By Dubi Schwanz
Cancer Prevention and Control Division of NDHD

A “silent killer” is on the loose. Each year, it takes the lives of about 120 innocent North Dakotans. This killer is not picky … it takes the lives of men and women of all ages.
The silent killer’s name is colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer often is called a silent killer because many signs and symptoms do not appear until later stages of the disease when treatment options are less effective.
To help raise awareness about the disease, Governor John Hoeven has proclaimed March as Colorectal Awareness Month in North Dakota.
“Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in North Dakota, as well as in the United States,” said Joyce Sayler, Comprehensive Cancer Prevention and Control director for the North Dakota Department of Health.
Early detection is key. People 50 and older are recommended to get regular screenings for colorectal cancer and remember these important tips:
If you’re 50 and older, see your doctor to get screened. For those with a family history of the disease, screening should begin earlier.
Colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps don’t always cause symptoms. Colorectal cancer affects both women and men and all races and ethnicities. When found early, colorectal cancer treatment can be very effective and save lives.
Many insurance plans help pay for screenings that can detect colorectal cancer.
“Each year, about 400 North Dakotans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and about 120 North Dakotans lose their battle with the disease,” said Dr. Doug Berglund, surgeon at Medcenter One Health Systems, Bismarck, and chair of the North Dakota Cancer Coalition. “If every North Dakotan 50 or older were screened regularly, we could prevent as many as 60 percent of deaths from colorectal cancer.”
Spread the important message of colorectal cancer screening and prevention during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and throughout the year. Your efforts may help protect a family member, friend, coworker and even yourself from being the silent killer’s next victim.
YOUR HEALTH Column is coordinated by Mercy Hospital.

By Ellen Chaffee 

The presidents of North Dakota’s four-year universities (Minot, Dickinson, Mayville, and Valley City) are being asked to define our special niche, both as a sector and as individual institutions. Providing opportunities for a satisfying and rewarding life to some 7,000 people every year is not enough, apparently. People could go to a research university or a two-year school instead. Providing access for place-bound people throughout the state, delivering best practices in teaching and learning, and making significant contributions to regional development and quality of life? Ho hum.
If that is not enough, I wonder what kind of answer will satisfy, what kind of niche is worthy. The state is more stable and wealthy than it may ever have been, yet some are asking the golden goose that is higher education to justify one of its wings. Can we do it?                                                                                   
Asking for our niche suggests that four-year universities should be different from two-year schools and the research universities. No problem – we are.
We are more focused on teaching than research universities, less focused on how to do physical things than two-year colleges. We pay more attention to student learning than creating knowledge and more to interpersonal dynamics than mechanical interactions. We represent a balancing point between theory (research universities) and practice (two-year colleges).
A niche focus suggests that we should do different things than the other sectors. We do.
We are more likely to provide professionals for high-value services than ideas for commercialization. Last year alone, we graduated approximately 70 baccalaureate nurses, 300 teachers, 270 business majors, and 47 criminal justice majors, among others. Our graduates are more likely to stay in North Dakota and help build the region and state than research university graduates.
A niche focus requires a hallmark – a memorable distinguishing feature. There’s the rub, I think.
The best hallmarks instantly communicate special value. During the 1980s, a federal program called EPSCoR showed North Dakota legislators that research is a valuable investment and a hallmark of UND and NDSU.  During the 1990s, the workforce contributions of the two-year schools became much clearer. What is the hallmark of the four-year universities together and individually?
Most observers would say, “Teacher education.” Do policy makers really, deep down, value teachers as much as welders and biomedical scientists? Do we need more teachers because of retirements or fewer because of demography? Teacher education as a hallmark is not compelling. Taken alone, it misses much of our current identity and activity.
“Human capital development” is a truer hallmark now. We invest in and with our students to add value to their lives so that they can better add value to their worlds. Some of them choose to do so as teachers, others as entrepreneurs, managers, human resources professionals, software consultants, nurses, law enforcement officials, or many other professions. Some also leverage what they learn here into graduate programs for professional or academic careers. We invest in the human capital that makes wherever they live a better place. Is that enough?

