The profile on her blog reads: Living in London. Working in ads. Currently undergoing treatment for Breast Cancer. And that about sums it up for this woman whose life has become hijacked by cancer. That's the way it goes. Cancer strikes and life revolves around it for so much longer than we'd like.

The 30-something Anne-Marie Weeden writes in a recent blog post:

I was genuinely confident at the beginning of this process that the whole chemo thing should not affect life too much. And in the first three treatments it didn't really. But the last three have just escalated in terms of the challenges they have thrown my way. They said it would be cumulative but I didn't realise it would accumulate on such a scale. I'd say the last two treatment cycles have been at least ten times as hard as the first one.

I am in a slump. I feel tired and slow and unmotivated. And ever since October 14 -- when I ran in the 5K Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event -- I can't seem to find the inspiration to exercise. I am making myself do it -- here and there -- but my usual drive and push and spunk are missing. Typically, I crave exercise and feel lethargic if I don't accomplish some sort of daily physical challenge. But for the past week or so, I have no craving, no desire to walk or run or lift weights, no appetite for my usual fitness routine. I am just plain tired.

Fatigue is a common side effect of cancer treatment -- even years after treatment ends, according to some experts. So perhaps my drop in energy and enthusiasm is due to the cumulative effect of my own treatment for breast cancer that just ended in June. My treatment spanned almost two years. Maybe it's no surprise my body is lagging behind my expectations for physical health.

Experts also say exercise helps combat fatigue. I believe this -- it's why I usually like exercise. It boosts my adrenaline, perks me up, makes me feel alive. If only I could get back into the swing of things, these feelings might come flooding back. But right now, I am not even thinking about how to find my old groove. I am just too tired.

A chemical found in hard plastics -- such as CD cases, baby bottles, food-storage containers, and even electronics parts -- has been loosely linked to incidences of breast cancer. Popular opinion cautions that if we were not worried about this news yesterday, we should not be worried about it today -- because studies are preliminary and nothing is definitive at this point. But there are definitely two sides to the debate over how harmful these hard plastics may be.

The chemical in question -- a pseudo-estrogen called bisphenol-A (BPA) -- appears to be absorbed by breast tumor cells, according to a new study published in the August 28 issue of Chemistry & Biology. Previous studies have linked small exposures of BPA to prostate abnormalities in mice that suggest a link between the plastic chemical and human prostate cancer. Some studies even theorize that embryonic and fetal exposure might influence mental retardation and birth defects. And because this pseudo-estrogen is a synthetic material that in human cells can trigger estrogenic effects, breast cancer now comes up as a disease that may result from this questionable chemical.

Critics say that average levels of the chemical found in urine is infinitesimally small -- about one part per billion. Some say the results of this research come from in-vitro studies that one expert says can never fully explain human disease. Yet the real crux of the matter, according to another expert, is that we are surrounded by all sorts of chemicals that are pseudo-estrogenic -- not just BPA -- and it's the cumulative effects that we do need to worry about.