Breaking the Silence: Turning Embarrassing Health Moments into Advocacy & Hope

 Breaking the Silence: Turning Embarrassing Health Moments into Advocacy & Hope 

Paige Golden on HPV Prevention, Bathroom Access Rights, Humor, and Disability Insurance Pitfalls

Mike Roth opens Season 8 of Villages Vitality Life, Seniors Life Unscripted, featuring conversations with leaders and seniors-focused experts in and around The Villages, Florida. Guest Paige Golden, a former book publicist and medical sales professional turned humorist and HPV/cancer awareness advocate, shares her 10-year survival from anal cancer and discusses the rise of this rare cancer, HPV’s role in multiple cancers, and the HPV vaccine’s history, age expansion to 45, and prevention impact (noting some cases are non-HPV related). Paige explains using humor and storytelling to reduce shame around gastrointestinal disorders, describes creating a character (“Sharty”) and collecting “shart” stories/poetry, and promotes a restroom access bill and bathroom access cards available in 20 states (not Florida), urging listeners to contact lawmakers. She also warns about limitations and taxation issues in employer-paid long-term disability insurance versus private policies, outlines her plan to form a foundation and a book project (“But of the Joke”), and directs inquiries through Mike at mike@rothvoice.com.

00:00 Season Eight Kickoff

00:52 Meet Paige Golden

01:49 Anal Cancer and HPV

03:24 HPV Vaccine Facts

04:49 Humor and Shart Stories

06:58 Restroom Access Bill

08:28 Advocacy Through Storytelling

10:28 AI and The Villages Projects

12:08 Foundation and But of the Joke

13:47 Ghost Cholesterol Tip

15:07 Sharty Character and Haikus

17:21 Employer Disability Insurance

22:03 How to Contact Paige

23:06 Final Reflections and Wrap

Season 8 Introduction

Transcript

Dolores: 0:26

Welcome to Season eight of Villages Vitality Life, Seniors Life Unscripted. Our podcast used to be called Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. In this new season, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in and around The Villages, Florida. In addition, in this new season, we will add more information for all seniors. We are a supported podcast.

Mike Roth: 0:58

This is Mike Roth on Villages Vitality Life, Senior's Life unscripted. Joining me today is Paige Golden. Thanks for joining me, Paige.

Paige Golden: 1:08

Thank you, Mike for having me as your guest.

Mike Roth: 1:10

Good. Let me give you a background on Paige. Paige is a former book publicist who turned medical sales professional, who turned humorist . She's a storyteller and an advocate for HPV. That's human papilloma virus and cancer awareness, gastrointestinal disorders and the art of storytelling. And lastly, the dastardly truth about employer paid, long-term disability insurance . Paige is an anal cancer survivor of 10 years with a passion to inform and entertain the public, on the how-tos of avoiding her plight. She uses humor to sanietize topics that most people will shy away from. Again, Paige. Thanks for joining me.

Paige Golden: 2:03

Thanks for having me,

Mike Roth: 2:04

And great on beating cancer for 10 years.

Paige Golden: 2:07

Thank you.

Mike Roth: 2:08

Now, anal cancer must be a difficult diagnosis to accept. How common is it and are there any precautions that people should take to avoid it.

Paige Golden: 2:18

Yes, you're correct. It is a rare cancer. However, it has been increasing and I had never heard of it until the iconic actress Farrah Fawcett, did a press conference years ago. I'm sitting in my sister's kitchen and she comes out and she says that she has anal cancer and that she was cured, but she also starts informing the public about HPV. At that time, my sister said, I can't imagine saying you had anal cancer. I would just say I had rectal cancer. And I said, having a career in women's health and speaking to doctors every day about women's health, I don't think it would be that difficult for me. And when you tell one lie, you end up telling a lot more. And secrets are very painful to keep. However, when it did happen to me. It was much harder than I thought it would be. There's just some, it's, there's an embarrassment about it. There is, I can't believe this is me. I can't believe this is my life. But there are ways that people can avoid it. And HPV causes cancers of the of the oral pharyngeal oral cancer. It also causes. Anal cancer, cervical cancer, but my message is if you speak, eat, swallow, pee, poop or screw, you do not want this. And there is a proven vaccine that's been around since 2006 that has proven statistically to reduce these cancers.

Mike Roth: 3:43

How effective is the HPV? vaccine?

