You've Survived Cancer. Now What About Dating?

"Understand your body, but also understand where you're coming from emotionally,” he says. “Someone might be looking for a fully developed relationship that might lead to marriage, or they might be saying, ‘Hey, you know what, I just need someone to be with me.'”

Consider issues you've had with dating in the past, he says, such as how you communicate or feelings about your body. If you are ready for intimacy, don't be shy about gathering information on how to make it work. As cancer patients live longer, more resources are available to improve the quality of their lives, including sexually. Don't worry that you're the only one who has a body that's not looking or working quite as it used to.

"This is a really common experience,” says Don Dizon, M.D., professor of medicine at Brown University and founder of the Sexual Health First Responders Program in Providence, Rhode Island. “If you look at survey data, those who report some degree of sexual compromise is anywhere between 50 and 90 percent.”

Physicians and patients rarely discuss relationships or sex because cancer checkups are so focused on survival or treatment plans, Dizon says. Patients may be too distracted or embarrassed to ask questions, or think they are alone in having issues. A survey by the health organization Livestrong found that fewer than half of patients bring up these issues, he says.

"It's really not until people leave that room that they start thinking, Boy, I really wanted to ask those other questions,” Dizon says. “We, as clinicians, assume things that are important will be brought to our attention by patients themselves, [but] when it comes to sexual health, that's not going to happen.”

Discussing cancer and sexuality

For starters, he says, understand who you are as a sexual being. What's your perspective on dating and sex? How do you respond to relationship cues? Are you able to communicate with a partner? Are you one to jump right into a relationship or expose your inner life slowly?

And be flexible about what intimacy might look like, Dizon says.

"What we're learning is that couples can … find their own ways to experience pleasure and experience satisfaction,” he says.

Ellen Barnard, a social worker and certified sex educator who co-owns A Woman's Touch in Madison, Wisconsin, a sex education resource center and sexual health products shop, describes herself as a “problem solver.” One reason she and co-owner Myrtle Wilhite, M.D., started the shop 25 years ago was to help breast cancer patients find ways to improve sexual response without hormone replacement therapy.

Their website has a downloadable resource sheet on “Healthy Sexuality After Cancer,” as well as a place to submit questions. These days, Barnard and Wilhite work with customers with all kinds of cancers and also train health care providers.

"There's plenty that can be done.… Nobody needs to lose their enjoyment of sexual pleasure,” Barnard says.

And remember, it's unlikely that anyone over 50 will have a body that works perfectly.

"The most important thing that I try to instill in people is not to see themselves as ‘damaged,'” Dizon says. “Getting older comes with its own complications, but cancer's not the only complication people will be bringing to the table.”