When I sit still in the middle of the day, I fall asleep. I'm not sure if it's a side effect of cancer or of life in general, but as a result, I keep myself moving at all times.

I'm always doing something -- writing, emptying the dishwasher, packing a school lunch, reorganizing cabinets and closets and drawers. There's always something to fiddle with, something to keep my body from crashing into a deep sleep.

My little boys have been playing with Lego all afternoon. For hours they have been content and happy and full of imagination. They've built flying boats and castles and pirate contraptions. My wish: to just sit and watch them, to absorb their words, their sound effects, their interactions.

I tried to just sit and watch, tried to hone my quiet observation skills. And then I fell sleep.

It's a dozing-off kind of sleep that creeps up on me and for brief moments, I am lost to the world, sometimes even dreaming for short periods of time. So I find I am more alert and productive in the study of my children when my mind is busy with some sort of task. It's not my ideal scenario. But I figure it's better to be awake and bonding with my boys -- even if it means I'm multitasking -- than sleeping through their special moments.

My boys are still building -- they are making flags for their ships -- and I'm awake. And writing and preparing dinner too.

Journalist, commentator, and cancer patient Leroy Sievers -- the guy we've written about before, the guy who has covered many wars and witnessed countless deaths, the guy who is now observing his own death as cancer in his lungs and spine chip away at his life -- has realized that getting good news takes some getting used to.

Sievers got some good news recently. He learned that the new combination of chemotherapy drugs he's been receiving has shrunk the tumors in his lungs. And scans show the tumor on his spine is healing. It's taken him days to truly understand this concept -- this concept of hope that has miraculously delivered him more time. He didn't expect it.

Sievers fully expected that he would soon be dead. That's why he's been savoring the cold, crisp fall days -- because he was not certain he would ever see such a season. He was sure he would never host another Halloween party either -- a party he canceled this year due to his health. But now, as he takes in this new sensation of hope, he considers the possibility he may be around for another party. And he thinks he'll dress up as a tumor. Halloween is one time when good taste is never important, he says.

Sievers, who offers a weekly personal health update for NPR, available in print or in podcast format on his blog, plans to keep living in the moment. He doesn't want to overdo this hope thing. So right now, he is simply enjoying the colorful leaves -- and the season he calls one of his favorites.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, we are fully into the fall season. In the southern hemisphere, they are enjoying spring, and looking forward to the upcoming summer. To maximize daylight hours, we turn our clocks ahead one hour each spring, and turn the clocks back one hour each fall. However, this has become a bit of a debate in Australia, as Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is digging in his heels, locking his knees, and crossing his arms against his chest in refusing to follow fellow countrymen in Western Australia when it comes to considering the policy of instituting daylight saving time.

Beattie is well-intentioned but ill-informed in his concern that the extra hour of light might increase the already high risk of skin cancer in Queensland. Adding an extra hour at the end of the day -- or the beginning of the day -- depending on how you want to view it, will not increase skin cancer risks resulting from excessive exposure to sunlight. The hours of the day when the sun is most damaging, and most dangerous in increasing skin cancer risks, is the middle of the day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

According to The Skin Foundation, to reduce skin cancer risks, we need to protect ourselves year-round by staying out of the sun during peak hours of 10a.m. to 4p.m., by wearing a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a sun protection factor SPF 15 or higher, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses, avoiding the use of tanning parlors and artificial tanning devices, keeping newborns out of the sun, teaching children good sun-protective practices, examining skin from head-to-toe once a month, having a professional examination annually, and avoiding sunburn.

For more information about skin cancer myths and fact, read Skin cancer myths debunked by dermatologists.

Tomorrow -- Monday, September 25 -- is the day when every dollar you spend at Chili's restaurants will be donated to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. So treat yourself to a meal out tomorrow -- and treat the kids at St. Jude's to some hope for a healthy future.

