Kristina Collins wrote on August 5 about the book Crazy Sexy Cancer. She bought it for a breast cancer survivor friend and called it "a practical (and funny) survival guide with insights of other young women with cancer." There's even a Crazy Sexy Cancer website, she wrote. And a documentary too. Here's some scoop on the documentary:

The upbeat documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer airs on Wednesday, August 29 at 9:00 PM on TLC. It's the story of Kris Carr, actress and photographer -- now author and filmmaker too -- who in 2003 at the age of 31 was diagnosed with a rare and incurable stage 4 cancer. Weeks after her diagnosis, she began documenting her journey. It's a crazy sexy cancer story. So tune in if you're up for a good dose of inspiration and humor. Check out the seven-minute movie trailer here (click on "trailer"). And take a peek at Carr's blog here.

"I just don't want to die," says Carr. "I will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes." Her documentary is proof of that.

I was at the book store yesterday and picked up a cool book for my friend and fellow breast cancer survivor Deb, her birthday is this week.

The book is titled Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips, a practical (and funny) survival guide with insights of other young women with cancer. Sheryl Crow writes the forward for the book!

I learned that they have a website and also a documentary called Crazy Sexy Cancer, an uplifting documentary about a young woman looking for a cure and finding her life.

In 2003, 31-year-old actress/photographer Kris Carr was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Weeks later she began filming her story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, Kris shares her inspirational story of survival with courage, strength, and lots of humor.

Living With Cancer is an inspirational documentary that will air on the Discovery channel tonight at 8pm EDT. Hosted by Ted Koppel, it chronicles the experiences of Leroy Sievers, an executive producer at Discovery.

In 2002 Sievers was diagnosed with colorectal cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and brain. The program features a discussion with Sievers as he deals with chemotherapy, scans and cutting edge procedures.

Koppel says the program is intended to show that people can and do live successfully with cancer everyday.

Sievers says "Normalcy is the greatest gift anyone can give you, let me continue to be me, not cancer. I am not my disease, I just have a disease. That's all"

Tune in -- I know I will.

Summer Running: A Race To Cure Breast Cancer is a documentary about two amazing women who are fighting breast cancer. The film sheds light on this common disease and those dedicated to finding a cure.

Donate just 20 dollars and you can get this highly acclaimed documentary. Net proceeds go to cancer researchers at Johns Hopkins University and The University of Virginia.

"... a highly inspirational and moving film about women runners and breast cancer survivors. It also emphasizes the importance of grass-roots funding, and offers a hopeful look at cancer research. Highest recommendation!"
- Theresa Wells, RN / Runner

One man. One cancer diagnosis. One feature-length film. About how 17,000 men gain membership every month in a group this one man calls, The Men's Club.

The man is Rocky Galgano. He is 58 years old. He is a retired police officer. And he happens to be a member of the very club he features in his film -- a club full of men living with prostate cancer.

Galgano created his documentary as a companion to all the densely-written books and resources he found filled to the brim with medical jargon about a disease that will strike 218,890 and kill 27,050 men this year alone.

Men are reluctant to talk about prostate cancer or get tested for the disease, says Galgano. And yet this form of cancer can be cured if caught early. So Galgano stepped to the plate and started talking. He talks about his personal experience, and he talks about different types of treatment. He has nine different doctors talk. He has cancer survivors talk. And he says he wants as many people as possible to see this film.

Galgano is working on distribution and says he's close to a deal with Amazon.com. He also plans to market the not-yet-rated film to urologists across the country, and he will soon sell his masterpiece -- a trailer can be seen here -- on his website for $19.95.

In her award-winning documentary Toxic Bust, filmmaker Megan Siler takes on the issues and realities of toxic chemicals women are exposed to at home, in the community, and during work in relation to the potential links to breast cancer. Siler focuses on three breast cancer hot spots -- San Francisco and Silicon Valley in California and Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Siler is not alone in her investigative work of environmental links to cancer risks. Even though the current percentage of federally-funded research dollars allocated to the links between cancer and exposure to environmental toxins is in the single-digits, there are those who have spent a good deal of time, energy and resources into studying the cause and effect of the environmental risks to cancer. In the last six years, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has conducted extensive studies regarding toxic chemicals in the environment. Among the 72 people who participated in the EWG studies, a chemical body burden of 455 industrial pollutants, pesticides and other chemicals in blood, urine, and breast milk were found.

The Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition analyzed the hair, blood, and urine samples of ten study participants and found that every person tested had at least 26 and as many as 39 toxic chemicals in his or her body and the exposure to toxic chemicals came from everyday activities and products. Breast Cancer Action released State of the Evidence 2006: What Is the Connection Between the Environment and Breast Cancer? which provided compelling scientific evidence pointing to some of the 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use today as contributing to the development of breast cancer, either by altering hormone function or gene expression. The report also identifies radiation exposure, such as that from X-rays and CT scans, as the longest-established environmental cause of breast cancer. In the United States, a woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer has tripled in the last 40 years.

Wendy Mesley, co-host of CBC's Marketplace and breast cancer survivor, produced and hosted the investigative documentary Chasing the Cancer Answer, that provided revealing interviews with an outspoken American doctor, frustrated cancer victims in southern Ontario, pharmaceutical sales representatives in Paris, France, and activists working to increase awareness of prevention measures. Greenpeace issued a report that Chernobyl cancer deaths have been grossly underestimated. Award-winning and highly-respected journalist and public commentator Bill Moyers produced a PBS documentary Trade Secrets investigating the history of the chemical revolution and the body burden of synthetic chemicals that pose dangers to human health.

