Cancer, Sex and All That Stuff

May 29, 2014
By: Anne Katz PhD, Rn

Hello and welcome to my new blog series for CancerFightClub! I am a certified sexuality counselor and registered nurse who works at CancerCare Manitoba (in Winnipeg), and the topic of cancer and sexuality has been a professional passion for me for over a decade. In my work life I counsel men and women of all ages who are having sexual difficulties during and after cancer treatment. The unique issues that young adults experience are especially important and for the past year have been my focus. Why?

This past January I published a book – This Should Not Be Happening: Young Adults With Cancer (Hygeia Media). During the process of writing the book I immersed myself in the literature about YAs and cancer. There was not much there about dating and sex and relationships and disclosure which told me that (a) this book was needed and (b) I would have to be creative and thoughtful in suggesting advice in the book. I tried hard to make the latter happen and my readers can tell me if I did the former well.

Over the next few blog entries I am going to write about topics that I covered in the book with a focus on sexuality, dating, relationships, fertility – and how to talk about all of these.