The problem was not the procedure itself, but the stigma that I thought came with HPV. Here I was, with the beginnings of the most intimate sort of cancer, and there was no one with whom I could share the ordeal. My boyfriend wasn’t around, and I felt too ashamed to talk to my girlfriends about the problem. After all, it was partially my fault, wasn’t it? I got HPV from sex and I had convinced myself I somewhat deserved the virus for not being careful enough. I didn’t want them to think I was dirty. HPV is the good girl’s disease. Women who have done everything right, who have had only one sexual partner, women who come from any and every class, get it. And, like the subject of a failing bank account at a dinner party, no one wants to talk about it.
I went through the next three months like this, ashamed and terrified, and just waiting for the next Pap smear to see if my cells had righted themselves or if they had grown into full-blown cancer. Then, one girl’s night after a few glasses of red wine, I grew brave enough to raise the topic with my friends and was surprised to find how many of them had gone through similar experiences. Almost half of them had had their own abnormal Pap scares and one had even had a colposcopy. With our blinders off and the wine lubricating our conversation, I came to shed some of the worry that had haunted me over the last few months and understood just how important this support system was.
Because no matter how effective or embraced this new vaccine is (that will only be told through time) I am thankful for the drug’s commercials. It’s sad that we women have been silent for so long on this matter, and it’s shameful that it takes a drug company to get us talking. HPV is a virus that exclusively (at least physically) hurts women. We women, then, must be responsible for finding the voice that both sounds an alarm and soothes the infected. Hopefully, these ads are a start, and perhaps they, coupled with a new understanding of the issue, will open up the mouths of women who are suffering and the ears of the others, their sisters.