Paige Golden: 3:46

They, what they do is they can only, they look retrospectively at the, how the numbers have come down. So when it first started out, it only cover covered a few strains and it was only for girls. Then they expanded it to boys. Now it is, it's been approved for patients up to 45 years of age. And the reason they cut it off at 45 is they believe that people. I have probably already been exposed to HPV at that age. So if you want, if you do feel you're at risk, you can talk to your doctor and you can get it. But I would just wanna say a little bit about vaccines because of all the controversy about vaccines and they're not all created equal. One afternoon there were a couple of lab rats that were hanging out one day and one rat, that rat lab rat says to his buddy, Hey, are you gonna get that COVID vaccine? And his buddy says, nah, I figure I'll wait till after the human trials. You can feel very confident in that this has been around, but I encourage everyone to be their own advocate vaccine. No vaccine is for everyone, so look into it. Ask chat. GPT. Is this right for me? And I hope that this message reaches a lot of people because. It is , something that you can prevent. Although 10% of it is considered not to be HPV related, so it doesn't cover it completely, but 90% is a pretty big percentage.

Mike Roth: 5:07

That's excellent. That's excellent. How did you get the idea to combine humor and anal cancer?

Paige Golden: 5:12

As a result of the side effects of the radiation that I had, I. Lost my career. I was a medical sales representative and I did quite a bit of traveling and if there's not a bathroom very close by the urgency is an issue. So I lost my job. I was very embarrassed to tell people what happened to me, but I came up with a, story when people asked, and I would say, it's pretty early in the morning right now, but if you get between the bathroom door over there and me, I will run you over like a crimson tide linebacker. And this usually causes a chuckle or somebody shares a commiserating story. However this one woman said to me, oh, that happened to me on a date. And I wrote a poem about it. So I said, oh, I would love to hear the poem. So she pulls up her phone and she says, had a date today. And I shard it on the way. It wasn't until I stood up that I said, oh fuck, this can't be real the way my panties feel. Luckily I had a spare extra pants and underwear and my date had not a clue of the shit I sported to. I can't tell you the hilarity I felt overhearing this and the fact that somebody could laugh at themselves, and this woman did not even have IBS. She didn't have any of the, she didn't have colitis. She just. Really enjoys life and has an artistic flare. And I asked her if I could borrow that, if she would give it to me because I had an idea to do something bigger. I had no idea that shart stories are actually a thing. People, there are competitions on Reddit. There's anonymous shart stories. They have to be first person. Something that happened that it has to embrace humility, and it's funny to read about other people's embarrassing experiences,

Mike Roth: 6:58

Yeah. so

Paige Golden: 6:59

I thought. Some Oh for those, fortunate enough not to know the word shart it is a combination of the word fart and shit. And this is apparently a thing, but I thought somebody should monetize this for the causes that the people that people really suffer from and deal with every day.

Mike Roth: 7:17

Now. How does this relate to the restroom access bill?

Paige Golden: 7:21

Oh that is a bill that is currently, it was presented by the woman, the representative from DC and I would encourage people to contact their congressman. Or their senator about passing this bill forward. Now there are already several bathroom access cards available in states, and this is a card that you can show that you have an issue. You have some reason to be, to get grant access to a bathroom that is not normally public, that it's a private bathroom. And you can contact, your congressman or senator about that as well. Florida, the state that we're in does not have that available but it is currently in 20 states.

Mike Roth: 8:00

A lot of states. Yes. 20 out of 50. Yes. Not enough, but.

Paige Golden: 8:04

Yes. So I would love to see security in airports making it more available. Concerts are also a big problem for people. There are, so many, places where it's very difficult. There's also an app, wee free or something. I can't remember the name of the app, but there's an app that will show you where the closest public bathroom is.

Mike Roth: 8:23

Right? There are several apps like that.

Paige Golden: 8:24

Yes.

Mike Roth: 8:24

Now have you contacted Daniel Webster, our congressman, about the bill?

Paige Golden: 8:31

I have not done that yet. I'm so glad that you asked me and I will, but I just looked this up for who to contact for this podcast. Okay,

Mike Roth: 8:38

Okay, good. So everyone out there, right to your congressman, ask them to have the bathroom access bill, move forward. Now, how do you go about establishing yourself as an advocate for people who have had an anal cancer?

Paige Golden: 8:55

Oh I like that question because I wanted to do something and I started small by, I wrote a letter to the editor, the New York Times, and a woman had written a book about sex in the wake of cancer, and I wrote just a few sentences. I didn't agree with what she said. I think that people have to accept what they cannot change, and it's a difficult thing to accept, but that was the first thing I did and it ended up being. Editor's third pick choice, and it ran for 10 days.

