Christine Baze is an accomplished musician and a family and marriage therapist from outside of Boston. At 35, she is also a cervical cancer survivor and has become a vocal activist for raising awareness of cervical cancer and opportunities to prevent this deadly disease.
Christine’s story begins with music. She began training in classical piano at age four and later studied music at the State University of New York – Geneseo, while also training to become a licensed therapist. In 1998 Ms. Baze formed her first band and by 2000, they were well-known on the Boston music scene. She had steady gigs and was cited by the Boston Globe as “the next best thing to come out of Boston.” In early 2000, Ms. Baze left her job as an eating disorders therapist to pursue her dream of becoming a rock star.
Everything changed for Christine in early 2000 when she woke up and found blood. In April, she was diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. The diagnosis was a complete shock, as she had been going for her annual Pap smear diligently since she was 18 and had always had normal results. Her diagnosis was quickly followed by a radical hysterectomy and other surgery, and several rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.
She beat the cancer, but, exhausted and with her life as she knew it changed forever, she fell into a deep depression. Only after a lot of extremely hard work, was she able to pull herself out of it. Getting the passion back for her music took much, much longer.
When the passion finally did return, Christine celebrated her two-year remission by forming her current band, the Skills of Ortega, and playing a sell-out benefit concert in Boston to raise money for cervical cancer prevention. She also formed her own non-profit organization called Popsmear.org and in 2003 took her band on a six-city tour, dubbed the “Yellow Umbrella” tour, to raise awareness around the issue.
Ms. Baze now uses her voice and her organization Popsmear.org to empower others to take action, to educate women around the need for screening with the most advanced technologies, and to hopefully prevent other women from having to experience what she went through. This past fall, Ms. Baze expanded her “Yellow Umbrella” tour to 22 cities to continue to raise awareness around this important women’s health issue, and plans to do the same in 2005.
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