I started treatment for cervical cancer in spring of 2016. One of the first things I did was start searching for those with my cancer. When I found Cervivor, I immediately knew it was special. It was a sisterhood of survivors, but they were also advocates! Cervivor was dedicated to eradicating our cancer. It wasn’t just a group of women looking for support, but it was a group of women who had been through it and were DOING something! I like to say that joining Cervivor and being trained at Cervivor School has given me advocacy wings. I have had many opportunities both in my community and on the national level to participate in events as a Cervivor Ambassador. Most recently I was asked to represent our organization at the National HPV Vaccination Roundtable, in Atlanta. I had interacted on the Roundtable’s Facebook page, and felt like I had working knowledge of the collaboration. They are about stopping HPV…sign me up!
The Roundtable meeting began with a lunch. I arrived alongside Tamika Felder, Cervivor’s founder. The first thing I noticed was 
that we could hardly get to a spot at a table because everyone was wanting to speak with Tamika. They would greet her, as lifelong friends. Many of them had questions about Cervivor and other projects Tamika has in the works. Attendees were quickly inquiring about me and my role. They were interested in me as a Cervivor Ambassador and very excited to meet an HPV cancer survivor. I began to realize what it meant to be at this meeting. These were the countries top doctors, healthcare professionals, and researchers who had worked in this space for years! These were representatives from other organizations, our (Cervivor’s) partners in eradicating HPV and HPV related cancers! Tamika and Cervivor had been part of this collaborative group since it’s inception! I was so proud to be a part of a cancer nonprofit that is so well respected in this space. It further affirmed my initial feeling that when I found Cervivor, I found something special.
The meeting was an exciting two days packed with a lot of information and a lot of work! Each organization that is part of the Roundtable sends at least one representative. Those representatives are broken into task groups of their choosing. The task groups are just that, groups with an assigned task to help advance vaccination rates in the U.S. and spread awareness, education, and facts about HPV and the vaccine. The public educator in me was drawn to the “Empowering Parents and Allies” task group, as reaching families with knowledge is at the heart of many things I do. Most of the first day was spent in our task groups, reviewing previous work and annual goals, as well as setting new goals and collaborating with other task teams that may be partner groups in reaching these milestones. Our first evening was full of dinner presentations with updates from each task group and a celebration of the hard work and victories achieved by the Roundtable throughout the year.
The second day of the meeting was just as full. Each moment was packed with 
presentations from medical teams who are on the front line of vaccinating in the family practice setting, to panel discussions from research scientists on how the social media statistics can work in favor of our messaging. We had a working “Jeffersonian Lunch,” ensuring that time was purposeful and well spent. Every second was full of collaboration, information, and getting to the center of how we can change the HPV vaccination narrative in our country and strive to significantly reduce HPV cancer rates.To be honest there was so much information, that I joked with one of the other attendees at our table about how absolutely full my brain was by the end of lunch on day two. It felt as though it could not hold one more piece of information, fact, or even tidbit. I had officially hit my limit and the “meeting glaze” took over. You know, the glaze you get when the presenter’s voice starts sounding like the Charlie Brown teacher?
It was an honor to work with such an amazing group of professionals. My eyes were opened and faces were given to the people who are diligently working to spread the truth about HPV and a vaccine that is cancer prevention. How exciting to see the position that Cervivor holds among the nations top scientists, doctors, and cancer organizations. We are part of that! We are on the front lines of eradicating HPV! Cervivor is right there, side by side, elbow to elbow! We are rolling up our sleeves and deep into the space of changing the narrative on this virus and educating the public on how acting now can impact generations to come! I was so proud to be a part of this National Roundtable, but I was even prouder to be representing Cervivor. We’re in!
Holly Lawson is a two year cervical cancer survivor. Cancer has left her with many challenges, including Chronic Kidney Disease, but she is fighting for her survivorship and currently training with the Ulman Cancer Fund in the Cancer to 5K Program. She is an active Cervivor Ambassdor, who is finding healing in advocacy and sharing her story.
As I’ve also learned in being part of this community now; the fear, uncertainty, ignorance and misunderstanding; has caused many to walk away from their loved ones. I’ve been told stories about how so many husbands have walked away from their spouses, children have blamed their mothers, and communities have shunned them in whispered rumor and judgement stricken with the narrow doctrines of puritanical ideologues. These women who have become victims of cervical cancer and other HPV related diseases were now the sorority of 
That was our first real conversation. From there I watched in awe as she battled every day an enemy that I could not kill. I waited with her as she lingered between states of consciousness and awareness in almost every area of her hospital and various clinics. I held her hands as she trembled from infections that caused mortal pain. I looked on in absolute shock and sadness as she bore the Frankenstein like scars on her body of what the doctors had to do her physically, to keep her alive. I held her as she cried, awash in depression, anger, fear, hate, and confusion at her own family and friends who were not there with her and did not appear nor could they truly understand what she was living through, and the battles that she won and lost in a war for everything she was. I watched as cancer broke her and everything that she held onto from a previous life — that seemed so distant and blurred with fondly recalled memories; seemingly fading a little more with each passing day where she lingered in its suffocating shadow. I watched Holly survive.
It’s holding the catheter bag filled with despair and fragile hope. Being a man is running to every CVS, Walgreens and 7-Eleven trying to find a back scratcher for her to use on her legs as she cannot bend down to reach them while she lies between fits of incredible pain to dimly coherent conversations laced with the morphine that eases some of the suffering. Being a man is staying awake all night to rub her back as gently as possible, so that she may rest for even just a moment; knowing full well that your workday is going to be pure hell after driving at least an hour one way just to get here on time. I’ve discovered that many men have not done this. They walked away. They have left the mother of their children and their partners of some years because she has suffered a blow to her very existence. A man does not harm his partner and does not leave her side because she is suffering through something that she did not cause.