September 27, 2000
Tell-A-Friend lifesaving call
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Next Tuesday, women all over the Grand Traverse region are invited to call their friends. Women friends over 40, to be specific, and give them what may be lifesaving information about breast cancer and the importance of mammograms.
For the third year, the American Cancer Society Grand Traverse Unit is sponsoring the Tell-A-Friend program, encouraging women to call five female friends to talk about breast cancer and mammograms. Part of a nationwide effort to increase awareness of breast cancer detection and treatment, Tell-A-Friend brings this information to women from someone they already know and trust: a friend.
Sometimes the call can have an immediate impact.
"I had a friend who scheduled a mammogram after my call and they found something," said Myra McDowell of patient services with the American Cancer Society Grand Traverse Unit. "They went in and did a biopsy and it turned out to be benign."
McDowell first participated in Tell-A-Friend last year. Making her list of friends to call became a guessing game of who needed this information and who did not. McDowell decided to phone one friend even though she believed this woman was someone who had regular mammograms. This was not the case and the call prompted her friend to begin getting them.
"It was really neat to talk to my friends on that level, because it is not something you sit down and chit-chat about very often," McDowell said. "I know the importance of getting that mammogram because it can either save a life or save a breast. The possibility to catch breast cancer early is just phenomenal."
The Tell-A-Friend program is just one way the American Cancer Society is working toward its goal of reducing the number of breast cancer deaths by 50 percent by 2015. Getting women to have mammograms is the first line of defense against a disease estimated to strike one in every eight women. According to the American Cancer Society, the early detection that mammograms provide plus effective follow-up treatment can make breast cancer 97 percent survivable.
Spurred by these statistics, volunteer callers with Tell-A-Friend want to break though the myths women have about mammograms - that they hurt or are invasive. They also work to get their women friends to make time for their mammograms. Every year.
"It's not a bad idea to be reminded about mammograms because the older we get time flies by faster," Carol Lambertson, clinical research associate in the cancer research department at Munson Medical Center. "A year can go by quickly."
Both the American Cancer Society and Munson Medical Center will host a phone bank on Tell-A-Friend day. Both phone banks allow callers to contact friends and relatives anywhere in the United States.
Holding the event at Munson makes it easy for hospital employees and visitors to stop by and spend a few minutes that could save someone's life.
"It's possible that some woman may be coming here to get her mammogram and that will remind her to go call her sister," said Lambertson, who encourages female employees to bring their address books that day. "If women happen to be here that day, they are certainly welcome to stop and make calls, we consider them part of the Munson family."
McDowell is working with other area women's groups to set up additional phone banks; so far the Traverse City Business and Professional Women's Club has committed to hosting one for their members.
For more information on Tell-A-Friend day, held on Tuesday, October 3, contact the American Cancer Society Grand Traverse Unit at 947-0860. The calling bank at their office on 525 W. 14th Street will be open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Munson Medical Center's phone bank will be open in a room at the back of their cafeteria from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.