My name is Claudia Perez-Favela. I was born and raised in Sinaloa, Mexico, and now live in Imperial, California, a small border town near Baja California. I have three children. I  am an older daughter/sister, a wife, a caregiver, a friend,  a full-time college student, and a cervical cancer survivor.

I moved to the United States in 2010. For years, I didn’t have health insurance and continued receiving gynecological care in Tijuana, Mexico. In 2017, I experienced heavy bleeding. We finally obtained insurance through my husband’s job in 2018. I  scheduled my first gynecological appointment in the United States. Despite receiving annual Pap tests that always came back normal, my blood work this time indicated a high-risk strain of HPV. A follow-up colposcopy revealed precancerous cells in my cervix.

My treatment was a radical hysterectomy. Given my family history—my mother passed away from ovarian cancer in 2013—I also asked for my ovaries to be removed. On April 25, 2018, I underwent surgery. Thankfully, the biopsy confirmed no evidence of disease, and I have been in remission and living with surgical menopause since May 2018.

Nothing prepared me for the shock of hearing, “You have cancer.” The stigma, confusion, and assumptions about how I contracted HPV were incredibly painful. That experience, along with the emotional toll of survivorship, drove me to become an advocate.

Today, I use my story to raise awareness, educate others, and advocate for change. I’m a member of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and volunteer as a lobbyist in my congressional district. I also returned to school to pursue a bachelor’s in criminal justice and plan to work in public policy.

I share my story to show that cervical cancer is preventable and survivable—and that no one should feel ashamed or alone.