Sex and relationships are important. Macmillan knows that cancer can have a big impact on them.
If you’re a teenager or young adult when you are told you have cancer, it will have a big impact on the decisions you make. Everyone will have different priorities. You may be worried about how cancer and its treatment might affect your relationships or sex life. You may have questions about fertility issues, perhaps during your treatment, or a long time after.
We want to tell you about our new information booklets for young people, Sex and Relationships and Fertility. Hopefully these will help you find a way to talk about what’s worrying you - whether it’s how cancer can affect sex, fertility issues, or how to talk about difficult subjects with your partners, friends, family or healthcare professionals.
During or after treatment, you may worry about how the cancer and its treatment might affect your relationships. You may worry about this as soon as you are told you have cancer. Or you may only become aware of changes to your sex life as you go through treatment, or after it’s finished. In the Sex and Relationships booklet, we talk about some of the possible effects that cancer can have on having sex, your body image, your feelings and your relationships. We suggest some things that might help.
Young adults who’ve finished treatment, perhaps even a few years ago, might start to worry about how the treatments they had for cancer might affect their ability to have children.
The Fertility booklet covers fertility testing, fertility preservation and treatments. It talks about things that might come up when you start thinking about becoming a parent.
There are other ways of getting support. Lots of young people like to give and get support from each other. Our online community group 16-24 and living with cancer is one place you can do this.
We hope the information in this blog has helped you find the support you need. We’re here for everyone affected by cancer – those diagnosed, relatives, friends, and colleagues – so please get in touch if you need support.
To see what else Macmillan's cancer information team has been blogging about, please visit our blog home page! You can subscribe to receive our blogs by email or RSS too.
We're with you every step of the way
The Macmillan team is here to help. Our cancer support specialists can answer your questions, offer support, or simply listen if you need a chat. Call us free on 0808 808 00 00.
Comments? Feel free to add them below (you need to be logged in – if you still can't see the comment box, click on this blog's title at the top).
Keep in touch Follow Macmillan’s cancer information team on Twitter @mac_cancerinfo