By Carla Kelly 

I’m writing this in San Diego. Our daughter, Sarah, has some health problems, so I’m helping out for a few weeks. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be in southern California in early March, does it? I can write anywhere, even in a place with nice weather and the ocean nearby. Someone has to.
    Since flying is about as much fun as a quadruple root canal, I drove. My destination the first day was Torrington, Wyoming, where we used to live 30-plus years ago. I stayed with friends, who suggested that I take the Bosler cutoff, rather than drive south to get on I-80. I did what they said. The Bosler cut-off runs north of Elk Mountain, a large bulk that seems to do something to the weather. I-80 runs south of the mountain, and therein lies the tale.
    When I-80 was under construction, it was perfectly obvious to the engineers that routing the road south of Elk Mountain would mean time saved between Rawlins and Cheyenne. Anyone who drives that bleak stretch wants to get off it as soon as possible. The proposed Interstate route seemed like a no-brainer, except that those who actually lived in Wyoming advised otherwise. Yes, there’s a state highway there now, but build the interstate north of Elk Mountain; trust us.
    This was a government project, and these engineers probably trained at Georgia Tech or Purdue, and knew all there was to know about road building. They would build that interstate south of Elk Mountain because they knew best.
    For whatever reason, that infamous stretch of Wyoming interstate became known by the locals as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Every storm that blew by shut down that corridor fast as you can say “government project,” and made it dangerous as all get out. The locals routinely continued to use the old highway north of Elk Mountain. True, it was only a two-lane road, but it seldom closed down.
    The Bosler cut-off was fine three weeks ago. The game and fish department has some research projects going in Morton’s Pass, so there were bison and elk to admire as I drove through on the ice and snow-free highway. As I came out of the pass, I could see low, angry clouds south of Elk Mountain, hanging right over I-80 like a bad smell. Too bad, all you truckers; nanny nanny boo boo.
    Is anything scarier than someone who thinks he’s an expert? One prime example from American history is Lansford Hastings. A New Englander, Hastings was an entrepreneur who wanted to encourage settlement in Alta California, then owned by Mexico. Hastings’ reasoning was sound enough - the more Americans staking claims there meant the likelihood that the area would become U.S. territory.
    Like the engineers on I-80, Hastings wanted to speed people along on that journey west, when wagons typically traveled 12 to 15 miles a day, taking four months from St. Joseph, Mo., to the Sacramento Valley. Hastings could read a map as well as anyone. It appeared to him that pioneers could travel into what is now Utah, go south of the Great Salt Lake, and shorten the trip by 400 miles.
    He called his route Hasting’s Cutoff and published a travel guide. In 1846, the Donner and Reed families, prosperous farmers from Illinois, decided to move to California and take Hastings’ route. Eighty-seven people comprised the Donner-Reed party. They had no way of knowing Hastings had never tried his own cutoff. It just looked really good on paper.
    It was a disaster. The Donner-Reeds were the first to attempt the cutoff, so they ended up blazing a back-breaking trail through a series of truly daunting canyons down into the Salt Lake valley. I just drove through that collection of downgrades and switchbacks in a snowstorm, and it was no fun. The Donner-Reeds were doing it in summer, but they had to blaze the wagon trail, and lost valuable travel time.
    You probably remember the rest. Losing time on Hastings’ untried cutoff meant they were trapped in the snows of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Nevada and spent the winter dining on each other. It cost an arm and a leg. (Sorry.)
    They didn’t all die. James Reed and some others trekked out and brought help, and the 46 survivors finally arrived in California. One wrote a letter to friends in Illinois. It pretty well sums up life: “Hurry along, but don’t take no cutoffs.”

By Julee Russell 

Recently, Dr. Jennifer Fischer, DVM, provided some valuable information on the Feline Leukemia Virus.
Feline leukemia is a virus that multiplies in the cells of cats, also called FeLV.  It weakens the cat’s immune system, causes disorders of the blood, and cancer.  FeLV positive cats tend to get many secondary diseases due to having a weakened immune system.  It can take months or years for a cat to show signs of the disease.  
Diseased cats can show many different signs and may have periods of sickness followed with periods of relatively good health.  This is why many veterinarians will suggest a feline leukemia test right away if your cat is sick.
Cats get feline leukemia from contact with cat saliva, nasal secretions, urine, feces, or milk from infected cats.  Kittens can be infected when they are in the womb of an infected mother.
A simple blood test performed by your veterinarian will show if your cat has the disease.
How do I keep my cat from getting the disease? Keep cats indoors or supervise any outdoor time to avoid exposure to infected cats. Bring only FeLV negative cats into the household. Vaccinate all FeLV negative cats.  Vaccination of positive cats has no benefit.  
It is still wise to keep vaccinated cats from coming into contact with positive cats because, although rarely, a few vaccinated cats may not get a protective immune response from vaccination.
You might be wondering whether people can get feline leukemia. No. All studies done so far have failed to show transmission to humans.  However, since FeLV positive cats are prone to getting secondary disease that could be transferred to people (like bacterial and fungal infections), people that are at higher risk of infection should avoid contact with FeLV positive cats. These people include the very young, very old, and people with compromised immune systems (such as those with AIDS or receiving chemotherapy).

Recent Happenings:
The SVFA continues to be active in our community.  In the past two weeks we have responded to several calls to assist animals in need.   Next week the SVFA will accept four Chihuahuas from Bismarck.  These dogs, a mother and three puppies, were rescued from a puppy mill where there were 47 Chihuahuas kept in the basement of a home.  We are happy to join several other animal rescue groups in the state in finding good, loving homes for these dogs.  Photos coming soon!

Meet Rusty:
Rusty enjoys being cuddled by his foster sister. He is a young male, chocolate lab cross. His first owner abandoned him, but this nice dog will soon be ready for adoption into a new family.

Foster Homes: Thank you to the current set of foster families!We need more caring people who can share part of their homes and their lives to shelter, care for, and socialize a homeless cat or dog.  Because we do not have a local animal shelter, foster homes are a vital piece of our organization and are the only means we have of holding animals until they are adopted.  If you would like to share your love with a cat or dog who might be with you for anywhere from a few days to a few months, please call 840-5047 or visit  www.svfanimals.org to download the foster home application form.
The Sheyenne Valley Friends of Animals now has a place on the Petfinder.com web site.  The site offers free services to animal rescue and adoption groups. By entering our zip code, you will find the SVFA pages with pets available for adoption including photos and even a video clip.
Thank you for being a friend of animals.
Be responsible; ID your pet and have it spayed or neutered.