A survey sponsored by CancerCare, a national non-profit cancer support organization, stated that a majority of women surveyed said they know a fair amount about breast cancer however, many remain unaware of the recent progresses made in treatment. Fewer than one in four women in the survey have heard of new therapies available for breast cancer, revealing a gap between awareness and information that women can use toward getting a better treatment plan for themselves.

Diane Blum, executive director for CancerCare, says "While great progress has been made in breast cancer awareness through public education and increased media coverage, women with breast cancer would benefit from more information about advances in treatments after surgery".

Key questions to ask your physicians when diagnosed with breast cancer:

• What kind of breast cancer do I have?
• Which treatments are available to me?
• What are the risks and benefits of those treatments?
• What is the risk my breast cancer will come back or spread to another part of my body?
• Where do I go for support when I need it?

For the full survey results visit CancerCare.

If you have just been diagnosed or are ready to go through treatments it is important that you understand your disease and the therapies recommended. A great website, www.webmed.com has a list of questions that you should bring along to your next appointment.

Remember -- Knowledge is power!

10 Cancer Questions for Your Medical Oncologist About Chemotherapy, Hormone Therapy, or Immunotherapy

1. Why are you recommending this treatment for me? Why is it preferable to others?
2. What does this treatment do, exactly? How well does it usually work?
3. What are the risks and side effects of this treatment?
4. How long will I need this treatment?
5. Where will I go to get this treatment?
6. What should I expect from the treatment itself? How long will it take?
7. Should I bring a friend or family member with me to treatment?
8. After treatment, will I need time to recover? Will I be able to drive myself home? Will I need to miss work?
9. Should I make any changes to my diet or lifestyle during or after treatment?
10. How can I reach you if I have concerns or further questions?

10 Cancer Questions for Your Surgeon or Surgical Oncologist

1. Why are you recommending this surgery for me? Why is this treatment preferable to others?
2. What will this surgery accomplish, exactly? How well does it usually work?
3. What are the risks of this operation?
4. How should I prepare for this surgery?
5. What will happen during the procedure?
6. How long will I need to stay in the hospital?
7. What will my recovery be like?
8. What complications should I look for?
9. When can I go back to work?
10. How can I reach you if I have concerns or further questions?

10 Cancer Questions to Ask the Radiation Oncologist

1. Why are you recommending this treatment for me? Why is it preferable to others?
2. What does this radiation therapy do, exactly? How well does it usually work?
3. What are the risks and side effects of radiation therapy?
4. How many weeks will I need this treatment?
5. Where will I go to get this treatment?
6. What should I expect from the treatment itself? What will happen? How long will it last?
7. Should I bring a friend or family member with me to treatment?
8. After treatment, will I need time to recover? Will I need to miss work?
9. Should I make any changes to my diet or lifestyle during or after treatment?
10. How can I reach you if I have concerns or further questions?

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Valerie Monroe, beauty director for The Oprah Magazine, writes a monthly column -- Ask Val -- that appears on the pages of Oprah's feel-good publication. She responds to questions about make-up, skin care, hair care, and overall body care too.

In her February 2007 column, Val writes, "Many of you have written to tell me that you began to be less critical of your body when you appreciated the things it could do." As I read this, I had what Oprah would call an Aha! moment, a moment when something just clicks and makes sudden sense. Aha!, I thought, as I considered all the things my body can do, completely independent of how I look on the outside. So while I was jogging today -- my body can now easily run three miles -- I ran through all of my body's accomplishments, and I stored them in the files of my mind so I could later write them down.

Here are seven things my body can do. As you read them, consider your own body -- its strength, its power, its capacity for greatness -- and remind yourself of your wondrous self the next time you start to criticize the way you look.

• My body can partner in the creation of human life. It can carry babies and deliver them and love them and care for them and raise them. Not all bodies have this power. I am lucky.

