Having decided on a life of public service, Kristina Marty pursued public administration both in various jobs related to health and human services and within an academic context. At a certain point, health became something much more than the academic for her. Somehow her ability to find her way through came from an earlier dose of adversity. Find out how learning what you can and can't control can ultimately guide you to a little serenity and gratitude.
Having decided on a life of public service, Kristina Marty pursued public administration immediately after graduating college—first in a masters of public administration program and then in various practitioner roles, mostly focused on health and human services agencies. After these work experiences, which included a little research, she decided to go back for her PhD and looked at public administration from the academic side. Starting in a tenure track position and a newborn and felt the crush of trying to do it all but somehow she kept things together. At a certain point, however, she learned that all was not as it seemed and the marriage that she was relying on dissolved.
The lessons she learned from dealing with this unexpected and unwelcome wrench in the plans taught her a lot about what to do when your first choice outcome is no longer in the set of realistic options. And when health became something more than academic for her, she relied on the lessons learned with her earlier dose of adversity.
In this episode, find out from Kristina how learning what you can and can't control can ultimately guide you to a little serenity and gratitude.
About This Episode’s Guest
Kristina Marty is a mother and cancer survivor Kristina Marty who also currently serves as Senior Associate Dean in the College of Community and Public Affairs, and Professor of Public Administration at Binghamton University. As she suggested, if you have young people in your life, learn more about the HPV vaccine at cdc.gov/hpv and encourage them to get the vaccine, if eligible.
For another story about learning fundamental lessons from adversity, listen to our episode with Doug Asano.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Kristina Marty: Probably the greatest gift, when I think of like what the divorce gave me, is it gave me a chance to really reevaluate who I want to be, and that's been a real evolution. But that's probably the greatest gift that it gave me, is that opportunity to reset. It's made me a much happier, happier person.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Having decided on a life of public service, Kristina Marty pursued public administration both in various jobs related to health and human services and within an academic context. At a certain point, health became something much more than the academic for her. Somehow her ability to find her way through came from an earlier dose of adversity. Find out how learning what you can and can't control can ultimately guide you to a little serenity and gratitude on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today I'm here with Kristina Marty, and we are going to talk about roads that we get on and discovering maybe the why and where it's gonna take us next.
So Kristina, thanks so much for being here with us.
KM: Thank you for having me, Leslie. I really am excited.
LJR: Good. So I ask the same questions, even though it does become exciting because everyone answers them differently of all of my guests, and they are these two questions: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
KM: So I came to Dartmouth from a small town that was a suburb of Syracuse, New York: population, 5- or 6,000 people, and I came to Dartmouth, really excited to leave upstate New York to see the world. To grow. To kind of discover who I was. I was a really enthusiastic learner. I enjoyed my time away from Dartmouth probably as much as my time at Dartmouth. I did a Tucker Fellow[ship] in Jersey City teaching for a private school and living in a convent. That was interesting. I went to Italy. I did the Washington program. Also loved my major, it was great.
LJR: Which was government, right?
KM: Which was government. Yep. And I would say that I was intense. I think I'm probably still intense. I was very, very, driven by achievement to a fault, but that's who I was. And when I left Dartmouth, I knew that I wanted to have a positive effect on the world in some way. I really wanted to do some form of public service. I really thought that I would get an MPA as well as a teaching degree and do some sort of focus on educational administration. As it turned out, I left Dartmouth, got my MPA, but decided maybe it wasn't that the education part of it was so important to me, but it was women and children. And so I, after getting my MPA, I worked for Housing Authority as a grants administrator for a little while. Then I took my favorite job as a practitioner working for the county administrator in Onondaga County for Health and Human Services. I did that for a little while. Then I got married and my husband accepted the clerkship in Albany, so we needed to move. Then I worked for a nonprofit there for a little while, coordinating a pregnancy prevention program and doing some community-based research. Loved the community-based research, and so then I went back and I got my PhD in public administration. But again, public administration. It really focuses on training folks to be leaders in public and nonprofit organizations. And so this commitment to public service and a lot of my research is focused on health and human services. So that kind of thread has followed me through my path.