Mike Roth: 9:25

Really? Yes.

Paige Golden: 9:27

And after that I entered a storytelling contest and there's a central Florida storytelling group association that I would encourage people to get involved with. And I went to a public library and I told a story and it was about anal cancer and they ended up, they give you a name and they named my story, the Perks of Anal Cancer. And they asked if I would record it for an NPR section in South Florida. And it was funny 'cause I really did like the title, but people have such people just freak out over the word anal. So they ended up changing the title entirely so that people didn't know that it was necessarily about anal cancer.

Mike Roth: 10:05

What'd they change the title to?

Paige Golden: 10:07

They

Mike Roth: 10:07

changed to, oh, one of the characters in it, I called more than a date and less than a boyfriend, and it was about him getting drunk and I was wearing a wig and we were on a, we were on a cruise and this woman asked him to move and we'd already moved several times and he said no.

Paige Golden: 10:24

She came over and asked me to get him to move. And I said, he's not gonna move. So then she asked me, what is going on with that headband? And I had a headband on to hold my wig on. So I lifted my headband up I lifted the wig over my head and she was just absolutely mortified. She was being really rude, but I put her in her place. was what the story was about.

Mike Roth: 10:45

Okay. That's cool. That's cool. What have you done? Here in The Villages to move the course forward.

Paige Golden: 10:51

Oh, I took a class. I'm so impressed with the enrichment Academy. They offer so many things from, sports to academics. There's so much talent in The Villages, and I felt I hadn't worked in a while. I wanted to learn more about AI and I also took a brush up on Windows. And I met, that's how I met you, Mike. He, Mike is the teacher of this class, and I learned so much and I had this big project going on, so I hired you as an, as a consultant, and I hired you for two hours. And then I had Mike come back two weeks later to do more. I was overwhelmed at all the information you gave me in all the different ways. That I could use AI because I originally just wanted to create a character called Sharty. And I wrote a short story about Sharty and we did that. But he also had me run all my, showed me how to run my own editing, how, what ideas I could get from running it through. My stuff is very personal, so it's not like AI can write my story, but they can give you ideas that I didn't know about. I didn't know what Doom scrolling was, about. How, when you are first diagnosed with something, how you end up finding all the worst case scenarios. And that's called, anyway, that's called doom scrolling. So that was one of the edits they made in my work.

Mike Roth: 12:11

Yeah. AI can do some wonderful things, but it is not a human and it is certainly not a, therapist, Has, proven many times. In planning your goal to make Awareness. And people seeking vaccines more, successful. What else are you doing?

Paige Golden: 12:28

Right now I'm in the process of. Get of starting a foundation and I'm naming it Sanitizing, The Hopelessly Unsanitary. And I have several goals that I want to inform the public about. One, of course you mentioned also the disability insurance that is employer paid. I don't want that to happen to other people. I have a number, but I think my overall mission is to. Normalize the shame associated with so many gastrointestinal disorders.

Mike Roth: 12:59

And you purchased a name for your domain on the web?

Paige Golden: 13:03

Yes, I did. Yes. So I plan to. I plan to recruit stories from people and the name of a book will be But of the Joke. So I did purchase the domain but of the joke and I'm planning on putting it starting on Facebook and I will have that and I will ask people to. Donate their stories, but I wanna wait until I get of the 5 0 1 C 3 all of my paperwork in order, because I don't want people to think I'm taking advantage of their talent. I want them to realize that it's gonna be going to a good cause. And I look at it very much like the old fashioned cookbook. Fundraiser for your church. People are gonna donate a recipe. I'm gonna ask people to donate their stories. And there are so many talented storytellers and there's a joy in writing and there's a joy in being creative. And I think that I wanna encourage people to get involved in these storytelling competitions. I think there's just so much that they have to offer people.

Mike Roth: 13:58

Good. Thanks. Paige and for sharing that we're gonna be right back after a short Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Curtis.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 14:07

When we talk about the causes of heart attacks and strokes and peripheral vascular disease, we all know about things such as diabetes, smoking, and poor diet choices. Those are all called modifiable risk factors. You can change those and you can lower your risk. And then if we talk about non-modifiable risk factors, things you cannot change. There's a cholesterol that has been labeled. The ghost cholesterol.