• My body can climb an attic staircase, crawl into cramped and dark corners, pull large boxes out of wedged spaces, drag them back to the staircase, and walk backwards down the stairs with goods balancing on my head so that I can fulfill the wish my five-year-old child who wanted so badly in early November to assemble our Christmas tree and decorate our house for the holidays. "Let's wait until Daddy gets home," I told Joey when I found myself crammed into a tiny space in the attic, wrestling with a heavy box full of artificial tree parts. "You can do it, Mommy," Joey said. "You are strong." And so I fought my way through the frustrating feat because I was afraid of the lessons I would teach this little boy if I didn't. In the end, it was Joey who taught me the lesson. I can do it. I am strong.
  

• My body can endure and conquer a 5K run when it once could barely run around the block. With a little extra effort and push, I think my body can accomplish even more.

• My body, once weak and without definition, can lift increasingly heavy weight and can generate muscle tone. It can even do push-ups -- real push-ups. It takes dedication and practice and persistence and mental toughness too. But I see progress. I feel progress. And I want more.

• My body can help others. I can use my fingers to type words on a keyboard that will reach friends and family and people I don't even know. My words can inform and support and encourage and heal. I can use my hands and my semi-creative talents to create hand-made gifts, to cook and deliver very mediocre meals for friends in need, to massage my husband's sore back, to braid my niece's beautiful hair and paint her tiny nails. I can use my arms to hug my little boys with all my might. I can use my voice to communicate, my ears to listen, my senses to feel.
  

• My body can tolerate surgery and chemotherapy and radiation and horrible allergic reactions to antibiotics. My body was badly beaten by a treatment protocol intended to cure me of a disastrous disease. And somehow, in some way, it survived.
  

• My body killed cancer. With the aid of medical intervention and a hopeful attitude, my body overcame the worst and best thing that has ever happened to me. And if it could do nothing else, I would be truly happy for this one thing my body can do.
  

Health care provider Dr. Anthony Vendryes wrote Monday in the Jamaica Gleaner that he is distressed at the growing number of young women developing cancer -- especially breast cancer. He believes women are not working very hard at preventing the disease. He thinks we are just waiting for the problem to surface and then treating it with "painful and often ineffective" efforts.

According to Vendryes, research indicates a woman's risk of developing breast cancer is under her own control. If we live a lifestyle that promotes cancer, we are apparently likely to get the disease. Such a lifestyle would include gaining more than 11 pounds after the age of 18, exercising less than one time per week, eating less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, eating more than three ounces of red meat per day, ingesting too much fat and salt, consuming more than one alcoholic drink per day, and smoking cigarettes.

I am all for healthy living. And I believe achieving good health is under our control. I would personally recommend every woman take charge of her life in a healthful manner. But I do not believe as Vendryes states, "most women actually give themselves cancer by making poor choices in life." I think it's the word most that bothers me.

Obviously, there is a connection between lifestyle choices and chronic disease. And of course our level of health is under our control -- to some extent. But I don't believe it's fair to claim most women ask for breast cancer. I know I didn't.

I did not choose cancer. It chose me. Vendryes might say I am one of the disillusioned people who think cancer is entirely a matter of chance or entirely a matter of genetics. Actually, I suspect it's a combination of all factors. All I know for sure, however, is that my own lifestyle choices were pretty darn healthy prior to my diagnosis.

My weight has always been in a normal range -- and while I did gain more than 11 pounds twice in my life, it was due both times to the more-than-ten-pound babies I delivered into the world. I have always eaten a fairly healthy diet. I consume sweets, salt, and fats in moderation. I have never smoked and have consumed alcohol only minimally. And I have always consistently exercised.

I admit I have eaten red meat, although never daily. And I'm sure I fall short on the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables. But really, I cannot even begin to imagine that my lifestyle was an invitation for cancer. And it makes me sad that most other young women, shocked by a diagnosis of breast cancer like me, might think they asked for such a horrible disease.

It's been two years since my breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent "painful and often ineffective" treatments. And although I have made some lifestyle changes -- I never drink alcohol now, I exercise a little more, and I don't choose to eat red meat if other options are available -- my life is much the same as it was prior to cancer. And I am certain that if cancer makes a return visit to my body, it will not be because I asked for it.