LJR: Kristina, did you go directly to the MPA program when you left?
KM: Yes. Yes. Yes I did. And it was supposed to be a year program. I did it in a year and a half because I was gonna be there for three years because my boyfriend, then fiancé was getting a law MPA and he was gonna be there for three years. So I didn't see like a huge rush.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. But that's young since we were…So you were talking about kind of being a voracious student and you'd gone to DC. But that was still in a kind of academic setting. So you hadn't really done the administration. You'd been leading in other ways, but not in [KM: Correct.] the practitioner world. So did you feel like, when you finally got out, you were able to apply all this stuff or did it feel, you know, kind of what was that feeling being a young person kind of pursuing this without having the earlier experience?
KM: I mean, so I work in and do advising in an MPA program now, and when I have students come to my office and we have a lot of students who are really young and go directly from their undergrad to their MPA and I'm just kind of privately groaning, thinking that'd be really good to be in the real world for a little while. And they say something crazy like, I don't know what I wanna do, and I'm running outta time. Look at that. I'm like, wow, I would love to be 22 again. It would be so awesome. You're less than half my age. So, you know, there is, I mean, I think I academically, I was a good writer. I had good communication skills, but I think that that wisdom that comes with life, I was short on that. You know, I think you get that from working. I also think you get that from living and just being in the world and having different things happen to you and I would've been much better my job now probably than I was then, even though I had the, you know, the, certainly the intellectual and analytical ability to do it. But I mean, I think when you're in a job and you're doing administration, and ironically, I do administration now in my job quite a bit. I'm a professor, but I'm also an associate dean, and so I do a lot of management and I lean so much on interpersonal skills, and that's at least 50% of my job now, probably more. And taking that time to think about how you wanna convey that message and that extra 15 minutes of reflection time of how you set it up, how people are gonna hear it, how you frame things is so important. And that investment that you make up front, I would've said at 23, oh, it's a great idea. Who's not gonna like it? Well, now I know there's a lot of reasons why you have to sell people and why you have to think it through and all that legwork is just as important as the idea.
LJR: Yeah, I think that's funny, but that you said ‘ironically’ that you're in this administrative [role], but I don't see the irony in it in that at all. It just seems like a natural progression of the leadership work you've done in the field as a practitioner putting together with all of the academic lenses that you bring to it. So you're in the school of where, where do you position yourself academically?
KM: So I'm in the Department of Public Administration within the College of Community and Public Affairs at Binghamton University. There are six different colleges at Binghamton, and I'm associate Dean of the college where I'm situated.
LJR: And so let's talk, I do wanna get to the administration part in your life as a dean, but let's talk about your research and the work that you do, because there has been that golden thread throughout everything that you do that really still centers women, children kind of wellbeing in what you do, right?
KM: Yeah. So I've done a lot on the management of health and human service organizations 'cause I am really interested in how these organizations are run because I think of the populations that they serve. They serve, for example, homeless people with substance abuse issues, people with serious and persistent mental illness, children at risk children. Essentially people without voices and so ensuring that these individuals are receiving the services that they need. Often these are people who are very vulnerable and often these services are delivered when people are in crisis, and how important that is that these organizations are well run, you know? So that's one set of research is really performance of how these services are delivered, but also how these populations are involved in the service delivery. How they are given a voice is a secondary path that I've gone down and actually ended up doing a book about and how clients and others in the community have voice in health and human service organizations.
LJR: Of course that work is augmented by the teaching work that you do. And now how long has it been that you've been in these more administrative roles in addition to all of that? So it's kind of a, I started in 2006 as an assistant professor. There were kind of upheaval in my department in 2008 and it's different than the role I have now, but I was director of student services in addition to being a professor, just because kind of through accident of who was on research leave at the time and I was the best person to do it of the people that were going to be here. I think it might've played out differently if circumstance had been different. But I did that role and then I was tasked to be associate Dean. I went on sabbatical for a semester and then came back 2015, and I've done the associate Dean role since.
LJR: So all of that feels very cohesive and linear, and yet I know that life can be messy. So there have been other things going on in your life that might have been harder or you hadn't really planned out and seen, so do you wanna maybe share some of those things with us?
