I Survived Cancer 3 Times, But It Was Sex That Sent Me To The ER

Surviving isn’t enough we need to talk about sex

Mary Carter
3 min readNov 27, 2024

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Photo by We-Vibe Toys on Unsplash

Ten years without fucking.

Ten. Years.

And when it finally happens, you end up in the ER bleeding. Not exactly the happy ending a cancer survivor imagines for their first night of sex.

Modern medicine is really fucked up — it can cure your cancer three times but forgets to tell you that your vagina will get drier than the Sahara after chemotherapy.

A survivor recently shared on Buzzfeed how she discovered this the hard way: among bloody sheets at three in the morning, with a panicked new boyfriend.

Nobody expects sex to be perfect. But there’s a difference between a mediocre performance and ending up in the hospital because no one warned you that chemo would turn your vagina into a desert.

And the most ridiculous part? This happens to 9% of women after cancer. Nine percent isn’t a number we can ignore, fuck.

The medical system treats women like broken machines: they fix the broken part and send you home.

Want to know how they handle sexual life?

They send you to the “toy store”.

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Mary Carter
Mary Carter

Written by Mary Carter

I share candid reflections on love, sex, and life's ups and downs, no holds barred and no taboos.

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