When the bad news comes, Ann-Katrin Schmitz is 26 years old. The Pap smear at the gynecologist is abnormal, suspected cervical cancer. This is said to her on the phone, in the middle of her everyday life, while she is preparing for an important appearance. The cause of the abnormal tissue on her cervix: HPV, human papilloma virus. Three months of anxiety follow until the abnormal tissue can finally be removed.
On Wednesday evening, Ann-Katrin Schmitz, 32, sits on a podium in the event location of the Kustermann department store on Viktualienmarkt, with three long tables in front of her full of successful, well-dressed women. She tells her story and says: “Today I go for cancer screening every three months.”
Schmitz advises influencers on social media marketing and runs her own platform with a suitable podcast called “Baby got Business”. Of course, she is also an influencer herself and is known on Instagram under the name “Raspberry Cream Cake”. She has previously presented the entire outfit that she is wearing on the podium precisely in the virtual world, with the respective brands, in her account. As a walking advertising sign, it is now also active this evening – only for a cause that is not at all glamorous: for vaccination against the HP viruses.
The Women 100 network, together with the “Decided Against Cancer” initiative, which was started by the pharmaceutical company MSD, invited women doctors, models, bloggers, founders, politicians, journalists and many more to this evening. Under stucco-decorated ceilings there is a really pretty (Instagrammable!) three-course menu from Dallmayr. And because it’s about health, there’s not only the obligatory glass of champagne to welcome you, but also brightly colored vegetable drinks. What would you like, carrot-apple-ginger or beetroot with rosemary?
Journalist and presenter Aylin Kazi.
(Photo: Isa Foltin; Isa Foltin/Getty Images/Getty Images for hell & karrer C)
But you didn’t come to drink, you came to network. It’s lucky that two gynecologists, Marianne Röbl-Mathieu from the professional association and Maria Delius from the LMU Clinic, explain what the HP viruses are actually all about. Certain types of cancer, such as cervical cancer, but also cancer of the mouth or throat, can be caused by HPV. And HPV is primarily transmitted through close skin contact. But there is also good news: vaccination significantly reduces the risk of these types of cancer. Ideally, you should do it before the first sexual contact; Stiko recommends the first injection for girls and boys between the ages of 8 and 14.
Because all the women obviously feel the need to talk about HPV (or completely different things) at the same time that evening, the noise in the dining room is correspondingly stressful. But not when Schmitz talked about her diagnosis on the panel. Absolute silence. “That was the point where I realized that life is finite,” says the young woman into the microphone. “I’m not waiting for anything anymore. Time is now.”
Moritz Werner, the only man far and wide, can only agree with her; he also recommends that his listeners “take life while it is there.” Werner is the founder of the “Nicola Werner Challenge”, a foundation in honor of his late wife, who died eight years ago of cervical cancer caused by HPV. So now he is working on fulfilling her last wish: that no woman in the world has to suffer her fate.
It’s a strange partnership that glamor and health entered into this evening. But at some point between the shiny glasses and the big smiles it becomes clear that cancer doesn’t always have to be a stroke of fate. In some cases it is in your own hands. The most important messages of the evening: You can protect yourself and others from infection with a vaccination. And Ann-Katrin Schmidt’s shoes look damn stylish.