You may not have heard of 75-year-old KTLA news anchor Hal Fishman unless you live in California, but his is an alarming story, and one that's all-too-familiar to some of us. Fishman, who had been a new anchor for 50 years, died last Tuesday of cancer, less than a week after he was diagnosed with it. Fishman saw his doctor last week after collapsing in his home, and it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had spread to his liver. Unfortunately, his family didn't have much time to say goodbye and he passed away at home at 3am on Tuesday.

We often think of Cancer as being a slow disease that gives us lots of time to take in the diagnosis, and lots of time to say goodbye if need be. Fishman's story is much like the story of my dad's death -- he was diagnosed on Thursday and passed away the following Wednesday. Cancer can move faster than the blink of an eye, so it's a good reminder to enjoy every day with your loved ones.

This comment just arrived in response to yesterday's post Headed for melanoma, and it's just too raw and powerful to leave buried in the comment section of the site.

So here it is, word for word -- a chilling and empowering message from a 37-year-old mom of two living with a disease that is downright deadly.

I have melanoma. I was diagnosed last August and have had 6 surgeries in 6 months.

I have lost 4 members in my melanoma support group. I go to Jaime's funeral tomorrow afternoon. She was 29 years old. Heather was 37 when she died on March 2, 2007. The midwife noticed a suspicious mole on her leg during the birth of her 4th child. She died 23 months later. Jan was a mother of 5 ages 9 to 19, she passed away on February 8, 2007. Ceri was only 20 years old when melanoma claimed her life on January 14, 2007.

I always thought skin cancer had to be HUGE, ugly, and hard to ignore. I didn't know it could be small, have no symptoms, and KILL you.

Melanoma incidence is increasing faster than any other cancer. According to statistics found on the American Cancer Society's website (www.cancer.org), the prognosis for someone diagnosed with melanoma is worse, stage for stage, than someone with breast cancer.

Getting more than 3 blistering sunburns during childhood doubles your risk. Sunbed use increases ones risk. Having fair skin and light eyes also puts you at a higher than average risk, but having dark skin does not make you immune. Bob Marley died from Melanoma in 1981.

Everyone at higher risk should get screened by a dermatologist every year. And all of us should be checking our own skin each month.

Melanoma is a virulent and aggressive cancer. It begins in the melanocytes, or the pigment in the skin. It presents itself as a change in an existing mole or skin pigment, or in the formation of a new one. It is easily treated in its most early stages. Once it spreads, though, it is often fatal.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for melanoma. Melanoma is one of the cancers that won't respond to conventional chemotherapy. There have been no significant advances in the medical treatment or survival rate in the last 30 years.

More awareness is needed. Most think "it's only skin cancer" and consider it nothing serious. But I can tell you with absolute certainty, they are DEAD wrong.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation recently revamped it's entire campaign landscape. There's been a name change -- Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- and an infusion of more than $1 million into advertising, and a logo redesign, and a whole slew of new slogans intended for magazines and websites and billboards and t-shirts.

These changes mark the 25-year anniversary of one woman's gift to her sister, Susan G. Komen, who lost her battle with breast cancer at the age of 36. This gift -- the now powerful Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- is most known for its Komen Race for the Cure, a nationwide fundraising and awareness campaign featuring races attended by more than one million participants.

Soon, this group may be known for even more.

Sister Nancy G. Brinker, a breast cancer survivor herself, says, "It's high time we took ownership of the strides we've made and declare our uncompromising commitment."

Brinker's declarations are flying. Some people think they are offensive. Others disagree. I won't share my opinion on this Thought for the Day just yet -- because I don't want to sway any opinions. But I'd love to hear your take on this Komen approach to stamping out breast cancer.

Think about this:

Some print and poster ads will feature a woman wearing a tank-style undershirt that says, "When we get our hands on breast cancer, we're going to punch it, strangle it, kick it, spit on it, choke it and pummel it until it's good and dead. Not just horror movie dead but really, truly dead. And then we're going to tie a pink ribbon on it."

Another ad states, "We only focus on one thing. Or, depending on how you look at it, two."

Another states, "If you're going to stare at my breasts, ... you could at least donate a dollar to save them."

Katherine Schaefer was investigating methods for treating the inflammation seen in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis when something terrible happened -- she noticed her carefully cultured cells were dead. And then something wonderful happened -- she realized she had stumbled upon a potential new method of attacking cancerous tumors that have become resistant to existing drugs.

Schaefer and her colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York were testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator -- a compound never considered a cancer drug, or a drug of any kind really -- when Schaefer made a calculation error and used a lot more of the compound than she should have. And her cells died.

Upon further study, Schaefer found the compound killed just about every possible epithelial tumor cell. These cells line organs such as the colon and also the skin. The compound, that works like taxane drugs but without eventual tumor resistance, also killed colon tumors in mice without making them sick.

The research team, whose findings are published in the journal International Cancer Research, plans more safety tests in mice. And eventually, if their outcomes are promising, they plan to design something they can patent as a new drug -- because they would love to see this disastrous lab experiment one day lead to treatment for cancers of the colon, esophagus, liver, and skin.

This past summer, a man in the business of helping smokers quit, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Just months later, anti-smoking guru Allen Carr lost his battle with cancer. On November 29th, Carr died at his home in Malaga, Spain.

A heavy smoker for 33 years before quitting 23 years ago, Carr claimed to have found an easy way to quit smoking. From that discovery, he founded The Easy Way to Stop Smoking Program, which would eventually grow into 70 clinics in 30 countries. In addition, his company publishes how-to quit smoking books, CDs, tapes and DVDs.