KM: Yeah, absolutely. And I think they've enriched my life actually in a lot of ways, but they've been, yeah very challenging. So I mentioned that I got married and moved to Albany and then went back, got my PhD in good intense fashion. I had my first child when I was in the middle of my PhD program. I was seven months pregnant when I took my comprehensive exams. I had Bryce in 2003 and then I was on the job market again 'cause I like to be six to seven months pregnant when I do really important things in my life. And so I got my job at Binghamton and then had Darius. Two months later started work when he was four months old. And started my tenure track job. And that was a rough transition going and having him and having two kids and moving. And I was just, I remember thinking, wow, I don't think I can ever be so…that first semester of teaching and that adjustment period thinking, wow, I think I might lose my mind. It's just really, really hard. I didn't really think I could do it. And I kind of look back now and I think, oh, that was kind of, it was just a little rehearsal
LJR: A bump in the road. Oh no.
KM: Yeah. So things went well and I have these two delightful boys and I'm…my marriage is going along and it's okay and, and actually it was. It was what I thought was a pretty good marriage and I got tenure and had balanced all these things and it was hard. My husband was an attorney. I was a professor. We had great childcare. We managed to do a lot of things and then, in 2012, I guess the way I would describe it, I kind of describe my marriage, was there was a shot to the head and then just kind of a slow bleed for four or five years. And it was just really, really hard and it was hard on obviously me. It was hard on my husband at the time. But you know, we were, we had chosen this and we were, you know, we were the two people in the relationship. The people that I feel, you know, really didn't choose it were my kids. And there's a lot of chaos in the house and it was just a really difficult time and a lot of soul searching, a lot of like, what am I gonna do?
I was in therapy for a while trying to just get my life together, and it was a really, really grueling kind of, sad dissolution of a marriage, you know? And it, I think for me too, there was a lot of times where I think, you know, this is so crazy. There's so much fighting. I never grew up like this. I cannot believe this is my life. I cannot believe this is what my kids are seeing. And I think it's gave me insights. And it's made me less likely now, having come out the other side, to judge. [LJR: Hmm.] Because you really don't know. Like I was, there are multiple points that I'm not proud of what I did, not proud of my role in it. And you think, God, I can't believe this. I can't believe that these are my set of choices and that I've made this choice or not made this choice and it's made me much less judgy, I guess. [LJR: Yeah.] Because you sit and you realize, you know, no one thinks they're gonna be in these crazy situations. No one thinks they're gonna make these crazy choices. But then life…there's so many things that come from the outside that you would not, you know, it's important people don't get a lot of choices. [LJR: Yeah.] And then people can be in a difficult place and not act like them, their best selves. [LJR: Right.] Not be always able to think outside themselves to hold it together. And I held it together at work. I was a good parent. Certainly things that I regret, but I did a lot of things okay. But it was an incredibly hard time and you know, to the outside world, looked like I had it together. But it was just, you know, I was kind of hanging on by a thread for a long time. And I think what also made it really hard is I didn't…Because I was really struggling with what to do. I really was very private, and that was a choice, but it made it very hard and I didn't lean on people. And I kept it to myself. And that probably didn't serve me. In some ways, it served me well because, you know, it made it my decision when I ultimately decided this just, this is not going to work. This is just, this isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. This isn't the marriage that I want. This is not gonna be good for my kids. But it took me a long time to get to that point. But it was my decision. [LJR: Yeah.] Like I know it was my decision, right? So that's a good thing. But a bad thing is you're alone. And I mean, I didn't actually tell my parents I was getting a divorce until I had placed an offer on a house. They'd been on away on vacation, in fairness. And I did it quickly, like when I decided, it took me forever to get to that point. But by the time I said to my husband, “look, we really need, this is not gonna work” I had put a purchase offer down within two weeks. So I moved very fast. [LJR: Yes.] It wasn't like, it wasn't like there were like months and months I wasn't telling my parents. That’s just kinda how it played out.
