LUNG CANCER AND SEXUALITY

Sexuality is obviously an important part in a human’s life. But lung cancer and the treatments associated with this disease may create a chance to push the physical relationship to a reduced priority. Many a times, you may be tired of the continuous process of treatments and surgeries and your partner may feel hesitant to initiate the sexual talk. We all know that sexuality is an important factor in enhancing the quality of life of any person. But people with lung cancer feel somewhat difficult in physical well-being. There will some physical issues like reduction in weight and change in physical appearances like loss of hair which makes you undesirable t attract by your partner. The negative symptoms like cough and the shortness of breath may affect the sexual life severely. Along with the physical issues, there are many psychological issues are concerned with this disease. Anxiety about your condition is the major thing which makes you to feel uncomfortable. Then comes the loneliness. This can also affect you psychologically.

Usually, many people get scared when they hear the sentence ‘lung cancer recurrence’. This refers to the return of the tumor in the lungs even after the treatment. Even though the cancer appears to be completely eliminated from the lungs after the treatment, but some cancer cells may remain in the region and starts to develop cancer in a short period of time. These cells cannot be detected even in the detection techniques. Lung cancer may reoccur in three ways. The first one is local recurrence. That is, the cancer cells will start to develop in the same region of lungs. The second is regional recurrence. This may occur in the lymph nodes which are present nearby to the tumor in the lungs. The third is distant recurrence, in which the cancer cells reoccur in the regions like liver, brain which are at distant from the origin of the tumor cells. The risk of lung cancer recurrence may depend on many factors like the degree of infection, type of cancer, etc.,

“ Will exercise have any effects on reducing the risk of lung cancer?” – this is the common question among many people. Here is the answer. Yes. Many reports have stated that the physically active person will have less chances of developing lung cancer. The major advantage is that physically active will improve the quality of life which in turn makes the person to be resistant enough for the disease. Everyone men, women, smokers, non-smokers will have many advantages in exercising. There is a report saying that exercise has reduced the risk of death in both women and men. But the rate is higher in women when compared to men. As suffering patients, many people do not have interest in exercise. But there is no need to do have exercises like lifting weight, running for one hour, etc., Gardening is also simple exercise which can reduce the risk of this disease. Dancing for the favorite songs is also a good exercise which gives happiness along with the above mentioned benefit of reducing cancer risk.

It is common among the people who have lung cancer to ask ‘what can I anticipate during the final stages of this disease?’.In fact it is hard question to answer by even the doctors. But there are different things will happen to different people like someone will have pain in the cancer affected region in the body and somebody will not. In the advanced stages, some people need oxygen assistance to make the shortness of breath in control and some people can breathe without any oxygen aid. Some people may suffer from pains in bones, spine and some other parts of the body whereas this is not the case in many people’s last stages of lung cancer. Just as the symptoms of the disease vary from people to people in the final stages, the emotions from the loved ones are also very hard to predict. Some people want to live for more years and they are brave enough to face any pain. But some people are ready to face the death.

The physical changes in the body of a lung cancer affected victim can be related to the expansion of the tumor inside the lungs and the action of spreading the cancer cells all over the body parts. The physical changes in the final stage of this disease may vary from one person to person. For example, if a person with lung cancer has the proper treatment in the past will not face severe symptoms in the final stage whereas a person who has not taken the proper treatment will have serious physical changes in the body. The physical changes play a major role in the day to day activity of this disease affected person. If the changes are quite severe, then it will have a great negative impact on the person’s activities. But there are some palliative treatments available to treat the physical changes to a considerable extent these treatments cannot cure the symptoms completely, but it can sooth the condition to be better.