amazingly supportive in many ways, eg shaving his hair as a gesture of solidarity, making me cold-pressed juice every morning. But he has always had an engineer's black-or-white vision (ie, you are either sick or you are well, you are either sexy and strong, or weak and unsexy and needing protection),

He saw the 3 week cycles of chemo as a time when I was very sick for the first half and well enough to return to full house-hold duties and full selfcare etc for the second half

I struggled to get him to understand that while on chemo I was fatigued to some degree all the time,Throughout the cycle, even at best, my energy  was much lower than normal. If I budgeted it right, I would cope but otherwise I would fall apart with exhaustion. I explained that often  too emotionally fragile to be able to debate things and to persuade him that I really needed my help and wasn't just manipulating and using him. I had to get across that if I asked, I needed, and it was important. And I let him know how deeply I appreciated and valued his understanding of this and his help.

But for him, that meant also that I was always sick, not sexy. He has had an intermittent cold for the whole of my chemo too so we have slept in separate beds. During the day, he has been avoiding kissing me (because of the chemo, and the cold), and initially avoiding hugging or holding me (to avoid chemo contamination), let alone wanting to have sex, because he saw me as too fragile and in need of protection like a child, not love like a woman. So our sexual relationship has been on hold since early January, which has upset me quite a lot on and off.

And looking at my reflection in the mirror:  bald-headed, with a scar from armpit to sternum, and with only one breast, I now saw myself as a deformed unisex person, not feminine any more. So my own sense of my own inner sexuality has been badly diminished also.

Getting a prosthesis helped, as did starting to take a real interest in my appearance again, and caring well for my skin, and wearing nice scarfs with color-coordinated clothes, looking sexy for me. The weather got cooler and I started to wear my wig. And still my husband avoided sexual contact. He said it would change once I finished chemo and was well again. But he could not see that the sexual distance felt like sexual rejection, and that I read it as him no longer finding me sexually attractive, that this part of our marriage was over.

For us, the turning point came with him getting out the DVD of the 2013 film "Coding Annie Parker" about the story of the woman geneticist who found the BRACA1 cancer gene and explained why Annie Parker's grandmother, mother, sister and herself all got breastcancer. Annie's husband avoids her sexually, and when she asks he says it is because he cannot bear to touch her, cannot bear the hole where her breast was, the scar across her chest. He has an affair with her best friend, and then leaves her.

Now when I told him,"That 's how I feel: that you can't bear these things either, no longer find me sexually attractive, don't want to touch me, don't care about my sexual feelings any more." he finally got it,  And he is at last open to the possibility of morning cuddles and tthe generally sexual/romantic physical closeness that has been missing for so long, while still accepting that colds and physical sickness changes what is enjoyable and what is sensible as I continue to work through my Chemo cycles.

So I recommend this film as a very useful way of getting husbands/partners/potential boyfriends to understand something about sex, surgery , chemo, and breastcancer  that is actually very hard for a couple to mutually communicate over or to understand.

I wondered what others have found helps.