What HPV Does to a Life

so today i stand before you as a sexual

health specialist

now i didn’t exactly take the

traditional path to get me

to where i am today in fact i have a

story to tell you how i got to where i

am today

and it starts with this picture taken of

my best friend and i

in december of 2000 when she gave me a

great christmas present

it was called the girlfriend’s keepsake

book she took several months

and she wrote all kinds of different

memories

and took a little memorabilia of all the

things that we had lived throughout all

of our teenage years

that started with us meeting actually

when we were 14 at high school

we had a friend she caught the story in

the book

about how a girl at school thought that

we look similar and we bumped into each

other and met in the school bathroom

and i asked her to go to this guy

charlie’s party

and there was an exclamation mark there

because at the time it was such a big

to-do

because this guy was in the top five

hotties of our school

and so if you were selected by him to go

to a party you felt like a chosen one

so when i bumped into her in the

bathroom it clicked

and that very evening we went to this

party and i was lucky not only did i

meet my one best friend that night but i

also met my other best friend

and from that moment on we really were

the three musketeers

where there was two the third one was

never far behind

and we were careless i say it like that

because we weren’t worried about the

bigger things in life like our health we

were just living our life doing our

thing and for the most part

like a lot of teenagers and we left our

rights of passage together

you know those things that we live in

our childhood years our teen years our

adult years and when we look back

there’s things that stand out well for

us

it was really probably thousands of

hours of talking on the phone

lots of great partying shopping getting

our first tattoos on our ankles together

starting school every year we lived

through love we lived through life

we lived through having four children

between the two of us and i

actually had the honor of being in her

wedding

and i never forget that day having that

time during the ceremony sitting in the

front view of the church and having that

time to think about

all the things that we had lived over

all the years of our friendship and

growing up

and to see that we had come out on the

other end and our friendship had lasted

the test of time and then i was getting

to see her cross over into her adult

life and meet her partner

and to this day it’s definitely one of

my fondest memories

with my best friend

and i say this evening was the night the

story starts is because you know that’s

night she gave me this girlfriend’s

keepsake book but it was also

the type of picture where i say if i

knew then

what i knew now uh this is where

things really took a turn and we got

smacked in the face

with something called hpv actually uh

right after that picture was taken

in fact you know this very evening

and caught it on camera we were hanging

out like we did monday night

and the kids got tired so we put them to

bed

and we were just watching tv together

and she went to the washroom and the

next thing you know she’s yelling for me

to go to the washroom and she’s standing

there in a puddle

of blood obviously this was really

concerning

so she heads to the hospital and the

doctor comes in to

see her and they end up doing a biopsy

the results come back

and he explains her that she has hpv

which is something

none of us back in 2000

had ever heard of so he then explained

to her that he needed to do a procedure

to take care of it

so a week later he went in he cleaned

out all this hpv

this pre-cancer and stapled her up and

then she did radiation

and came out six months later stronger

and happy that they got it all and she

was feeling

better and

then all of a sudden she started being

really tired and

having a slower back and not feeling

great so she decided to go get a checkup

with her oncologist

and then at that appointment actually he

explained to her that that hpv that they

went in and took care of

unfortunately it had turned into

cervical cancer actually

and that not only had it turned into

cervical cancer it had spread throughout

all of her lymph nodes

and then at the age of 23 sitting in

that appointment

she was told that she had approximately

69 months to live

well unfortunately that’s not exactly

how things went

in fact she did an incredibly quick

downworld swirl

and from the day that she got this news

to the day that she passed away

it was an incredibly short seven weeks

in fact she passed away on my son’s

first birthday

may 2001 and now i’m left with this book

this very precious book that i look at

from time to time

but there’s actually a catch to my story

back when she was told about this hpv

for the first time

she had time to get ready for this

procedure she went home and googled hpv

and

when she found out all this information

online

she called me up and she was so pissed

to find out that she had something that

no one had ever told her about

she had a family doctor a full education

a couple of kids but yet

i’d never heard of this well so she was

so angry

she pulled out a pen and paper and wrote

to oprah dear oprah

i want to get on your show and i want to

be teaching people everywhere about this

so

nobody else goes down this same path

that i’ve gone down

well unfortunately she only got a couple

of paragraphs into that letter

and she got quick so fast she never even

had the time

to finish so no this letter never got

sent she just got

stashed away

but it definitely made it that you know

uh

it’s interesting how things will have

turned now because of that story about

how we need to be spreading awareness i

mean

there’s me and my other best friend

leaning on each other after she passed

and that grieving process really led us

to feel overwhelmed and needing to do

something about hpv

so we started off the year after by

doing a run

to raise awareness about hpv and then

that led into a second run the following

year

and then about five years down the road

i was driving actually and it dawned on

me in that moment and i pulled out a

bill

and flipped it over and took out a

lipstick crayon and i wrote this message

on

on the back of the bill that i needed to

use my voice

because people need to know about what

hpv does to life and it was my calling

to do something and this stumbled into a

year later the creation of hpv global

action

which is canada’s trusted source for

information

about everything and anything to do with

hpv we’re the registered

charity for canada and

it’s led us to have education and

communication methods that we are

spreading

throughout the globe helping all

countries

with this preventable and important

virus that we need to be talking much

more about

and i like to do a disclaimer when i

talk about hpv because it really is

information for everybody

it doesn’t matter what your religion is

your gender or your sexual orientation

or your age even

you might be saying to yourself hmm i

