BOOK NOTES: AN UNCOMFORTABLE TASK BUT SOMEONE’S GOT TO DO IT

What struck me when I started writing book notes were the words from who knows where I found them, but here they are, “You’d better love the the book topic because at some point you’re going to hate it.”

And it’s true, except I sort of hated it from the start since my book notes were for a cancer memoir.

My faithful readers expect a cancer post every so often, and with my 90K word manuscript undergoing another edit to go along with the other edits, I’ll post more often to push my authority.

What authority, you ask?

Let’s agree that everyone who’s had a traumatic health event is an expert on how they navigated to a safer place. We agree? Good, then let’s also agree that not everyone has blogged thousands of posts into the wind, then had a traumatic health event.

That would be me.

From deegeesbb.wordpress.com to boomepdx.com I’ve covered the human condition as well as uncovered a few new ones.

My particular health trauma, hpv16 throat cancer plus treatment, revealed more than I wanted to know. Then I learned even more.

Adding Book Notes

From Dr. Michael Moore, director of head and neck surgery at UC Davis and an HPV-related cancer expert:

Q: How does HPV cause cancer?

A: Most people who are infected clear the virus on their own. In a small group of people it hangs around and causes a persistent infection. Around 1% of US adults have a persistent HPV 16 infection, and in a small subset of these individuals the DNA of the virus incorporates itself into the DNA of the person infected and can start to make proteins that then predispose that person to developing cancer.

This is the sort of thing my book, working title of Licking Cancer in the Beaver State, LCBS, will clear up. The small subset of 1% of US adults with a persistent infection is about to grow real fast. My goal, since I’m a member in good standing, is to prevent that from happening.

Or at least making awareness part of the program.

Q: How prevalent are HPV-related throat cancers?

A: Traditionally, the risk factors for head and neck cancers were tobacco and alcohol use, but over the last 20 or 30 years we found the rates of those cancers going down because smoking rates have gone down. Meanwhile, the incidence of head and neck cancers related to HPV has gone up more than 200 percent over this time period. This increase has been so dramatic that HPV-related throat cancer has recently surpassed cervical cancer as the most common HPV-related cancer in the United States.

Licking Cancer in the Beaver State aims to connect the dots in the mystery of rising hpv16 neck cancer and cervical cancer.

I’ve done the research with book notes

Q: Why are the rates going up?

A: Unlike with cervical cancer, in which the PAP smear is highly effective at finding potentially cancerous or pre-cancerous cells, there is no good screening test for these head and neck cancers. Currently, the use of swab tests for HPV is effective in finding out if you have an HPV infection, but not in determining if the infection will be persistent or if you will ever develop cancer. As a result, such tests are not endorsed as a way to screen for these tumors.

LCBS uses man on the street experience to reveal how we learn about hpv16 cancer. My main example is this man on my street. In other words, me.

How did I find out I was f’d?

Q: Do both men and women get these cancers?

A: Men are four times more likely to be diagnosed with an HPV-related head and neck cancer. Researchers don’t yet know why. It may have to do with sexual practices or related to the types of exposure they receive. The local or systemic immune system may also play a role.

This is where the plot thickens, where the hpv16 throat cancer mystery grows even murkier. No one wants to say it for fear of stigma and reprisal, so leave it to the blogger:

What sort of map, diagram, or equation do experts need to connect sex cancer passed between partners? Even if it’s a ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg’ discussion, it’s still a chicken and an egg.

I’ll take a chance and say hpv16 cancer is passed between partners like this: A to B, or B to A, followed by the rest of the alphabet. (I was an English major once, never a science major.)

Q: Can HPV-related head and neck cancers be prevented?

A: We have a very effective vaccine against HPV, and we know the vaccine can prevent oral HPV infections. In fact, studies have shown that the vaccine is 93 percent effective in preventing the oral infections that cause head and neck cancers. We recommend two injections for adolescents under age 15 and three for those over 15. The vaccine is recommended for children age 10-11, but vaccination can start in children as young as age 9, and in boys as late as age 21 and in girls as late as 26. It is also important to maintain safe sexual practices and avoid other potentially cancer-causing exposures such as tobacco, alcohol and marijuana.

I read the numbers, you read the numbers; do they look like as much nonsense to you as they do to me?

Here’s what they mean, and what LCBS book notes show: Thirty five hits of high dose neck burning, tissue searing, cancer tumor killing radiation, along with three jolts of muscle erasing, mind numbing, side effected liquid fire known as chemo, for a cancer with a vaccine is not a question of choice from here.

People call themselves cancer survivors because of the rigorous treatment that warps even the most locked down secrets of mortality. It makes you face death in a way no one should, a slow insidious death we accept in order to live.

Then we get better and write a book called Licking Cancer in the Beaver State. (Beaver State is Oregon’s nickname.)

Q: What are the main barriers to vaccination?

A: Studies have shown that the biggest reason kids don’t get it is lack of physician endorsement or recommendation. The American Cancer Society is trying to change that, asking physicians to introduce it to parents when they discuss other adolescent vaccines. There has also been concern that parents aren’t comfortable talking about sexuality with their children, and some have worried that if the child gets the vaccine they are more likely to be sexually active. That theory has been debunked in scientific studies.

(Thank you for reading book notes to this point. You may want to skip the next part.)

I didn’t let my kids watch The Simpson’s growing up because I wanted them to have their own ideas on how to be kids. And I understand why parents don’t want to discuss oral sex with their kids.

My adult children asked after I got the cancer news, “So you were that guy?”

What guy did they mean?

It’s awkward? Yes, it’s awkward. It’s embarrassing? Yes, which is a main driver in Licking Cancer in the Beaver State. From book notes to final draft, it’s been more than embarrassing. What is even more embarrassing than contracting and treating HPV16 Neck Cancer, is the willful ignorance of letting it spread.

Spoiler Alert: sex cancer is caused by sex.

Honest communication is the biggest threat to the spread of sex cancer. LCBS lays a foundation of effective communication, as well a being educational, funny, profane, and historical.

What’s that sound like to you? Pre-order soon.