Mike Roth: 14:40

I've heard of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Now I have to worry about a ghost cholesterol.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 14:46

That's right. There is a cholesterol known as lipoprotein A, that cholesterol has been known about for a long time. However, scientists over the last decade have discovered that this is one of the major risk factors for heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cerebral vascular disease, such as strokes and peripheral vascular disease, such as problems in the legs. And what they've discovered is that this is a genetically linked lipoproteins. What that means is it runs in families, and unfortunately we've had no way to modify this.

Lawrence: 15:27

To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar. Thank you, Dr. Curtis Paige, let's continue the conversation and talk a little bit about this. little piece that you've written for your character. shorty? Tell, our audience about that.

Paige Golden: 15:47

Oh, I believe it or not it takes a lot of guts to be the face of fecal incontinence and I did not wanna be that.

Mike Roth: 15:56

So

Paige Golden: 15:56

I thought I'll create a character and make a story around this character and I felt that it would be very difficult to laugh at someone going through all the things she went through. So I created her to be. Very much like Jessica Rabbit, a cartoon character in a human world. And there are a number of other characters in this story. It's not a long story, but it introduces the other characters. It introduces the people that are gonna be writing their stories. And I've had, people that I know that have written some. Pretty entertaining stories and poetry. So now that is one thing that has not been done. So we're gonna do shart poetry as well as stories. And and short is good. I haven't received any haikus, but I think there could be some really good haikus about this too.

Mike Roth: 16:45

Okay. Many of our listeners. don't know What a haiku is.

Paige Golden: 16:49

Oh, it's a Japanese poem and I believe, is it like seven syllables, five syllables, and seven or something of that nature. But you do it. So many

Mike Roth: 16:58

three lines.

Paige Golden: 16:59

Oh yeah, three

Mike Roth: 16:59

Three Lines. Five syllables in the first line and seven in the second line, and then five in the third. Oh,

Paige Golden: 17:06

You know about this. Perhaps you could write one.

Mike Roth: 17:08

If you absolutely Ask me to write one Paige What I would do Is turn to my favorite AI.

Paige Golden: 17:15

Yeah. Okay.

Mike Roth: 17:15

Actually two of 'em. And ask two of 'em to write the haiku. I want the, I want you to give them a personal story and make something personal to make it from, because Yeah, I have to give him a personal story. Yes. Give him a subject.

Paige Golden: 17:28

But you bring up a good point because a lot of people ask me are these stories? Or did people make them up or not? It would be very hard to fact check these stories, so I'm just looking for very good stories and

Mike Roth: 17:40

oh they have to be fart checked?

Paige Golden: 17:42

Yeah, that would be very difficult also. But I love the fact that people can laugh at themselves and encourage that. Good.

Mike Roth: 17:49

Good. Let's talk for a second or two maybe a little bit longer than that, about disability insurance paid for by peoples' employers, because that's a subject that has been Brushed under the carpet. and. Given a gold star to because employers offering company paid disability insurance and what that really means. You were in a internationally known drug company and they gave you disability insurance for two years, and what did that really mean?

Paige Golden: 18:18

It was called it long-term disability insurance. However, it is very common. I did not know this. It was very common for them to only pay for two years. Stop paying you completely or to pay you significantly less. Also, what I think people don't realize that it will be taxed as income, all of it. Now, conversely, private disability insurance is not taxed. Also, it will cover your position, your education, I'll give you an example. One of my friends is a doctor. He was on disability and his covers for him being a doctor.

Mike Roth: 18:54

Okay. Because he paid for it

Paige Golden: 18:56

He paid for it himself and, but also his policy says, states this.

Mike Roth: 19:00

I bought disability insurance when I was a business owner. For myself personally. Yes. Okay.'cause in my business, if I wasn't there, there was no business.

Paige Golden: 19:09

Yes. It's very important that people understand that it. Goes to in, in my situation, it went from the position that I held to any position. So also, it, what it does is it says that it'll give you 60% of your income. So I had a salary that was well under what I was paid. And

Mike Roth: 19:33

But so it didn't include your commissions and bonuses,

Paige Golden: 19:36

it did not come in any of the perks that went along. It was strictly my salary. And my salary at the time was $85,000. And so when you look at the percentage that brought it down to 55,000, then you are gonna be dogged by this insurance company. So you will have to hire an attorney. And so I, and the attorney's gonna get 33% of that

Mike Roth: 19:57

figure.

Paige Golden: 19:58

And that money that you pay the lawyer is not tax deductible. So you're gonna be paying taxes on the money that you're paying the attorney as well. So that brought my income down to 37,000. Then you're also gonna be taxed on, when you're taxed on all of that. It brought my income down to 29,000.

