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Cure the women and you cure the tribe (continued)
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| Messengers hand out a variety of health information in Crow communities. |
The backbone of the tribe
"Women," McCormick says, "Women are the backbone of the Crow community. Cure the women and you cure the community."
McCormick talks as she unpacks two canvas totes with the essentials of a cancer education booth posted near the doorway of the Lodge Grass community health clinic.
It is the hottest day of the summer. A couple of hours later the thermometer will top off at 112, and the air-conditioned lobby of the small Indian Health Service satellite clinic in Lodge Grass is packed with men and women of all ages, most of whom are watching Martha Stewart on a television mounted to the wall.
In a matter of two minutes, McCormick deftly drapes a battered folding table with a brilliantly patterned Pendelton blanket, tapes a Messengers for Health banner across the front, and stacks cancer education brochures across the top. She places the centerpiece -- a flesh-colored plastic model illustrating the progressive destruction of cervical cancer -- off to one side. She is open for business.
McCormick, the Messengers for Health project coordinator, is assisted by Carol Howe and Regina Stewart, who are both members of the Messengers for Health team as well as residents of the close-knit Lodge Grass community, a few miles north of the Wyoming border.
| "Why Messengers is so important is not only because they are helping us detect cancer early, but that the message of health is brought to the community by members of the community." --Dr. Ronit Elk,
American Cancer Society |
Howe and Stewart snag female friends from the television, as well as relatives who filter in and out of the clinic. They ask about family members and community activities, then point them to McCormick's booth. There, McCormick loads them up with brochures, forms and health care information.
The women nod and ask questions about cervical cancer and breast cancer. McCormick tells them that if cervical cancer is detected early it can be cured. If not, it can be fatal. She signs up several for annual checkups. In about an hour, the trio packs and heads to the local health club and then to lunch at the senior center, where their Messengers dance is repeated.
"I guess what we do doesn't seem very exciting," McCormick says. "But it works. I've seen a big change here."
The litany of cancer education
McCormick has repeated the small litany of cancer education on her home reservation thousands of times in the last six years.
Tragedy brought the outgoing McCormick to this field of health work. A direct descendent of Pretty Shield, a legendary Crow medicine woman, McCormick has been
dedicated to cancer prevention since her 1-year-old daughter died of neuroblastoma two decades ago. A single mother with three children, McCormick soon began traveling the state working for a state-run breast and cervical cancer program. In 2000 she was selected for Glamour magazine's "100 Women at Their Best."
McCormick met Christopher in 1996. Shortly after, McCormick began working with Christopher on the beginnings of what would become Messengers for Health. Based out of a tiny portion of an ancient trailer parked on the grounds of Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, she says she is blessed.
"I give credit to God that I have been placed in this position to help do His work," says McCormick, who is known on the reservation as "Ozzie," short for "Ostrich." That was the nickname her mother gave her when she was small.
"I had long legs and was skinny with this puffy hair sticking up," McCormick says apologetically. "The name's stuck." Shortly after giving her daughter an unlikely name, McCormick's mother died and McCormick was raised in the traditional ways by her grandparents.
"That's who taught me Crow," she says. "I'm lucky, because I use (the Crow language) a lot with my work."
> Fall 2007 Contents
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