Do you wanna touch my cancer?

"Do you wanna touch my cancer?" I asked as we lay next to each other in bed one morning, before engaging in a breakfast of muesli and stewed apples.

"no-one has ever asked me that before" he said as his hand agreeably slid up the sleeve of my t shirt and felt around for the newly acquired cyst in my armpit region. The cyst a glowing pimple of impurity and evidence of the ongoing battle my lymphatic system is having trying to keep the bugs and bumps at bay.

I lay back down on the bed and had a moment of realising the enormity of 'hanging out' with someone new whilst going through chemo and its entire menu options of symptoms and side effects that are ever present.

It struck me most poignantly when I looked up to see that my newly acquired lover was reading the pamphlet "chemotherapy and sexuality" from my ever growing library of pamphlets and books on cancer. His eyes flittered across the book absorbing knowledge on possible 'vaginal dryness' 'difficulties reaching orgasm' and 'sexual disinterest' as well as a whole host of 'quick and easy tips' to make sexual relations less painful, embarrasing or altogether implausible. The discussion that followed was also very symbolic of how darkly humorous sex and chemo truly are.

They are not completely incongruous activities 'sex' and 'chemo' but god the book makes it sounds that cancer patients often become primarily quite asexual and unattrative but luckily with good support and possibly some sympathetic loving, dark lighting and a hell of alot of lube you can still maintain a degree of sexual normality. I especially love the diagrams that are given (quite realistic sketches) of the most comfortable positions to have sex in. Positions that don't require too much pelvic strain, or ones that don't get your catheter and or stoma in the way of penetration. My favorite section of the good read that is chemotherapy and sexuality is the passage on how if you have unprotected sex in the following 48hours of chemotherapy you will give you sexual partner a dose of chemo, now hey no one said you didn't receive any benefits from dating a cancer patient darling.

Then there was the morning when I awoke next to the same lover with a sizeable amount of my hair sprawled and entwined in the sheets and pillowcases of my bed. Again possibly not the hottest or most attractive event (especially as I have just invested in white sheets!) but one that was downplayed considerably by the other person's maturity and understanding of the hair loss and its presence in both of our lives.

Sex used to not include a reddened scar on my neck from the biopsy of my cycst, continual hair loss or the need to discuss the present state of menopause they have put me in in the attempt to save some of my eggs and fertility. But hell I suppose sex is all about being open, raw and predominantly real with another person in a sacred space. Ah that was poetic. Sometimes sex just ain't all that sexy and this is never more evident then while you are having sex and you emphatically remind your lover to not bite or scratch you because due to your new found lack of immunity you will just not heal. Plus could they please refrain from stroking or caressing your hair as it is only contributing to its continual demise.

"by the way do you have any more lubricant?"