Yesterday, I saw my oncologist for one of my every-three-month follow-up visits. As always, I went armed with my list of questions -- which is really my list of worries -- and one by one, I rattled them off. On a little sticky note, I had written:

• Lymph node
  
• Digital mammogram
  
• Next MRI
  
• Heart
  
• Colonoscopy

And this is what my doctor had to say about my concerns of the day:

Major League Baseball and the Prostate Cancer Foundation teamed up this year to form the Home Run Challenge in honor of Father's Day. Their gift to father's across the country: for each home run hit in 60 selected games between June 6 and today, June 17, raised money for prostate cancer, the second most common cancer for men in the United States.

Some fans of this cause made pledges; some posted online tributes to their dads at Dockers San Francisco. For every message submitted, the company donated one dollar. Some messages were even shown in Times Square for all to see.

I just checked the status of the Home Run Challenge on this Father's Day morning and found the most updated total of home runs to be 91. Leading the accomplishment are Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Alfonso Soriano. The current Team Home Run leader: the Cincinnati Reds.

At the end of November, EarthLink CEO Garry Betty took a medical leave of absence from his job to fight adrenocortical cancer, a serious form of cancer characterized by a tumor that occurs in the adrenal glands above the kidneys. On Tuesday, Betty died at his Atlanta home from complications of the disease. He was 49.

Betty joined the internet service provider EarthLink in 1996 and helped the regional company grow from a provider with 500,000 subscribers into a national powerhouse with more than five million subscribers.

"Garry was instrumental in building EarthLink into the company it is today," EarthLink Chairman Robert M. Kavner said in a recent statement.

EarthLink was just one of Betty's successful ventures. He began his career at IBM Corp. and won the IBM President's Excellence Award in 1982 for his work on the company's personal computer. He also served as CEO of Digital Communications Associates Inc. and at the time became the youngest CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Betty, who graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1979 with a degree in chemical engineering, was responsible for 2,200 EarthLink employees. And in support of his team, he attended the company's 2006 Christmas party just three weeks after receiving his diagnosis.

"He put on a tux and came out for a night to make all of us feel better," said Mike Lunsford, interim EarthLink CEO. "And he succeeded."

Betty is survived by his wife, Kathy.

Technology has come a long way over the years -- and now the technology behind digital mammography is allowing life-saving screenings for the toughest patients to diagnose with breast cancer.

This is no small technological breakthough. It is a critical component for lowering the breast cancer death rate the American Cancer Society reports has declined 2.3 percent each year between 1990 and 2002. Since breast cancer is a treatable disease if caught early, digital mammography will up the odds of survival for women with this disease.

Digital mammography operates according to a computer-based technique that allows for digital manipulation of a breast X-ray. It exceeds the capability of film mammography -- and is much like the comparison between digital photography versus film photography. Both work. But one works better.

Studies show digital mammograms have a lot to offer. They detect tumors better in young women with dense breast tissue, for example. They allow for ease of storage and retrieval of images. And they can easily become part of a woman's electronic medical record.

There are still benefits of traditional mammography and women are still urged to use this less expensive option. They are also urged to conduct self-breast exams and to report for clinical exams with physicians. It's the whole package that contributes to comprehensive breast health, not just one isolated test. When used in combination with all other screening methods, digital mammography makes for a more accurate overall picture.

At the beginning of May, four skateboarders -- Rob Lewis, 26, of Winnipeg, Aaron Jackson, 25, of Summerside, P.E.I., Benjamin Jordan, 25, of Toronto and Carlos Koppen, 26, of Halifax -- left Halifax, Nova Scotia to skateboard across Canada to benefit breast cancer.

Traveling the Trans-Canada Highway, the group is averaging 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) a day, and has raised over $26,000 dollars for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The ultimate goal is to raise one million dollars -- one dollar at a time.

They are hoping to reach Vancouver, British Columbia in September or October. You can learn more about the skateboarders and keep up with the young men at the Push for the Cure website. They publish updates of the journey and excellent photography of their travels.

Comic-Con International in San Diego is an event where comic book, comic strip, science fiction, gaming, and movie people and fans mingle.

I am not there -- although it sounds like fun. For The Cancer Blog readers, I can tell you someone who is there -- Brian Fies creator of the comic Mom's Cancer. He appeared as a Comic-Con featured guest panel speaker.

In 2004, Brian Fies mother was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. Fies created a serialized web comic strip called Mom's Cancer, as a way to express and come to terms with the emotional issues of watching his mother struggle with the challenges of facing life and death with cancer. He made the comic freely available for reading by anyone interested. Mom's Cancer wasn't advertised, but when it comes to the internet, if it's good, it creates its own buzz.

That is what happened to Mom's Cancer. It created enough buzz that it gained a large readership following and won the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. Mom's Cancer went on to become a book published by Abrams Books for those who like to hold a hard copy of a publication in their hands. Fies blogs about all-things related to Mom's Cancer and his daily life -- and he did mention in his blog that he is attending Comic-Con, however, he does not appear to be blogging Comic-Con live. But Fies promises to blog photos and stories about his Comic-Con experience when he returns home ... a vicarious way for us to attend this year's 2006 Comic-Con.