This post started as an email saying I wasn't going to write a post. As a member of the Yahoo! Motherboard, I was giving the task of writing about cancer for Breast Cancer Awareness month. At first I thought it was a topic that I could really dig into. I lost my father to lung cancer (nope-never smoked) when I was four. I fought beside my mother through her colon cancer for all of my 20's. She fought hard and was the fortunate recipient of clinical trial drugs that made the fight a bit easier and her life a bit longer.
I lost her when I was 30, five months after my second baby was born. I have also worked with the phenomenal program Look Good Feel Better through the ACS-helping women in the midst of treatment reclaim their beauty from the drugs that threaten to destroy it. You could say other than being a patient, cancer has touched my life in numerous ways. How come then, every time I sat to write about it, nothing sounded right?

• Should I write about how thankful I feel every day

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I don't think there is any way I could have missed the message when I was growing up: Voting isn't just a privilege it is a responsibility.

I still remember my first "vote": in Mrs. Medema's second grade class, we all had an opportunity to vote for Jimmy Carter or Ronald Regan (too bad our votes didn't count--I think Carter won in our class). Fast forward 3 presidential elections and I remember the breathlessness I felt as I entered my first voting booth officially to vote for president. Could my single vote really make a difference?

This year isn't a presidential election thankfully. But I have voted often enough to have lost the breathlessness I had that first time. Time has made it hard not to become jaded. Can my single vote really make a difference?

This year for the Chicago elections I face a more burning question. What if I don't like either of the candidates who are running for office? Should I vote for the "lesser of two evils"? Or is it more responsible to withhold my vote

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October is breast cancer awareness month. Everywhere I go, I see pink and that's a good thing. I don't mind paying a little bit extra for things that offer a worthwhile contribution with purchase. Breast cancer is a weight I carry on my shoulders.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 44 years old. That's 7 years older than I am now. Even though she survived, every day I think about it and wonder how much sand my hourglass has left.

I could get tested for the BRCA gene, but I have my concerns. To be completely honest, I think about looking into it and then the idea gets lost in the chaos of daily life. However, I have read that people who test positive are thought to be 5 times as likely to get cancer.

If I got tested and it came out positive, what would I do?

I suppose the most logical thing would be to have a preventative mastectomy, oophorectomy and/or hysterectomy, depending on what my physician recommended. All of this is not without potential side

Read More »from User Post: Facing Family History

midtermelectionsAs you probably know, I'm a member of the Yahoo! Motherboard. Each month, all members blog on an important topic. But this month, we have two very big and very important topics. Today, I'm writing about one of them.

Next month is the mid-term elections. Back in 1994, during some very other important mid-term elections, I was living in the UK, interning at the Institute of Health Service Management. On the day after election day in the US, I arrived at work to find my coworker Peter loitering at my desk. He was so excited to talk about US politics and what had happened that year - from Newt Gingrich to Ted Kennedy almost losing his seat to Mitt Romney.

I'm embarrassed to say - I had NO idea what he was talking about. (I mean, I knew there was an election, and it was a big blow to Clinton, but I didn't know the details and couldn't talk intelligently about it, at ALL).

I learned that regardless of your politics, it's important to know what's going on around you, to understand the

Read More »from Mid-Term Elections: This Month’s Yahoo! Motherboard

• What do you say to a child when it comes to the tricky--and emotional--topic of cancer?
• How much does a 5 year-old--or a 15 year-old--need to know about a family member's diagnosis?
• Should you bare all of the facts or try to gloss over cancer information with children?
• Is it better to wait or share information immediately?
• Does it really matter if a child knows the truth about a diagnosis or not?
• Exactly what words, phrases, or terms are best to use with children?

Although it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, breast cancer is a disease that deserves more than just one month of "special" pink, star-studded attention. Too many of my friends and family members have been affected by breast cancer--spirits ravished, bodies destroyed, families forever changed--that it's high time to put some serious money into research, research into practice, and practice into finding treatments that will ultimately lead to a cure. Until then, many, Read More »from User post: Talking to Kids About Cancer--5 Things to Keep in Mind

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Everywhere I look I see stories covered in pink and people sharing their connections and their action.
And, I feel humbled.
See, I have no connection to breast cancer. I've never known anyone personally that has faced this challenge. I've never had a family member come face to face with breast cancer. No friends. No family. No coworkers.
While this fact alone makes me feel blessed and lucky, I find that it also makes me feel like a bystander. I don't want to be one of those people that only takes action in the midst of struggle or tragedy. I don't want to look back and know that my action was only inspired by something painful or negative or by a personal connection. I want to take action because it's the right thing to do.
So, I'm making a pledge. I'm making a pledge to myself to get involved with the cause because it's what needs to happen to make progress. I'm making a pledge to not wait for a personal connection, but to take action for

Read More »from Lack of Personal Stories is No Excuse!

This weekend's Blogalicious was the exhilarating whirlwind that most conferences are but on Sunday I had the pleasure of introducing Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer and executive vice president of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Dr. Brawley's keynote came during a month where the world is turning pink in honor of breast cancer but his speech addressed more than just breast cancer as he talked about cancer prevention, early detection, and quality treatment through cancer research and education.

In his Blogalicious keynote, Dr. Brawley said that 765,870 cancer deaths were averted between 1991-2006. It's estimated that 57,000 Americans didn't die of breast cancer. This was due to screening, early detection, and aggressive treatment. It's also estimated that the prevalence of mammogram screening was 45-50% where as the prevalence now is 60%. If all women were screened and got good treatment, 450,000 women would still die over the next 10 years with our current

Read More »from User Post: Think pink in October, give green all year

As most of you are probably already aware of, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Although nobody close to me has ever had breast cancer, I lost my mother to cancer eight years ago. Seeing somebody you love suffering through the final stages of cancer is a nightmare that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

The reason for Breast Cancer Awareness Month is remind women to take care of themselves, do home breast checks and go for regular screenings. That is extremely important. But I also want to share some uplifting quotes from people who have dealt with cancer:

Cancer got me over unimportant fears, like getting old.
Olivia Newton-John

Cancer victims who don't accept their fate, who don't learn to live with it, will only destroy what little time they have left.
Ingrid Bergman

Cancer is a word, not a sentence.
John Diamond

Yes....Gilda Radner...said this in her book. What cancer does is, it forces you to focus, to prioritize, and you learn what's important. I mean, I don't sweat the

Read More »from Quotes of Encouragement for Dealing with Cancer