In a curiosity about Dole Food owner David H. Murdock's quest to help people live better longer, I visited the Dole Food website. When you first arrive you will be greeted by the slogan The Dawn of the Nutrition Age. When it comes to food and nutrition, this is a comprehensive resource of internet destination. In the Healthy Recipes area, you can find 30 Minute Meals, BBQ & Grilling, Fruit Salads, Fun Kid Snacks, Holiday Entertaining, Less than 5 Ingredients meals, Main Dish Salads, Pizzas, Quick Breads and Tastes Like Chicken. There is a Glossary, Conversion Table, The Benefits of Getting Steamed, Healthy Snacks, and Put the Squeeze on Added Calories. The Art of the Meal included instructions on how to create simple works of art with food.

Dole Nutrition News is a bi-monthly online newsletter featuring information and news on diet, fitness, nutrition and natural beauty available free to interested readers.

When I first started going to counseling, I was told I would need eight to 10 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy to help me deal with my anxiety, my panic, my fear of breast cancer recurrence. My first session was in May 2005 -- and I am still going. Those initial sessions are possibly all I really needed -- and perhaps I could have stopped the therapy long ago. But stopping never came up and no one told me I had to call it quits so I kept on marching into territory I had never before traveled. I have a degree in counseling -- but I'd never been counseled. I know how to listen to others and share empathy and ask open-ended questions -- but I'd never been the one talking and sharing and venting and crying and answering questions. Until last May -- when I discovered the appeal and the comfort of the counseling chair.

I marched into one of my sessions yesterday and plopped into a brown faux leather recliner. I talked about my recent graduation from Herceptin therapy and about how I might manage in life now that treatment is over. I talked about my jobs -- as a writer and a preschool teacher -- and how they fit into my world. I talked about the level of stress in my days and about how my once constant fear that cancer was trailing me has largely diminished. I talked about how breast cancer is no longer my constant companion -- about how it is now just an acquaintance. And I talked about how counseling was once so necessary and about how it is now just a luxury that helps me maintain peace as I live forward.

I am not sure when I will stop going to counseling. But I'm not completely sure of much anymore. And I've learned from counseling to not really question the future -- to just live in the moment and to give thought primarily to the here and now. And right here, right now, I'm sticking with my sessions, my one hour every month, my comforting counseling chair.

I will share anything and everything about my own experience with breast cancer -- how I found it, how it was removed, how it was treated, how I fared through the whole ordeal, how I'm surviving now. I figure that if I spread the word about what happened to me, that others will become more aware and some -- especially those with a new diagnosis -- will benefit from whatever wisdom I have to impart. So I am an open book. I talk about breast cancer, answer questions about breast cancer, and probably insert my opinion about the topic to some who don't really care. But I will continue talking and sharing -- and writing -- because the alternative would be a disservice to the few I may be able to help.

So a card stuck in the middle of a magazine caught my eye the other day. The slogan on it reads, Tell Someone and the illustrations on this card -- that functions as a postcard -- show women reaching out to other women. There are women talking on the phone and a woman tapping another on the shoulder. The message they appear to be spreading is highlighted in the text below the graphic representation of this campaign to raise awareness of cervical cancer. The message is about HPV -- human papillomavirus -- and about how millions of women already have it and how some don't even know they have it. I learned from reading this card that for some, HPV will clear on its own. But for some, cervical cancer may develop. This is why Pap tests are critical. And so what all women should be telling other women is this -- ask your doctor about the importance of Pap tests. And be active in your own health. And follow all recommendations for detecting health concerns early. I learned from reading this card that I should tell someone about this. And so now I have.

What a great idea! It's the middle of the night and you have a concern about your cancer diagnosis or cancer treatment nagging away at you. Where are you going to go to find the answer -- who are you going to ask? If you live in the United Kingdom, Ask the nurse is a confidential email question and answer service for women diagnosed and living with breast cancer. As long as you live in, or are receiving cancer treatment in the UK, you can use this free service provided by Breast Cancer Care. They even publish a free helpline number to call if you need an immediate answer, as the email answer to your question can take up to two days. Still, even with the two-day wait, this is a terrific service. When you are newly-diagnosed with breast cancer, or going through cancer treatment, there are so many questions that cross your mind. This service allows you to ask questions you might forget to ask, or are reluctant to ask, in person during a doctor visit or treatment session.