We have additional links related to the topic of environmental links to cancer risk at Earth Day: environmental cancer risks and Cancer Epidemic: are we poisoned from birth? Cancer defines about 100 diseases characterized by the uncontrolled, abnormal growth of cells. No one single factor is going to be the cause for all cancers. However, environmental exposure from toxic chemicals cannot be ignored as one, and perhaps multiple, contributing factors in raising the risks of developing cancer.

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, AOL has launched an AIMpage featuring personal stories told by women newly-diagnosed with breast cancer; breast cancer survivors; and by family and friends whose lives have been touched by breast cancer.

A wealth of information, including video and interviews with Ann Murray Paige about her documentary the Breast Cancer Diaries is an exclusive presented on the AIMpage. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, television journalist and young mother Paige set up a video camera in her bedroom to chronicle her struggle to fight and survive breast cancer.

You are invited to share your story; upload a video testimonial using UnCut Video; post your photos; create a blog and AIM page of your own; and learn more about breast cancer through the valuable resources provided through the Think Pink AIMpage.

Thanks to Andie for the tip!

Joining such notable poet laureates as Robert Frost, Rita Dove, Billy Collins and James Dickey, New Hampshire poet Donald Hall has become the 14th United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

South Carolina's poet laureate Marjory Wentworth writes in Poet laureate writes of ordinary things that Hall is one of America's most distinguished and respected literary figures. Educated at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities, he is an award-winning writer who has published 18 books of poetry, a memoir, essay collections and children's books.

In a farmhouse in rural New Hampshire, near where Robert Frost once lived, Hall shared a life with his wife poet Jane Kenyon for more than thirty years -- before her death to cancer. Bill Moyers featured the couple in the Emmy Award-winning documentary film A Life Together. Filmed in 1993, Hall had then recently recovered from cancer. Hall said at the time that the odds were against him living another ten years. Hall beat the odds. Kenyon did not.

Kenyon was in the prime of life, being in her 40's, when she died of leukemia, and Hall often speaks of her life and death with his poetry now published in a book called Without.

Wentworth says in her review of Without, "For anyone who has lost someone they love to cancer or any other illness, this collection of poems will touch you and provide solace. The day-to-day details will be painfully familiar, but it is a good thing to read his words and share in his grief. His gift is his ability to describe the kind of pain and loss that is indescribable for the rest of us."

When Wentworth attended a memorial reading in his wife's honor, she said Hall stated, "My heart is broken, and now I am breaking the world's heart." In addition to Wentworth's review, you can read an interview in conversation with Donald Hall and Judith Moore here.

"Believing in art's curative power is as easy as believing in aspirin." -- Art therapist Johanna Russell, UC Davis Child Life Program

Alex's Art Corner is an area within PBS's A Lion in the House where the artwork of children who are living with cancer can tell their story and display original artwork created by them. Alex Lougheed, a delightful little girl with expressive creative talent, is one of the children featured in the independent film documentary that follows five children and their families over five years through cancer diagnosis, treatment and into survivorship.

One year, the Cincinnati Children's Hospital chose one of Alex's cheerful drawings to be on the front of their Christmas card. All children who are living with cancer are invited to submit their artwork and personal story for inclusion into the Alex's Art Corner online gallery. If you have a child, or know a child, who is facing the challenges of cancer, give them a chance to be in the spotlight and have their art admired by many. According to the submission guidelines, all artwork should be created by children 18 years and younger. Go here for more information and instructions.

Covering a five-year period in time, A Lion in the House, is an independent film documentary that shares an intimate look into the stories of five children -- Alex, 7, Tim, 16, Justin, 19, Jen, 6, and Al, 11 -- and their families as they battle pediatric cancer. PBS will air the film as part of its Independent Lens series this Wednesday evening. Check local listings for the time in your area or visit the PBS A Lion in the House website. While at the film's website hosted by PBS, you can learn more about each child and their family, and read the Filmmaker's Journal, a journal in diary form that shares the thoughts and feelings of the directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert and crew as they film this extraordinary journey through the struggles children and their families face trying to survive cancer.

Before making the documentary, the director's teenage daughter had just survived her own diagnosis of cancer. Now, Julie Reichert has recently been diagnosed with cancer herself and says about the film, "We were present for intimate, scary, inspiring and altogether heart-rending events. Points of view often diverged and nerves frayed as very hard decisions were faced every day. But everyone we observed cared deeply, no one was a bad guy, everyone was trying their best. Witnessing their courage, their commitment, their persistence and their tremendous heart was an incredible inspiration to me as we filmed, and it has been an incredible source of strength and wisdom for me since my own diagnosis."

The title of the film, A Lion in the House is inspired by the movie Out of Africa and a line from it: "You know you are truly alive when you are living among lions." According to the directors, the line was a metaphor that cancer was a lion that could kill you at any moment, a terribly scary beast in the house.

Just a reminder. The New Medicine: Returning the Human Touch to High-Tech Care, a PBS two hour documentary hosted by Dana Reeve, will air on Wednesday, March 29 at 9:00 ET. Filmed three months before her death, Dana was said to be upbeat and optimistic about the future.

"She was very hopeful at that point that she would survive," director Muffie Meyer recalled. "She was buying Christmas presents for her son that day, and really had a tremendous amount of energy. She seemed wonderful, and very, very grounded and strong."

The profound loss of Dana Reeve to lung cancer is still such a shock for many of us. The central theme of the documentary looks at how mainstream doctors are embracing treatment of the whole patient and not merely the symptoms of a disease. Dana Reeve embraced the world, and this documentary almost feels like a gift she left for us - to inspire us - and to enlighten us to healing perspectives she felt were important in facing the challenges and obstacles of disease.