Читать книгу The Lovin' Ain't Over for Women with Cancer - Ralph Alterowitz - Страница 4

Cancer throws a woman off balance. Quite often, it also changes her relationship with her spouse or significant other, including their sex life. For single women, a change in sexual function after cancer treatment can potentially affect future relationships. But cancer does not have to mean the end of a healthy and happy love life. You can rebuild a strong and vibrant sexual relationship - and that is such an important part of our human experience and of a couple’s bond.

We have lived this experience of survivorship and rebuilding intimacy, albeit in our case, the cancer patient was Ralph. His treatment for prostate cancer caused sexual dysfunction and, at the same time, threw us into a world of survivors and support groups. Along the course of this journey, we discovered that the great undocumented - and misunderstood - topic for prostate cancer survivors was sex. We were not the only couple trying to figure out sex after cancer! Over the next few years, we researched, studied and became certified sexuality counselors. We brought the subject out into the open and wrote The Lovin’Ain’t Over: The Couple’s Guide to Better Sex After Prostate Disease, the pioneering guidebook for couples on renewing their intimate life after prostate cancer surgery. Many couples told us that the book helped them create a greater level of intimacy than they had expected, one possibly even more satisfying than what they had enjoyed before the partner’s cancer. Encouraged by this feedback, and by the success of the book, in 2004 Da Capo Press asked us to update it and published Intimacy with Impotence: The Couple’s Guide to Better Sex After Prostate Disease.

After many of our prostate cancer support group sessions, we had women participants come up to us to say that major female cancers can have just as profound an impact on women’s sexuality as prostate cancer can have on men. Many women whose male partners had survived prostate cancer had had their own bouts with breast or gynecological cancers, or had friends who went through this experience. They said it was just as necessary to provide women with information about sexuality after women’s cancers as it was for male cancers, and urged us to research and publish our findings. They also asked us to keep our focus on the “whole person” and “whole couple” - the physical mechanics of sex, the psychological aspects of intimacy, and the dynamics of both partner/partner and patient/practitioner discussions. We have done exactly that in this new book in the The Lovin’Ain’t Over series.

The Lovin’ Ain’t Over for Women with Cancer takes a holistic view of creating a good sex life after female cancer treatment. It recognizes that a strong sense of self, and good communication between the partners, are essential to a happy and satisfying sexual experience, and gives pointers and examples to help on that path. It provides facts about women’s bodies and sexual function, and the effects of cancer therapies. It covers information about aids and medications in understandable language. It contains many practical suggestions and examples from women who have gone through the experience of breast and gynecological cancers, and strategies recommended by top sexual health professionals. The goal is to help readers cope and take the necessary action to make their sex lives as vibrant, vital, and fulfilling as they would like.

Each chapter provides women and their partners with information and options. In plain, frank language, we offer a reader-friendly, proactive, practical, and optimistic guide for women and couples struggling with sexual difficulties after cancer.

Our aim is to help you understand the facts and be aware of your options regarding the renewal of intimacy after struggling with the physical, emotional, and psychological impact of diagnosis and treatment. With this information, a woman or couple will have tools at their disposal to overcome the challenges. You can use this content to create your personal path to reinvigorating your love life.

We wish we had such a guide to give us facts, ideas and approaches when we worked through the process of rebuilding our own sexual relationship. We went through much trial and error, and it took a while to regain our balance as a couple. We hope The Lovin’ Ain’t Over for Women with Cancer helps you get back on track faster. It will still take some time to figure out what works best for you - but you know it can be done! And there is nothing more wonderful than making love with gusto and feeling deeply connected to the person you love. It’s life affirming and love affirming.

If you would like more help, you may want to seek out a sex therapist or counselor. Our sexuality counseling services are available through our non-profit organization, The Center for Intimacy After Cancer Therapy Inc. (C-I-ACT), www.renewintimacy.org.

We hope you will find this book helpful and that you will tell others about it, as well as write a review on our and other websites. Your comments and questions are important to us, and are very welcome. Note that there is a feedback form on the website. Also, please consider a tax-deductible donation to C-I-ACT, Inc. (P.O. Box 34 1388, Bethesda, MD 20827-1388) so that we can continue developing materials and programs for patients and cancer couples.

Thank you, and best wishes for a happy and healthy life!

Ralph and Barbara Alterowitz

Potomac, Maryland

March 2011