Catherine

I'm not sure why I never knew or heard of HPV growing up and I'm not sure if it never happened to me if I'd care as much as I do now. I was in my early 20's when I learned I had HPV and that I would need to undergo a partial hysterectomy. The Doctor treating me acted like the virus was common and my life would go unchanged, but all I knew was that I was dying.

Dying from what I called "sexually transmitted cancer" and now I was going to have to have major surgery. The scary part about all this was that I was ashamed to tell anyone. It was easier to utter the words "Cancer" than to mention HPV and tell people how it’s transmitted. Everyone would probably think I did something to "earn" what I got. In fact, I really had! Had I have been more knowledgeable about the disease, I could have armored myself. I would have been equipped with all the information I needed to live my life healthy. I had only had one boyfriend and at the time I found out about the HPV and the Cervical Cancer, I was about to deliver my first child. In my eyes, I was already a statistic and now had two titles associated with me...Cancer and Teen Mother!

I underwent a partial hysterectomy because my parents refused to accept that Cancer was going to take my life. All I can remember my Mother saying was "She'll go through worse things than this. She's going to win this battle". And after months of the pain associated with the cancer, I went on to finish college, raise my daughter, enter graduate school and become more than a statistic, but a survivor. It's been 14 years and I'm cancer free, but because of my circumstance, I can tell my daughters about HPV and Cervical Cancer prevention.