LJR: But that's where I see the irony though, Kristina, is that, you know, you're an expert in these human services, you know, delivery systems and you yourself, you know, couldn't tap into a support network that might've helped you?
KM: Yeah, I did. I did have a really great therapist. I mean, it was, she was really amazing and I saw her for I guess three and a half of the four and a half years, like, what am I gonna do? Sort of thing. I just, you know, it took me a while to find my path in the first year to her. But after that, and she was my therapist after the divorce, which really, really helped me. And I really, I mean, she helped me not only I think with empathy, but also really acceptance of, you know, you have option A and that's what you really, really, really want. But you gotta accept sometimes: You wanted option A, which in this case was marriage to this person and it was gonna be a good marriage. And that's what option A was. But option A isn't there. And to get to that place of acceptance and say, okay, but I have B and C, I have B I stay in this suboptimal marriage. That's not going to be what I need. Honestly, I think it wouldn't have been good for my ex-husband in the long run. Certainly not good for my kids. And you know, that's option B. And option C is go off and start again and lean into yourself and be vulnerable, but have a chance to rebuild and find happiness. Not through path A like you thought you would, but through path C. And that acceptance of what one can control, what one can't, what's reasonable: Huge lesson. Hugely helpful in getting more of an acceptance of kind of reality. You know? I mean, I have the Serenity Prayer at my refrigerator at home. I have it at work. Very, very helpful.
LJR: Yeah. Well, particularly because you, again, you, that's practice, right? You [KM: mm-hmm.] that was the rehearsal for needing to really understand what is in your control, what is not in your control, because you get blindsided again.
KM: Yep, yep, yep. And so, I'll digress for one second. So I get my divorce and then I have this very important interim period again. I'm still seeing the same therapist and it's at this point, you know, I've had the self-esteem to leave my marriage. But I mean, I had mentioned that there was a shot in the head. A lot of the shot in the head, the casualty of it was self-esteem, and it took me a lot to like leave the marriage. But he really needed to rebuild my self-esteem and to shape it a different way. And I mentioned at Dartmouth, I was incredibly self-driven and very achievement driven. And when you have a colossal failure in your life, well, so to speak, of getting a divorce, like for me, it's not something I planned on. And there were a lot of things wrapped up in that. But to develop more of a self-esteem that's less about achievement, more about acceptance. Focus on what you can control, what you can't. Loving yourself even when things don't have the desired outcome. Think about the effort that you put in, the kindness that you show to people. Your empathy. I mean it radically changed the way I looked at myself. It changed the way I looked at others. It has changed me in the workplace. It's changed me dramatically as a parent. I parent so differently now. I'm still intense, but I think I'm a softer version of who I used to be intensely. But I'm much more, you know, let's go on the windy path and that's okay. And that was really, probably the greatest gift. When I think of like the, what the divorce gave me is it gave me a chance to really reevaluate who I want to be, and that's been a real evolution, but that's probably the greatest gift that it gave me is that opportunity to reset. It's made me a much happier, happier person.
And so fast forward, I kind of enjoyed doing a lot of work on myself and I meet this wonderful, wonderful person at work who is also divorced, does not have kids. We date for a while, about two years, and then Covid happens, and—I'm very practical—and I said, George, we can't go to grocery two days a week and have two separate exposures. We…I got to like minimize our risk. So George, with like eight hours, like, decision lead time moved in to my house and my kids split time between me and my ex-husband, 50 50. And so my little Cape went from having three people 50% of the time, one person a hundred percent. You know, there were other times 50% of the time. Now, I mean four people, and then a two people. And we made it work. And it was actually a really, I mean, I look at it as kind of a golden time because it was an opportunity. We really did a lot together. And yes, the pandemic was isolating, but we were in it together and it gave my—he was my boyfriend at the time, but became my husband last year—an opportunity to really bond with my kids in a different way. He really now is a stepfather in every sense of the word, and he was even before we got married, but I largely credit it to Covid because he really got to know my kids in a different way.
And that was a really, really wonderful kind of. I don't know, the pandemic, I have such mixed feelings about it because it's so horrible on so many levels and has brought so much pain. But in my personal life it was this little kind of safe cocoon experience in some ways where really our love for each other really deepened and it, it's been, you know, very special.
