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Sitting in my hospital bed at Memorial Sloan Kettering’s main campus one rainy winter evening in New York, I worked up the courage to ask my oncologist: What would happen if I wanted to have sex during treatment? I didn’t want to seem crass or like I was distracted from the main event—surviving cancer—but I thought it would be helpful to know…just in case. Was it safe?
From 2017 to 2018, at the age of 36, I was battling stage IV non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I was also single. Meant to be living out my flirty late 30s in New York, I was instead being hospitalized for periodic and multiday stints to prevent infection as I underwent life-saving treatment. Considering that lymphoma is a cancer that attacks your immune system—and that my particular course of chemo was kicking my ass, as well as turning me into a hairless wonder—it’s no surprise that I was highly protective over my body and self-esteem; I was feeling anything but sexy.
Yet I understood the impulse that drove Molly Kochan, a woman diagnosed with stage IV cancer, to leave her husband in order to fully embrace romantic and sexual exploration. Her adventure was captivatingly described by her best friend Nikki Boyer in the podcast Dying for Sex and is now a miniseries with the same name, which comes out today on Hulu.
When I asked my oncologist if I could have sex, I was expecting—almost hoping, actually—that he would tell me that I should take dating and sex off my plate for now, that I needed to focus on getting better. In a way, I was looking for permission to take a wellness sabbatical from the dating rat race.
Surprisingly, he simply gave me the all clear. His recommendation? Use a condom, and stay away from people who are sick. Interestingly, the same rules seemed to apply whether I was being pummelled by chemo or living out my precancer single life.
The challenges of dating in New York City can feel daunting even when one is at peak health, let alone while dealing with the physical and emotional roller coaster of cancer treatment. Not to mention the sex-life equivalent of the three horsemen of the apocalypse: complex daily logistics around doctor’s appointments, treatments, transfusions, and medication timetables; bone-melting fatigue; and living with your parents in your late 30s. (For the record, I am deeply grateful to my dad, mom, and sister, who took turns living with me in my East Village walk-up during treatment, though their daily caregiving presence definitely put a damper on my love life.) Also, who am I kidding—I wasn’t allowed to go to food trucks or leave the house without a mask, let alone explore possibilities with randos I met on dating apps. Still, I (morbidly) wondered: Would I die before I had the chance to have sex again?
A year after I completed treatment, I not only had sex again, but I gave myself permission to be more open, take more risks, and live for the moment. This led to exploring people and relationships that I may have been closed off to before—some I probably should have stayed closed off to, frankly, and others that pleasantly surprised me.
A couple of months out of treatment, my new hair stubble looking badass, I was on a mission to soak up as much living as possible, just in case my get-out-of-cancer card was suddenly revoked. On a random Wednesday night, I went out for burgers and karaoke with my good friend—and ended up going home with one of her friends.
It proved an ideal reintroduction to the world of flirting and sex: a fling with a preapproved guy who was not intimidated by my recent history and had enough hair for the both of us—no awkwardness or expectations required. This was soon followed by a pendulum swing into overly familiar and safe territory: recycle dating a guy I had already gone out with and moved on from 10 years prior. (Maybe this time it would be different?) Then I swung back into uncharted territory and had a secret affair with my temporary housemate, a handsome lothario. (This is officially still not a good idea, even when coming off surviving cancer and seeking the thrill of living for the moment.)
Now almost seven years out, I find myself wanting to overprotect myself again; ironically, the better I’ve gotten, the fewer risks I’ve wanted to take romantically. Yet in the back of my mind sits that powerful memory of being in a hospital bed and not knowing when, or if, I would ever feel well enough to even contemplate sex again. It helps me recommit to seeking out the sweet surprises of living—and remembering not to wait until it’s too late.