don’t really think that this has

anything to do with me

but you definitely have people in your

life for whom this does apply and that’s

why everybody needs to know more about

hpd

so what is hpv well

it’s the human papillomavirus and it

actually has 180

different strains and their number each

could be 1 2 3 and so on and some of

them

can lead to problems now unfortunately

there’s no signs and symptoms typically

for this virus

and it’s spread via sexual activity

well that word sexual activity is a

really interesting word i think we need

to break that down

so let’s be clear what is being sexually

active well it’s actually

the minute that you go below the belt

and i bring

my friends sally and joe everywhere i go

with their red belts

to be really clear about what this

really means

so everything that we do below this

waistline and above our knees front to

back

everything we do with our hands

everything we do with our mouths

everything and anything we do below that

waistline is when we’re sexually active

and if we take a real look at what this

definition is

this actually includes using our mouth

and our hands and our fingers to

pleasure someone below the belt

it also includes

putting a penis or an object into a

vagina or a bite

and surprisingly for some to learn

rubbing up against each other with skin

to skin contact

below the belt is also being sexually

active

so a little fact is that over 75

of the population will come into contact

with one form or another

of hpv in their lifetime and what that

means in a room full of people

is that three out of four will have had

in hpv

at some point in their life that’s

shocking how is this possible why

well that’s because it only takes one

infected partner

one time you do not need to have a long

list of sexual partners to be

considering whether this could be

something that’s happened to you in fact

unfortunately as much as condoms are a

really important protection against

unwanted pregnancies

and a long list of sexually transmitted

infections

even condoms don’t completely protect us

against hpv

because a condom only shields the

genital area and there’s other parts

that have a skin skin contact so

no we are not completely protected from

hpv even with a condom

so there’s sally and joe from behind and

they’re wearing

socks and i use this analogy because

these represent our sexuality actually

their sexuality is actually something

that like we carry around with us

and it just follows us through there but

it’s not something that we see

but in this you know let’s think you

know these two people

they get together they get jiggy with it

pick your activity of choice they do

something sexual below the waistline and

what’s going to happen to sally and joe

well actually they’re going to be

getting whatever the other one has in

their knapsacks and we could look at

these knapsacks actually all day long i

don’t know what’s in them

there may be things in there that are

going to go away on their own there may

be things in there that need treatment

there may be things in there that could

actually lead to something worse like a

disease or

a cancer but like i said earlier there’s

no signs and symptoms typically to hpv

so it’s really difficult to know but not

only that

we’re not only collecting what the

person that we’ve just been with has

we’re collecting what they’ve got from

the person that they have

for them and the person that they’ve had

before them so by being with one person

it’s limitless how many things we could

have come into contact with

so what happens after we get in hpv well

any of these things can happen you could

get an hpv that goes away on its own

you could give genital warts or if it’s

left untreated

hpv can also lead to a cancer clearly

there’s no point in talking about hpv’s

that go away on their own

so talking about genital warts they come

from hpv and you get them by any skin

sexual contact

even without penetration let’s be clear

this means you don’t need to stick your

equipment into any hole

just by skin-to-skin contact below the

waistline and above the knees

front to back we’re coming into contact

with the possibility of this

and also if you have this type it could

take many months or even

years before these words will appear so

you could be with somebody now

and it not present symptoms for many

many years to come

and also you can still give hpv without

actually having this physical symptom

and signs of genital warts so what that

would look like is that you have that

hpv

you give it to every single person that

you go below the waistline with

but you don’t actually get that physical

symptom yourself

so shocking yes

these are the cancers that are caused by

hpv we have tonsil and vocal cord cancer

tongue

cancer throat cancer anal cancer

cervical cancer vulvar cancer vaginal

cancer penile cancer

i’d be asking yourself how are we seeing

or pharyngeal cancers above the

shoulders

how is this possible well ask ourselves

the question how many of us are actually

protecting our mouths when we’re

performing oral sex on a partner not

very many of us

so we’re actually contracting the hpv

through our mouths

and unfortunately the most devastating

part of this information is that any of

these cancers could stay asleep in a

person’s body for up to 40 years

before they will present symptoms that

they have a problem

so specifically we can screen for

cervical cancer so if we have a cervix

it’s really important to be getting our

regular screening

because half of the diagnosis of people

with the cervix that are diagnosed with

cervical cancer are under the age of 50.

and i think the most powerful and

important statement we can say about

cervical cancer today

is that it’s one of the most preventable

cancers that exist right now in the 21st

century which means we don’t need to

have women

and people with cervixes continue to die

from cervical cancer it should be

something from the past

now getting vaccinated against hpv is

probably the most important takeaway for

me to send to

everyone here listening today hpv

vaccination is safe and effective and

it’s the best proven protection from

this virus

that’s just the bottom line there’s been

over 300 million doses

of hpv vaccine given around the globe

and everyone from the ages of nine and

up benefit from getting vaccinated

regardless of your age gender

sexuality or your relationship status

and my last important point about

getting vaccinated is that because

there’s no screening for people with a

penis

getting vaccinated against hpv is the

only protection

my takeaways for today are really

looking into getting vaccinated no

matter your age gender and relationship

status

if you have a cervix get screened and

talk to your loved ones about getting

the hpv vaccine and getting screened

you know i hope for future

generations that you will be guided

um by the impulse of love to take action

and prevent this tragedy from happening

to your loved ones

i so wish that my friend had been the

last person taken from hpv

and in turn i think i’m grateful that

i’ve turned into a visible force

to fight this invisible force of hpv