Salem musician fights cervical cancer with quirky tour

Benjamin Amirault

January 21, 2008 10:36 pm

— SALEM | Christine Baze laughed when asked about the name of her benefit concert that spreads awareness about cervical cancer.
The Salem resident said the name is fun and frank, in an attempt to decrease the stigma attached to "talking about girl parts." She calls it Pop Smear.
"Pop music and Pap smears, baby," Baze said.
The latest Pop Smear concert was held last Tuesday night at Salem's Edgewater Café. In addition to Baze, local artists including Further From Zen, Red Headed Step Child and Christian McNeill were on the bill.
Baze created the original Pop Smear event in 2003 after surviving her own bout with cervical cancer. The first concert raised $10,000 and set off a chain of events that has made Baze an essential voice in the fight against cervical cancer.
Since the first Pop Smear concert, Baze has performed in 88 shows across the country with dozens of artists, including Ben Folds Five and The Fray.
Baze has used music in her effort to eliminate cervical cancer, but there was a time when she thought cancer had eliminated her love of music.
Baze was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer with extensive lymphatic invasion in April 2000. The news couldn't have come at a worse time. She was 31 and had just recently decided to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time musician.
"It was a magical time," Baze said. "I was very driven and knew exactly what I wanted."
The hopeful and energetic Baze was abruptly confronted with an immediate radical hysterectomy, four rounds of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and relocation of her ovaries. She beat the cancer, but her hope and energy had dissolved into a depression that took Baze away from her love, the piano.
"It was weird because (music) was something that had always defined me," Baze said. "I was starting to think that it was something in my before-cancer life."
After anti-depressants, therapy groups, yoga, and support from friends, family and dog Lexa | named after an anti-depressant medication | Baze began to feel like herself again, but she still couldn't play music.
That was until she saw the movie "Harold and Maude" and heard the song "Trouble" by Cat Stevens.
"That song spoke to me, and I literally ran to the piano after the movie," Baze said.
Baze realized cancer had not taken music from her. To celebrate that realization and her two-year remission, Baze performed at her favorite café in Cambridge under the title "Christine Baze is Alive at the Kendall Café."
After realizing her lack of knowledge about the disease that nearly took her life, Baze created Pop Smear and the Yellow Umbrella Organization to educate her fellow women about cervical cancer, a disease that 10,000 women are diagnosed with annually.
According to Dr. Linda Duska, gynecological oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, the biggest cause of cervical cancer is the common sexually transmitted disease human papillomavirus (HPV).
According to Duska, 80 percent of sexually active people contract some type of HPV. For most, the immune system wipes out the virus, but it can develop into cervical cancer in some women.
In order to prevent that from happening, Baze and Duska encourage women to get vaccinated for HPV before sexual activity, go in for annual Pap smears once sexually active and ask about HPV tests once they are over the age of 30.
"This is possible," Baze said about the elimination of cervical cancer. "This cancer is preventable. It doesn't have to happen."

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