True Life Story: HPV
Senator Debbie Halvorson reveal what she wishes she knew before treating HPV. Learn about her early life, diagnosis and treatment process.
In this episode of True Life Story, Senator Debbie Halvorson talks about her early life and how she found out she was living with HPV.
This video features Isabel Blumberg, MD. Dr. Blumberg is a clinical instructor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive science.
Duration: 5:30. Last Updated On: Nov. 8, 2017, 6:14 p.m.
- 00:00 [MUSIC].
- 00:12 I'm Senator Debbie Halvorson.
- 00:14 I'm the majority leader here in Illinois.
- 00:17 I'm 49 years old, and I've been a Senator here in Illinois since 1997.
- 00:23 I was probably the person that you would never expect to
- 00:26 see here sitting across from you as the Senate majority leader.
- 00:29 And the question is, does the Senate advise and
- 00:32 consent to the appointments just read from the governor's message of.
- 00:35 As we grew up, it was time for college, and my mom said, you know what, Debbie?
- 00:39 We're gonna save college for the boys.
- 00:42 You know, you're just gonna get married, have kids.
- 00:43 I was married at 21, and I had my first child at 23 and
- 00:47 my second one at 25, and perfectly happy stay at home mom.
- 00:52 But I still loved politics.
- 00:56 Debbie Halvorson.
- 00:57 Gradually worked my way up until 2005 when.
- 01:01 The Senate president appointed me his majority leader.
- 01:04 The Senate does advise and consent to the appointments just read.
- 01:08 [SOUND] I'm the first woman ever in the history of Illinois to hold this position.
- 01:13 [BLANK_AUDIO].
- 01:18 Like everybody, you know, you try to go to your doctor for
- 01:21 your annual pap smear every year.
- 01:24 Well, I got busy running for senator, and things got crazy and,
- 01:28 you know, as women, we usually put ourselves off.
- 01:32 So one day I went back, after a few years, and I had an abnormal pap smear.
- 01:38 My doctor called me, and I answer the phone and
- 01:42 my doctor said are you sitting down?
- 01:44 And that's when he proceeded to tell me that I was at high risk for
- 01:48 cervical cancer and that I needed more tests.
- 01:51 And he goes well, I think you have HPV.
- 01:54 [SOUND] I said what is HPV?
- 01:58 I had absolutely no idea.
- 02:01 My doctor said.
- 02:02 HPV is a sexually transmitted disease.
- 02:04 I'm like, you're kidding.
- 02:08 And, and, and he just made it seem so bad.
- 02:11 You know, it, it was just sad because then, of course,
- 02:16 I couldn't tell anybody what was going on in my life because I felt ashamed.
- 02:20 Here I am, a senator.
- 02:22 It's 2002.
- 02:24 And I had no idea what it was.
- 02:26 Come to find out,
- 02:26 it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of partners you have.
- 02:31 One could, you know, do it.
- 02:33 As I went through all the many tests,
- 02:36 each time it came back with high risk for cervical cancer.
- 02:40 The hardest part about hearing the words cancer, HPV.
- 02:46 Abnormal cells, you don't ever expect that they're gonna say that to you.
- 02:50 And so I said, I have to get rid of it, so let's just have a hysterectomy.
- 02:53 That is one way of making sure that cervical cancer never is something that
- 02:58 you have to worry about.
- 03:01 My doctor said, you know you don't have to have a hysterectomy.
- 03:04 I said, I don't care, I'm going to.
- 03:05 Never even allowing myself to.
- 03:09 Grieve or mourn, I just said I wanna be done with it.
- 03:12 I didn't take into consideration I was only 44 years old,
- 03:16 I was gonna have hormones one day and absolutely nothing the next.
- 03:20 So overnight I was thrown into menopause.
- 03:23 And if I had it to do over again I'm not sure I would have done it the same way.
- 03:27 But, that's why I spend all my time educating other young women and, and
- 03:32 people about this issue.
- 03:34 [BLANK_AUDIO].
- 03:38 I wasn't married to Jim at the time but he was like my rock.
- 03:44 He was there to listen.
- 03:47 I've always been very health conscious, however, I take more time for myself now.
- 03:53 I find that I don't care what's going on around me, I get my yearly exams,
- 03:57 I get my mammogram and, and even though I've had a hysterectomy you still get
- 04:01 pap smears, there's a lot that goes in to make sure you take care of your health.
- 04:06 Since June when the HPV vaccine was approved by the FDA.
- 04:12 That's when we started working on making sure that everybody had
- 04:15 the opportunity to get the vaccine.
- 04:18 I need all the help I can get.
- 04:20 So we went back to session in January of this past year, and I filed a legislation.
- 04:25 The.
- 04:26 Pediatricians said you need to mandate this.
- 04:30 If you don't mandate this vaccine,
- 04:32 nobody will get it, and then we'll never eradicate cervical cancer.
- 04:36 Almost 85 percent to 90 percent of females will get HPV at some point in their life,
- 04:42 but most people have the ability to eliminate it from their system.
- 04:47 It's not popular thing to do,
- 04:49 but my job is to make sure nobody else has to go through what I did.
- 04:53 If HPV could be gotten through coughing,
- 04:55 people would be lined up out their doctor's doors.
- 04:58 If this was a vaccine against breast cancer, they'd be lined up.
- 05:02 But unfortunately HPV is through sexual contact and no parent.
- 05:07 Wants to believe that their child's ever gonna have sex.
- 05:10 But again, it's about protecting them from possibly ever getting cervical cancer.
- 05:16 If you are diagnosed with HPV, I encourage people to talk about it.
- 05:21 You need to know that the person sitting on either side of
- 05:24 you probably is going through the same thing.
- 05:27 [BLANK_AUDIO].