And so, fast forward, we're having these kind of oddly magical year and a half to September, 2021, and I went to my primary care for a regular checkup, a medicine refill, and she felt you to listen to my heart, to my lungs. And then was just checking my lymph nodes and she said, do you know that you have a swollen lymph node on the left side of your neck? I said, no. I had no idea. She said, all right, well, we'll do some watchful waiting. Fast forward CT scan, ultrasounds, trip to ENT, couple rounds of antibiotics. Doesn't go away. Omicron is on the scene. Ideally, they would've done a surgical biopsy in December, 2021. They can't get me into surgery because there's just too much covid. So I do a biopsy when they take fluid. [LJR: Mm-hmm.] You know, in the doctor's office from my neck. Comes back ambiguous. Okay. All right. We really gotta get you in to actually do a surgical biopsy. This is not gonna be sufficient. Really good chance it's not cancer and they're thinking it's lymphoma if it is.
And January I go in for my surgical biopsy, go back the next week thinking, you know, no big deal. Not gonna see the ENT for miles. It’s gonna be great. Finally, we're gonna have some closure 'cause it could have been cat scratch fever. It could have been Lyme disease. It could have been so many things. But unfortunately it turned out that it was metastatic Squamish cell carcinoma, meaning that I had cancer in my lymph node, which unbeknownst there was a marker in the labs that had been done. When I was actually told that I had cancer by the ENT. He did not realize that there was a marker for H P V. What he told me was really could be from anywhere in my body and had spread to my lymph node, which like I gotta tell you, getting the cancer diagnosis is pretty awful. But then to be like, and we don’t know where it’s from. It's pretty awful. Fortunately, I was then referred to specialists who could narrow it down and my luck from that point really took a very positive turn. And I think so much of life is perception, right? And when you've been told, yeah, it could be from your liver, we don't know. And when they tell you, oh no, it's from your throat, it's from the back of your oropharynx and it's H P V positive Cancer, which means it's positive for the HPV virus. It is actually great news because the cure rate is 80 to 85%, and when you're using Dr. Google, and needless to say, the cancer cure rate is not 80, 85%. this sounds pretty awesome. And so from there I had to have radiation chemotherapy. And this was all last year. And a lot of people think chemotherapy, you know, when they think of cancer, that that's the more grueling part of. Cancer treatment in my case it has a lot to do with where you're being treated with a radiation and because it was to my throat, the way it was described—and I usually as a lay person, it makes sense to me—is was like getting a giant sunburn to my throat.
LJR: The radiation.
KM: The radiation.
LJR: Yeah.
KM: And so it made eating extremely, extremely painful. You also have a lot of taste distortions. You lose taste. A lot of people end up on liquid diets. By the end, they lose lots and lots of weight. Some to the point that they have to be on feeding tubes with throat cancer. I was very lucky. I was also very determined. I actually, in part 'cause I'm kind of a foodie snob, I subsisted by the end largely on hot dogs. Gross.
LJR: Oh, wow.
KM: But I could taste them. I could, I lost all sense of sweet, but I could still taste real salty stuff. Salty the hot dogs with mustard still tasted like hot dogs and mustard. So I had a lot of those, but I was by the end. But I didn't lose, I lost like five pounds, six pounds. It wasn't that bad. I also hated the way Ensure tasted. So I didn't do the supplement stuff, but I couldn't eat. I mean, it's hard to describe like, it's like, a terrible sore throat. Like it's just awful, but it's really intense. Like in my case, it was just one part of my throat, so I would just like eat. But it was really hard. It was very, very uncomfortable. But I mean, like you never look at like a grilled cheese sandwich the way again. 'cause man, when your throat is raw…that’s hard? [LJR: Oh no.] To describe it, but like everything, you just are so. What the texture is like. Anyway, so I had a lot of like soft foods, but it I
LJR; ICe cream?
Km; No, because it did tasted disgusting. Like it's, I'm like a lifelong lover of chocolate. Chocolate tasted disgusting. Like everything, like almost everything tasted disgusting by the end. Oh. And I had a chemotherapy that also gave you this metal taste which distorts food.