Using cognitive therapy, Carr told smokers interested in quitting that they could do it without willpower, without suffering withdrawal and without gaining weight. The celebrity endorsements for his program include Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sean Bean, Marie Helvin, Johnny Cash, George Harrison, Lisa Stansfield, Sir Richard Branson, Britney Spears, Susannah York, Bruce Oldfield, Stefano Gabbana and Julie Christie.

Carr is credited with helping over 25 million people to quit smoking.

An Easy Way to Stop Smoking Program clinic spokesperson was quoted as saying, "Allen spent many years in smoke-filled rooms after he quit, while treating smokers for addiction. He is certain that had he not quit, he would have died 20 years ago." Near the time of his death, Carr wrote a letter to Tony Blair urging his government and NHS to accept the easy method program. Carr was 72.

Emmy award-winning actor and curmudgeonly patriarch of Everybody Loves Raymond Peter Boyle, who recovered from a stroke almost two decades ago, passed away last night after a battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

On Everybody Loves Raymond, Boyle played the inflexible, narrow-minded, and often abrasive yet somehow lovable Frank Barone, whose signature "holy crap" comment to so many family events and his own antics made the character most memorable.

Boyle began his acting career in theater, going on to appear in movies such as Young Frankenstein, Johnny Dangerously, While You Were Sleeping, Monster's Ball, Malcolm X, Taxi Driver and most recently as Father Time in Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

Boyle is survived by his wife Loraine and daughters Lucy and Amy. He was 71.

Ed Bradley died today of leukemia at Mount Sinai Hospital, he was 65. Ed Bradley was an award-winning television journalist who broke racial barriers at CBS News and created a distinctive, powerful body of work during his 26 years on 60 Minutes.

Three of his Emmys came at the 2003 awards for lifetime achievement, a report on brain cancer patients and also a report about sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. He also won a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists. Bradley joined 60 Minutes in 1981 when Dan Rather left to replace Cronkite as anchor of The CBS Evening News.

He is survived by his wife, Patricia Blanchet. You can read more about Ed Bradley and his career here.

Willie Hendry, international hairstylist to celebrities -- like actresses Liv Tyler and Keira Knightley, supermodel Kate Moss and pop singer Victoria Beckham -- will donate his collection of professionally-styled wigs to cancer patients at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In addition to donating the wigs, he will be on hand to individually style the wigs for cancer patients. According to the news report, Hendry decided to donate all his wigs after meeting two cancer patients. Hendry's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, so he is sensitive to how devastating chemotherapy-induced hair loss can be during the struggles to survive cancer.

"It isn't the fault of the health service, because a lot of their wigs are absolutely beautiful, but I know that there is a special wig bank that has been set up to help patients and I was very keen to donate all of the wigs I have to them. To get a real human hair wig, you have to pay around £200 and for some people that is an awful lot of money. This will allow them to have a top quality wig for practically nothing," explained Hendry.

This sounds like such a nice gift and gesture -- that he is not only donating wigs but that he will be there to professionally style the wigs for each woman.

Ian Copeland, music booking agent who represented acts like Joan Jett, R.E.M., Squeeze, The Police, B-52s, Ramones, and the Cure; who wrote Wild Thing, and was brother to Police drummer Stewart Copeland, has lost his life to skin cancer.

Copeland wrote his autobiographical memoir, Wild Thing: The Backstage, on the Road, in the Studio, Off the Charts Memoirs of Ian Copeland, chronicling his early life as the son of a father who was both jazz musician and CIA intelligence officer and a mother who was both spy and archeologist -- to his wild adventures as a rock music agent. He spent most of his adult life working in the music industry.

"Everybody has always said my brother Ian would have been a more charismatic rock star than anybody he has ever represented," Stewart Copeland told People magazine in 1995. "But instead of shouting to a sea of faces, he'd much rather sit at the dinner table and regale everybody personally." Copeland was 57.

Photo: Ian Copeland (left) with brothers Stewart (centre) and Miles (right)

Heather Crowe never smoked, but she was diagnosed with lung cancer. After 40 years of working as a waitress in smoked-filled restaurants, she became a lung cancer victim of second-hand cigarette smoke. Four years ago, she began a campaign of lobbying the Canadian government to pass a law banning smoking in all public places. In television ads for Health Canada, Crowe described herself as the face of cancer caused by second-hand smoke. Eventually, Crowe convinced the Ontario Government to pass the Smoke Free Ontario Act. On May 31st, all bars, restaurants and indoor public places must be 100 percent smoke-free. The act will ban any smoking in any enclosed public places and will add restrictions to the promotion, handling and display of cigarettes in stores. As a result of her efforts, Crowe is credited with accomplishing more in tobacco control to protect public health than any other one person. She had told people she wanted to live long enough to see the anti-smoking legislation go into effect.

Sadly, Crowe died one week before she could see that happen, but not before she accomplished what she set out to do, and her legacy to protect the health of the public from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke will live on for generations to come. Crowe was 61.

Young Grammy-winning singer Soraya, one of the first Latin singer songwriters to write and record in both English and Spanish, has lost her life to breast cancer. Soraya, whose mother, aunt and grandmother died of breast cancer, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer six years ago. She had treatment and went into remission from the disease, but sources say she relapsed at the beginning of this year.

A soulful and romantic singer who combined her music with a social conscience, launched a promising career a decade ago. Known as a charismatic performer, she had hits on Spanish-language charts and her success in English had caught the attention of Alanis Morissette, Tori Amos and Sting, who all asked her to be an opening act on their tours. She had also collaborated with her childhood hero, Carole King. Soraya went on to become one of the most acclaimed female voices in Latin pop and rock. She released her last album in 2005. She was 37.