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Friends Nag

I was born in October and I love this month. The weather gets crisp, the pumpkins come out and I get presents. It’s always been a no-brainer. But I also love October because of this magazine.

Two years ago we launched our first issue in October, and as we celebrate Seattle Woman’s second anniversary, I look back on what our spunky publication has accomplished. One of the things I value most is that we’ve been encouraging women to think and talk about vital health issues.

When we were rushing to put our first issue together back in the summer of 2004, someone lamented to us that Washington state had the highest breast cancer rate in the country. All around her, acquaintances and friends were being diagnosed with the disease. Perplexed and worried, she took to the Internet and found this startling fact. Somehow the mainstream media had missed this statistic, but thanks to her Web surfing tip our editor and co-founder Karen Reed-Matthee probed the reasons behind the numbers, and we launched Seattle Woman with her powerful story on our state’s startlingly high incidence of breast cancer.

We’ve since called attention to other important health facts, like the statistics that show women are more likely to suffer strokes than men, and that heart disease is by no means a male disease, but is the no. 1 killer of women.

Sometimes the information is downright depressing or just plain scary. In this health issue, Karen writes about ovarian cancer, which is hard to detect and has a poor survival rate. The point of reporting on this sobering stuff is not to scare anyone, but to help us all stay informed so that we learn to recognize the signs of serious disease and know the right questions to ask our doctors. Hopefully, it encourages us to stop putting our own health checkups at the bottom of the to-do list.

But sometimes knowledge alone isn’t enough. In fact, a recent study showed that despite all theattention on breast cancer, mammogram rates have fallen since 2000. And as informed as I am about the importance of early detection, I plead guilty to procrastinating: I was nine months late this year for my own mammogram. I ended up needing a biopsy, and in the stressful wait for the results, I frequently thought that I might have given a cancer nine extra months to get established. Thankfully, I was just fine.

Shortly after the biopsy, my friend Heike mentioned that she’d never had a mammogram, despite being over 40 and having a grandmother who had breast cancer. We made a pact that I would bug her until she got that mammogram. And bug her I did because it took several weeks to get her to make the appointment.

Annoying as I was to Heike, I think that kind of concern is what friends need from each other. We need to check in and make sure our friends are not just caring for others as women tend to do, but are also taking care of themselves. Since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s a good time to start. Ask a friend if she’s had her annual physical (with a Pap smear and pelvic exam) and a regular mammogram if needed. And then nag if you have to. It’s what friends are for.

Enjoy October!

Marianne Scholl
Co-founder and Publisher

©July 2006 Caliope Publishing Company