Keyboardist and songwriter Richard Bell, one-time member of Janis Joplin's band, died one June 15 of multiple myeloma in a Toronto hospital. He was 61.

Bell, who began playing with Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band in 1970, was diagnosed with cancer one year ago. He received intensive treatment and made a comeback, despite his poor prognosis. This past spring, however, his cancer returned.

Bell is also known for his musical work with artists such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Joe Walsh, Paul Butterfield, The Cowboy Junkies, Bruce Cockburn, and Bonnie Raitt. His most recent gig was with the Toronto jazz and blue group Pork Bellies Futures.

He is survived by his mother, his sister, and his nieces and nephews.

The University of Miami's first basketball All-American and member of the school's Athletic Hall of Fame died Friday of esophageal and colon cancer. Dick Hickox, a 5-6 guard who led the 1959-60 Hurricanes to a 23-3 record and a No. 8 ranking -- still the school's highest -- was 68 years old.

Hickox never meant to play basketball at UM. He went to Coral Gables with a friend who was homesick and who threatened to leave unless coach Bruce Hale brought in Hickox and a another friend. Hale agreed -- and had no idea what he was getting. Hickox averaged 22.1 points that season and went on to make history. He was named second All-American, alongside Providence guard Lenny Wilkens. Hickox drew crowds of 5,000 and celebrities -- like actors Burt Reynolds, George Hamilton, and then-Cassius Clay -- often cheered him on from under the basket.

Hickox spent his adult years working in the Dade County Public School system and was the business manager of the South Miami High athletic department. In March, he attended the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, N.C., and received a Legends Award. It was the best basketball weekend of his life, one friend said.

Hickox is survived by his wife, his son, and his daughter.

According to the National Cancer Institute, one out of two men and one out of three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and three out of four American families will have at least one family member diagnosed with cancer. Those statistics are so overwhelming in scope that it takes a minute before it sinks in just how epidemic cancer is and how many lives it touches. And even after the reality of the numbers has become a reality in my mind, I am still always surprised when I find out someone has been diagnosed with cancer, or someone they are related to has died of cancer.

I was happily and distractedly researching information for something entirely unrelated to cancer -- a recently released animated movie based on a favorite comic strip Over The Hedge -- when in an interview with Bruce Willis, who is the voice of RJ the raccoon in the movie, shared his philosophy about life and living. Willis lost his younger brother to pancreatic cancer five years ago. In the interview Willis remarks:

By sharing her personal family story with the media in an effort to raise awareness for a cancer that devastated her family, Blythe Danner has partnered with The Oral Cancer Foundation by Bristol-Myers Squibb and ImClone Systems Incorporated to speak out about head and neck cancer. Danner shares that she lost her husband Bruce Paltrow to oral cancer. "When Bruce's voice became hoarse, we didn't realize this was a sign of this disease. By the time we spoke to a doctor, his cancer was very advanced," states Danner. She wants to educate the public to the signs and symptoms of head and neck cancers in the hope that other families will not have to suffer the same loss of a loved one.

Most people probably do not know that the death rate for oral cancer is higher than cervical cancer, brain cancer, liver cancer, testicular cancer, kidney cancers, or skin cancer. Tobacco use in all its forms is the number one risk factor. Biological factors include viruses and fungi, which have been linked to oral cancers. The human papilloma virus, particularly HPV16 and 18, have been implicated in some oral cancers. A diet low in fruits and vegetables can be a risk factor. Head and neck cancers are usually not diagnosed in the earliest stages because it is so easy to miss or dismiss. What might appear as a simple white or red patch of tissue in the mouth or a common canker sore can be nothing more than a temporary irritation -- or it can be an early sign of cancer. Other cancer symptoms can include: a lump or mass which can be felt inside the mouth or neck; pain or difficulty in swallowing, speaking, or chewing; any wart like masses; hoarseness which lasts for a long time; or numbness. Other than the lips, the most common areas for oral cancer to develop are on the tongue and the floor of the mouth. You can hear Blythe Danner at Speak Out Learn About, read the Speak Out Learn About Head and Neck Cancer Fact Sheet -- available as a PDF document -- or visit The Oral Cancer Foundation for more information.

As Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week just ended yesterday, I am a little late to the party. However, while I was looking up information about smoking, I visited their website to discover an eye-opening section profiling historical and famous people throughout history who suffered from cancer as a result of smoking. Sigmund Freud, considered by many to be the most important historical figure in the areas of psychology and psychiatry for his theories on the subconscious, was so addicted to nicotine, that he hid a cancerous growth in his mouth for years because he did not want to be admonished for his smoking habit.

In the few times Freud did manage to quit smoking, he wrote to a friend, "I have not smoked for seven weeks since the day of your injunction. At first I felt, as expected, outrageously bad ... with mild depression, as well as the horrible misery of abstinence. These wore off but left me completely incapable of working, a beaten man. After seven weeks I began smoking again ... Since the first few cigars, I was able to work and was the master of my mood; before that life was unbearable." Despite experiencing the last fifteen years of his life as a series of painfully dangerous surgeries, and the replacement of most of his jaw, Freud smoked until the day of his death.