LJR: Particularly for a foodie who wants to like really enjoy this. This sounds horrible. And knowing that if you start telling yourself that like, this thing that I used to love just doesn't taste right. You hope you're not ruining it forever. So I can see why just not having chocolate and ice cream food.
KM: Yeah. You also, you also don't know what you're gonna get back. Yeah. I mean, you don't know the functionality you'll have, like people will have…Someone else in the same practice that I go to, my radiation oncologist, the nurse told me he, after getting radiation, after a year, spaghetti still tasted like chocolate. I myself thought that that would be okay. Spaghetti and meatballs. I was like, wow, that's really interesting. But actually I've gotten my taste back. But you have residual effects. I've had some swelling in my neck. You swallow five to 700 times a day. So do not have that function is a big deal.
LJR: Wow. Yeah. So extremely perspective giving, right?
KM: It also gives you this amazing sense of gratitude for what you have. And every morning that I have my yogurt with raspberries now, It's like the best thing in the whole world. I'm so grateful every day I get to start my day that way. Yeah, I will never take that for granted again. I will never take my cup of coffee for granted again. I wake up and every day that I feel good and I don't have to worry about a cancer diagnosis and I can open up my eyes and see the sun is a wonderful, wonderful day. And I had a sense of gratitude after my divorce for being so lucky, getting a second chance, you know? The gratitude I had then has only been magnified from this experience, you know, so I think that's a gift that I had from my divorce, but I've built on that.
And the other thing that I think that I've built on from my divorce, I would say my divorce…I mean, people think, oh God, cancer's so awful for me. My divorce was actually harder than the cancer. Even though the cancer was very physically, physically grueling. People know what to say to you. People are there. I was very public about it. I've continued to be very public about it and to have that support was…Some people, you know, a lot of people don't know what to say and people say crazy things. But I would take someone saying a crazy thing because you know, they're coming from a place of support and love, even if it doesn't come out right than someone saying nothing. ‘Cause that's much harder. ‘Cause no, you're not fine. Your life has been turned upside down. But the support, and I've had just some amazing people and people that I would've expected: My husband, my mother—my mother texted me every day for 33 days, every time before radiation, every time before I went in. ‘I love you. I'm thinking about you.’ I mean, it's things like that. And then my colleague at work who wasn't just there during, I mean, I had a few colleagues who are not just there at some key points, but all the time. My one colleague who would email me every day, especially in the recovery where people forget you're still sick. Just amazing, amazing support and love to be surrounded by and people like I was. I liked this colleague, but it wasn't particularly close with her yet. She was a rockstar for me, and it was so meaningful. And, you know, I hope I get to pay it forward to people and I'm so grateful for that.
But you know, the other gift that my divorce gave me: I mentioned this kind of ability to accept, and cancer is a lot about acceptance of what you can and cannot control. And there were lots of things that I couldn't control, like the diagnosis, what the cancer was gonna be, how they're gonna treat it. Even Omicron was kind of a nightmare because it meant that I would go in, I wouldn't be able to have people with me all the time. I had to have my second surgical biopsy. I had to be dropped off the hospital door by my husband. This was like two weeks after being diagnosed for them to find the cancer. 'cause they were still looking for it. You know? I feel like my divorce was a dress rehearsal. The dress rehearsal for my cancer, you know? And there's different points, and I really remember I was diagnosed right before my 40th birthday, and I was crying a couple days before my birthday to my husband. I'm like, I don't want this. I don't wanna have cancer. I don't want to celebrate my 40th birthday with cancer. I'm so incredibly angry. I'm so sad. I can't believe this is happening. I had this kind of moment of insight, which was like, wow. But I have to, I don't get a choice. I'm going to turn 48. I'm going to have cancer. I can embrace it and have a good day, or I can feel sorry for myself. My choice. That's what I get to control. And my 48th birthday was wonderful. It was wonderful, but even more wonderful, was my 49th birthday, didn't have cancer and I was through this.
LJR: Amazing.
