I just got off the phone and just received the worst news.

A very close friend was just diagnosed with first stage cervical cancer.

I cannot believe it. She’s the perfect picture of health. She looks great, plays tennis like Sharapova (or even better) and she’s the happiest person I know. We met in 2007 in the Middle East at a dinner party and after a day of shopping, we were inseparable. Her husband used to call us B1 and B2 ( from Bananas in Pajamas). We still saw a lot of each other after she moved to Singapore. She’s been my second home in SE Asia and I was  just planning on seeing her in three weeks and this came up. The bad news.

She is a lot of wonderful things. But, she is lazy. Like most of us.

She’s very bad at seeing her doctors. She often missed appointments and annual check-ups. When she found out she was HPV positive a few years ago, she did not do anything about it, hoping that it will just go away on it’s own. The virus did not go away.               Now, she’s scheduled for surgery in two weeks.

I am scared and I am so mad because she knew better. Like the common cold, it could have been prevented. Her husband calls her ‘Princess’ and her beautiful 10-year old son lovingly calls her ‘Okasan’. It’s not fair to all of us.

A week of antibiotics and a shot of vaccine, that is all it took.

This is what every woman should know. In this day and age, there’s just no excuse for not knowing and not wanting to know.

Please take a moment and read this article from NY Times. A Lifesaving Tool Against Cervical Cancer Remains Underused 

Hope it helps.