It's amazing how modern medicine can repair the damage done by breast cancer, how it can reconstruct breasts removed in an attempt to ward off future cancer attacks, how it can inspire one woman to shed light on this major life transformation.

Debbie was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2004. She had a double mastectomy and then treatment -- and then reconstruction. At the time, no pictures existed depicting the process, no images to prepare Debbie for the path she would travel.

Debbie traveled her path, survived it all, and now shares her journey -- through both words and images -- through a project she calls Myself: Together Again. Her project, intended to empower other women through the breast reconstruction process, is available online where booklets can also be ordered. A slideshow featuring images and audio of Debbie's journey is currently available on the MSNBC website.

While Debbie's story plots the landmark steps in reconstruction, each woman is unique -- and her medical team knows her situation best. Reconstruction options and results will vary for each person. This is just one woman's story.

In a surprising discovery, 200 mutated genes linked to the development, growth and spread of breast and colon cancers have been identified by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists. This information might provide vital research into the future treatment for these cancers.

Other cancers can be studied using the methods these researchers, called the Hopkins gene hunters, used in discovering the 200 genetic mutations for breast and colon cancers.

"This gives us some understanding of why breast and colon cancers, and most likely other cancers as well, are very different diseases and develop through different processes. When we say this will drive cancer research for the next couple of decades, this is one of the reasons," states Kenneth Kinzler, Ph.D., professor of oncology and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins. "Now researchers will study how these mutations occur in breast and colon cancers, perhaps searching for environmental agents or cellular processes that drive these changes."

To read more detail on this study and discovery, visit Genome Code Cracked for Breast and Colon Cancers. An MP3 file and XML for iPods has been provided so that you can listen to Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists discuss this research.

Hopefully this doesn't happen too often, but one hour after Observer sports writer Bill Elliott was diagnosed with prostate cancer, his wife Val was diagnosed with breast cancer. That a couple would both be diagnosed with cancer within an hour of each other is stunning, but equally stunning is the lack of sameness when it comes to cancer treatments in National Health Service priority funding and the tally in quality of life and human costs. Unfortunately, the difference in treatments appears to be common.

Colleague Health Editor Jo Revill, in Both have cancer. But why can't one get the best care? takes a look at the difference between the treatment Elliot will receive for his prostate cancer compared to the treatment Val will receive for her breast cancer.

According to Revill, breast cancer currently enjoys ten times more funding than prostate cancer. From very glamorous campaigns, such as Ralph Lauren's Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, supported by models such as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen and Giselle Bundchen. She muses that pictures of men in underpants highlighting prostate cancer do not have quite the same appeal as sexy women in white T-shirts.

After a lumpectomy, Val was put on an expensive and successful chemoprevention drug to prevent breast cancer recurrence. 

However, for Bill, the options offered are limited. The treatment that his physician recommended that gives him the best odds of survival -- a brachytherapy -- was denied because of costs. Brachytherapy is a proven therapy where 100 radioactive seeds are implanted within the prostate gland in order to kill cancer cells through radiation. The alternative? Radical prostatectomy -- the surgical removal of the prostate with two major side effects -- impotence and incontinence.

Bill could pay privately for brachytherapy, but he wonders what happens for men who cannot afford the better treatment. You can read about Bill and Val's story in depth here. You can listen to Bill and Val talk about the outrage they feel over the inequities in cancer treatment as they speak with Jo Revill in an audio interview here.