Hi ladies,
I’m hoping for some advice and support from anyone living with the long-term consequences of pelvic radiation (st 4 rectal cancer)
I have a lot of thoughts and flashbacks throughout the day, brought on by my colostomy bag, seeing my radiotherapy tattoos, not being able to pee easily anymore and most importantly around intimacy with my husband.
Obviously my vagina has been damaged by the pelvic radiation I had, and the bowel resection removed half of the muscles supporting my vagina also. I still can’t have intercourse and can only used a small/medium sized dilator.
When I use my dilators, I get flashbacks of radiotherapy, then my head goes to the fact that the radiation was pretty much pointless because it shrank my tumour only a few millimetres and I got metastases anyway, so all these long-term effects sting even more I guess, knowing that I could have just forgone that part of the treatment and not had to suffer these effects.
So. I get flashbacks, which makes me never want to use the dilators as it’s so upsetting. This in turn means I have yet to have intercourse with my husband, since even before treatment because the tumour made it painful. Any time we try and do anything sexual at all, I have flashbacks, and up until last month when it was particularly bad and I started crying my husband didn’t know this, I always tried to ‘power through’.
I went through radio-induced menopause and can’t have HRT and I’m on antidepressants, so my sex-drive is close to zero as it is, and I feel guilty that I can’t have an intimate, sexual relationship with my husband, but I just can’t see a way out of it.
Sorry for the long ‘poor me’ rant, I’m just feeling so preoccupied with it all right now, it’s reached a boiling point, my husband IS patient and supportive, but after nearly 5 years without real intimacy he’s finding it really hard and it’s becoming a point of contention between us.
Thank you so much for any advice or support you can give, I can’t express how grateful I will be...
Jo x
