Learning: Your Body, Your Pleasure: Sexual Health After Breast Cancer

Your Body, Your Pleasure: Sexual Health After Breast Cancer

Join us for a warm, empowering conversation about sexual health, intimacy and pleasure after breast cancer. This space is designed to honor both the body and the heart.

We'll talk about common body changes, how life experiences and surroundings can affect desire and connection, and simple ways to support your emotional and physical well-being.

This talk encourages curiosity, self-compassion and connection with others. Our goal is to help you feel whole, connected and fully yourself again.

This presentation will help participants be able to describe sexual health, intimacy and pleasure, while also recognizing common physical changes after breast cancer that may affect sexual health.

In addition, participants will understand how life experiences can affect desire, intimacy and pleasure, and explore ways to support physical and emotional sexual well-being.

This is a complimentary event for those affected by breast cancer.

For questions or for more information, please call (360) 952-3814 or email programs@pinklemonadeproject.org

This event is presented in partnership with Providence Cancer Institute.

Our presenters:

Nora M Lersch DNP, FNP-BC, AOCNP, MSCP

Nora Lersch is a board‑certified family and oncology nurse practitioner with more than 30 years of clinical experience. Since 2009, her work in gynecologic oncology and breast cancer care—first at UPMC in Pittsburgh and now at Providence Cancer Institute—has shaped her deep commitment to supporting the sexual health and overall, well‑being of people navigating cancer.

In 2020, she founded the Women’s Integrative Sexual Health Clinic to provide dedicated, evidence‑based care for women experiencing sexual health challenges related to cancer and its treatments.

After relocating to Portland, Oregon in 2022, she established the Sexual Health Services program at Providence Cancer Institute. The program is designed to help vulva/vaginal owners understand and manage the sexual and menopausal changes that can arise during and after cancer care, with an emphasis on restoring comfort, confidence, and quality of life.

She is certified as a Sexuality Counselor through the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) and is also a Certified Menopause Practitioner. Her clinical approach centers on meeting patients wherever they are in their cancer journey and supporting them through concerns related to pain, desire, identity, and menopausal symptoms.

She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh and her Master of Science in Nursing from East Tennessee State University. She has lectured both locally and nationally about sexual health and cancer.

Michelle Ferretti, LCSW, OSW‑C

Michelle Ferretti is a certified oncology social worker at Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, OR with over a decade of experience. She believes deeply in people’s innate capacity to cope and heal and focuses on helping them (re)connect with that power. She is fascinated by the interplay of emotional and physical health and how that relates to sexual well-being. Previously, at Peterson Life with Cancer in the DC area,

Michelle led a four‑program emotional coping curriculum and co‑developed a training that has equipped over 100 psychosocial professionals to deliver an introductory coping skill program, Mind Over Matter (MOM).She led research on the efficacy and cultural relevance of MOM, and researches cancer-related brain fog.

Michelle has published in the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology and patient‑focused publications like My Life Matters, and speaks on brain fog, integrative oncology, sexual health, and emotional coping. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Catholic University’s School of Social Service and completed University of Michigan’s Sexual

Health Certificate Program and their NCI‑funded Integrative Oncology Scholars program.