November 2009 - Janelle's Blog

Since when do turkeys think they have the right to chase people? They need to quit getting their feathers so ruffled up and head for the hills. If I seem overly confident about turkeys, it is because I have overcome a run-in I had with a turkey when I was a young girl.

I grew up on the flat plains of West Texas, in Lubbock, a place large enough to be called a city. So, during my childhood years, I related everything to the city even to the point that I loved traffic jams and disliked dirt.

To the contrast, my grandparents lived in the country in nearby Idalou, which was not on the map as a full-fledged city. The road from Lubbock to Idalou was straight and boring. Not until we made a sharp turn down the county road did the excitement begin. For as long as I remember, there were three or four bison grazing on property just past the turn. It seemed like they should be in a zoo, but they grazed there for years.

The farm was always stocked with a nice supply of farm animals, including chickens, hogs, turkeys, horses, dogs, and cats. Farm life did not agree with me—strange animal sounds that keep me up all night, roosters that squawked too early in the morning, bad smells when the wind blew toward the house, and having to look down when I walked to keep from stepping in something I didn't want to identify. The one thing about country life that gave me a thrill was teasing the farm animals.

My son, Kevin Hail, COO of National Breast Cancer Foundation arrived at work before me today. As he walked down the hallway at our NBCF headquarters, he looked in my empty office and said aloud, "I thank God Mom got a mammogram before the age of 50."

At 34 years old, I felt a lump while performing a breast self-exam. Concerned, I got a mammogram that detected breast cancer. If it had not been for breast self-exams and a mammogram, I would not be alive today and the National Breast Cancer Foundation would not exist. Twenty-nine years later, I am healthy and cancer free due to early detection.

The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends women ages 40 to 49 should not get annual mammograms and that women 50 to 74 should only be screened every other year instead of every year. They do not see the need for women 75 and over to receive mammograms. The Task Force further recommends against teaching breast self-examination (BSE). The reason US Preventive Services Task Force gives these recommendations is that risks do not outweigh the benefits.