(photo credit: Kate Inglis)
My husband calls me his funky muppet.
Maybe it’s the bouncy curls?
The skinny arms?
The way I dance?
He says if I were a Muppet I’d be Janice.
He means it as a compliment, I know that.
I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend.
A good friend.
I am a lover. Love is my beacon, my inner compass.
Love is all there is when you get down to the very core of everything.
Once you are in my heart, you are there always… I will never forget you.
Connection is deeply important to me.
(The real, vulnerable kind, the kind that makes you know yourself better.)
I am creative: I write, I photograph, I make.
I haven’t yet tried to paint, but there is a mural brewing in my basement.
I sing in the car, I dance in my kitchen.
My favorite place is my kitchen.
And my office space surrounded by windows.
And the public library, or a vast meandering used bookstore.
And cuddling with my family.
And my garden.
And Paris.
(Yes, definitely Paris.)
Good morning,
I enjoyed reading your editorial in the Washington Post this weekend. Although I am a health care provider I am also the mom of four, and the decision to vaccinate and on what schedule is always a tough one. There is a glaring error stated in your article regarding the HPV vaccine, however. Though the theory is that the HPV vaccine can prevent most types of cervical cancer, the best estimates are even up to 70%, it is not an absolute and does not prevent “the only known cause” of cervical cancer. 3 out of 10 women who develop cervical cancer will not be helped by the HPV vaccine. I urge you to make your own correction, lest you or other mothers and women have false confidence in their own or their daughter’s risk of developing cervical cancer. Many women even now do not receive annual PAP smears to detect cervical cell abnormalities, and that is without thinking they are somehow immune.
As a healthcare provider I am also curious, did your family doctor tell you that? For me that takes it to a scary level. Nowhere in medical literature does it state that HPV vaccines prevent the only cause of cervical cancer, so I would be curious as to where he or she is getting their information. Scaring patients is not the way to responsibly urge compliance.
Thank you again for your thoughtful article,
Catherine Camp, DC
Thank you for your comment. I agree with you strongly about the importance of getting annual pap smears, even for those vaccinated for HPV. To clarify about HPV’s connection to cervical cancer: While there are other causes of cervical cancer, the human papilloma virus (HPV) is the only KNOWN cause (of 70% of those cancers) and very well targeted by the vaccines. While the vaccine won’t stop every case, rates of cervical cancer are falling due to the vaccine.
New study shows HPV vaccine helping lower HPV infection rates in teen girls
HPV and Cancer