Mike Roth: 20:18

from over

Paige Golden: 20:20

I was making 150. If you combine all of the perks that I had in my commission. I just encourage people to be aware because most people, nobody looks at what the policy says from their company. They just don't. And people learn from firsthand experience. And I realize that a lot of this population that I'm speaking to in The Villages are not working, but they have children that are working and their children really need to understand all of this. And I hope that they will spread this word to their children. Yeah,

Mike Roth: 20:49

Yeah, this long-term disability is a, serious concern. And it's an expensive policy to buy, believe me. Yes it is.'cause I bought it.

Paige Golden: 20:56

It's worth it though.

Mike Roth: 20:57

And if you have a, an incident that knocks you out of the workforce

Paige Golden: 21:02

And nobody thinks that's gonna happen.

Mike Roth: 21:03

Not to me. At 21, I didn't believe it was gonna happen to me. Yeah. I bought life insurance when I was 21. Not 'cause I was concerned with my family at the time. Not 'cause I was concerned with me, but I figured that if I buy the life insurance, I'll never need it. I'll live forever.

Paige Golden: 21:19

Yes. That's how it works,

Mike Roth: 21:21

In, in fact when I, earlier in my working career, I was offered cancer insurance as a company paid benefit. Seemed like a good idea to me. I buy the insurance, I'll never get cancer. Okay. Yes. Okay. absolutely. After I left that company. They offered me to buy the policy on an individual basis. Which I continued for many years, and then I figured, hey, it didn't, cancer didn't kill me early, so I dropped it.

Paige Golden: 21:44

Yes. I would consider employer paid long-term disability to be a supplement and a weak one at that.

Mike Roth: 21:51

A weak one. Yes. So All of us people who are retired, who are listening. Tell your children about this, please. Okay. Especially if they're working for a large corporation that gives 'em a what looks like phenomenal benefit package. I go back and think about it all the times I was working for large companies like divisions of IBM, they had these insurances. I never got a copy of the policy. I never read it.

Paige Golden: 22:16

Nobody does. They have a website that you're supposed to go to and look, and I can't imagine anyone. Reading their own insurance policy, really of any kind. You assume that what you're, you assume what you're getting and you need to double check

Mike Roth: 22:30

And triple check that's, really important. What. So Paige, if someone wanted to get in touch with you about turning a poem in, or a story about anal cancer or gastrointestinal cancer of any type, how would they do that?

Paige Golden: 22:45

I would ask them to contact you. To contact me, because I have not put in place the Facebook things as of yet, but I right now. I just have my personal information and I'm waiting to get that together.

Mike Roth: 23:00

If you wanna be, contacted by Paige to talk about any gastrointestinal cancer or maybe even about employer paid disability insurance, you can contact me, mike@rothvoice.com. At the top of the page, if you're, listening to this on Buzzsprout, you'll see a box. Or a link that you can click called Fan Mail, on the Fan Mail link. Provide your name, phone number, email, and whatever comments you want me to pass on to Paige, and I'll be more than happy to do that.

Paige Golden: 23:31

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that so much.

Mike Roth: 23:33

Good. Paige, is there anything that we have. Left out that you want to include in this in show for people?

Paige Golden: 23:40

When something really bad happens to you, generally there's are some gifts and good things that come out of it. And I lost my career. I lost well over a million dollars in unearned income. And I have to say that I have enjoyed doing this advocacy work, and if I can really make a difference, it will be far more satisfying than any sale I could have ever made.

Mike Roth: 24:05

Paige, can you look back on your own life knowing what you know today? Go back to when you were 21 or 22. If you were gonna give your 21 or 22-year-old. Paige, some advice, what advice would that be?

Paige Golden: 24:19

Don't worry. If your career takes a very unusual trajectory, you'll get through it.

Mike Roth: 24:26

Good. Thanks for being with us today, Paige.

Paige Golden: 24:28

Thank you for reminding me to contact Congressman Daniel Webster here in Sumter County about supporting the bathroom access bill. And thank you for having me on your show and allowing me to spread the word about HPV Normalizing Shame and Dastardly insurance practices.

Dolores: 24:44

Remember, our next episode will be released

next Friday at 9: 24:46

00 AM. Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters, Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich, Paul Sorgen, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K 2 in The Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show. Contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help. Text your friends about this show. If you enjoyed listening, use the fan mail button on our homepage, VillagesVitality.Life to leave comments, be sure to include your name, email, and phone number. We thank everyone for listening. The content of the show is copyrighted by Roth Voice 2026, all rights reserved.