KM: And it was just glorious and I will never again complain about a birthday.
LJR: That's right. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Well, I love that, and, and I think that is actually the epitome of your earlier statement of still having the intensity, but a softer version of it. Like, you're now intensely excited about birthdays and you're intensely excited about, you know, some bad things that are happening, but that's, it's you've embraced it.
KM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I mean, I also think it gives you a real sense of your mortality. And how fleeting our time is on this Earth and how each day when I get up, I spend a lot more time, even when I send emails to students now, thinking about, okay, what is it I want to convey? And if it's like a missed assignment, question something that they haven't done, maybe that I would've liked. What message am I gonna convey? How am I going to convey it? How am I gonna convey it in a way that they might be able to hear it? And if they don't hear it, how can I know that I've done my best job, my, you know, the best that I could, and whether it's received or not, because of course, I can't control how they hear it. I can control the way I deliver that message and make sure that I deliver with as much compassion as I can. But not whether it's received in the spirit in which it's sent. But that real intentionality of even the little things. 'cause I think those little things add up and those little choices that you make every day, every day, you don't know whether you get a tomorrow and to really live in this moment and to not always ‘What's the next thing I'm gonna do?’ No, today. Today is the day that I have. Today's the day that I need to be present. Today is the day I need to physically focus on.
LJR: Well, Kristina, I'm so sad that those gifts had to be so hard won and earned. But those are great gifts to have and to pass on to your children and all the people around you, the compassion and the listening, and the presence. I am so glad you are where you are, and thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey with us.
KM: Thank you. Thank you for letting me talk.
Oh, actually there's one other thing that I wanna say.
LJR: Yeah.
KM: So I wanna talk about my cancer and the fact that I have HPV associated cancer. And if there's actually one thing that I hope people remember about my type of cancer is it's almost a hundred percent preventable if you have a vaccine. And the vaccine: kids can start getting it at age 11 or 12. It's a multiple dose vaccine, but it's crazy how effective it is. It's maybe 98, 99% effective, and it's recommended for everyone up to the age of 26, and then you can get it, I believe up till the age of 45, but it depends on your personal history. And it may or may not make sense for you depending on your personal history, but you should talk with a physician about that. But it's kind of become a mission of mine to encourage as many people as possible to consider to get vaccinated, but we do have children in our lives or other young people that we come in contact with. And unfortunately the vaccine take-up for HPV is quite low. When you compare it to something like the MMR vaccine, which I think is in the eighties, that people percent, yeah, people get, it's pretty high. It's something like 45%—it's very low.
LJR: Well, isn't MMR…
KM: It’s required by the schools,
LJR: It's required, but HPV isn't.
KM: No, it's not.
LJR: Yeah.
KM: And it's also is a lot of stigma because people think, oh, the only way you can get this disease is if you're promiscuous, or it'll encourage people to have sex. That is not the case. 85% of Americans will have HPV in their lifetime. Only a small, small lucky percentage of us will develop cancer because of it, but it is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Now, oropharynx, which is the back of the throat, it causes…it used to be caused by drinking, heavy drinking and smoking. Now, 70% of those cases are caused by HPV.
LJR: Wow.
KM: So there's a rise in it. But yes, again, so just most people will have HPV in their lifetime. Most people, it clears out. But there's no way of knowing whether you'll be that person or you'll be unlucky and you'll, later in life, have an experience I would not wish upon anyone. And so I urge anyone who's listening to consider getting vaccinated. Maybe not anyone who's listening, but anyone who has someone who
LJR: …who's eligible.
KM: Right. Is eligible to get vaccinated, advocating for them to get vaccinated. Right.
LJR: Perfect public service announcement from a perfect public servant and, and one who understands public messaging. So thanks so much, Kristina.
KM: Yeah. Yeah.
LJR: That was mother and cancer survivor Kristina Marty who also currently serves as Senior Associate Dean in the College of Community and Public Affairs, and Professor of Public Administration at Binghamton University. As she suggested, if you have young people in your life, learn more about the HPV vaccine at cdc.gov/hpv and encourage them to get the vaccine, if eligible.
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