Donate All Our Profits Day is Chili's way of creatively conquering childhood cancer. This fundraising effort will benefit the development of Chili's Care Center -- a St. Jude's building dedicated to groundbreaking research on brain tumors. The center is scheduled to open in Fall 2007.

Chili's doors will be open for lunch and dinner tomorrow. So abandon your plans for cooking today and let Chili's cater to your every wish -- while you sit back, relax, and quietly make a difference in the lives of sick children.

There's a bit of breast cancer news in just about every magazine out there -- news about treatments and protocols and studies, news about celebrity diagnoses, news about lives lost to breast cancer and lives conquering breast cancer, news that is scattered here and there and everywhere. But now, there is a magazine all about breast cancer -- and just about breast cancer. All sorts of breast cancer wisdom is conveniently packaged into one slick, glossy publication that debuted on newsstands yesterday, September 19.

Beyond: Live & Thrive After Breast Cancer is a semi-annual publication from Meredith Special Interest Media, part of the Meredith Corporation -- a leading media and marketing company and home to magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, and Fitness. Meredith's new breast cancer venture provides women living with the disease -- and those who may one day encounter it -- with support and with the latest information on treatment and recovery.

The Fall/Winter 2006 premiere issue of Beyond features a cover story about Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, a survivor forging ahead into a life beyond breast cancer. Also filling the pages are inspiring real-life profiles and stories, nutritional advice, up-do-date medical information, fashion tips, the Pink Pages -- a resource guide that details upcoming races and products that support breast cancer -- and much more.

Behind the scenes of this issue is an advisory board of leading experts in the breast cancer field. Experts include Susan Brown, the health manager at Susan G. Komen Foundation; Carolyn M. Kaelin, director of Comprehensive Breast Health Center and breast cancer survivor; and Lillie Shockney, Administrative Director at Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer.

If there is one theme common to women surviving breast cancer, it must be the desire to live beyond the control of this life-threatening and life-changing illness, to recapture an existence that resembles something normal, to embark on a journey outside the confines of cancer. Tips, techniques, strategies, and inspiration for accomplishing these feats are printed on the pages of this new magazine that is sure to reach its intended audience -- that today includes two million women who are living with breast cancer.

Chili's restaurant is the place to be on September 25 -- because 100 percent of profits earned on this day will go to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital -- the only hospital for sick children that does not require anyone to pay for treatment. So fundraising is key -- and Chili's has cooked up all sorts of creative ways to help conquer cancer in children.

Besides Donate All Our Profits Day, Chili's is sponsoring a program called Creativity for a Cause -- where customers make a donation and then color a rendering of a pepper. The coloring sheets are displayed at participating restaurants in a chain-like fashion, hanging from the ceilings. Create a Pepper gift cards are also available. For every $25 spent on gift cards, Chili's will donate $1 to St. Jude's. And t-shirts -- black with a white pepper gracing the front -- can be purchased for $12. Kids can even have fun on-line with Chili's crafty creations, including an interactive pepper coloring activity.

All this fundraising goes hand in hand with the development of the Chili's Care Center -- a St. Jude's state-of-the-art building dedicated to groundbreaking research on brain tumors. The center is scheduled to open in Fall 2007 -- thanks to Chili's professionals who over the course of 10 years have donated a historic $50 million to St. Jude's.

Where does the time go? Even though most of us have been experiencing the height of the summer season in the form of a nationwide scorcher of a heat wave, summer is almost over for school kids and teens leaving for college. Yes, in less than a month, it's back to school. There are advertisements everywhere you look for new school supplies and new school clothes. In preparation for the new school season, Duke Health has published Back to School Tips for Healthy Eating.

The experts say it is not about counting fat grams and calories but portion control and choices. According to pediatrician Dr. Terrill Bravender, "You don't have to be obsessive about it. If you generally eat healthy, there is room for some foods that aren't as healthy."

Dr. Bravender offers these basic common sense tips:

• Involve kids in lunchbox planning. If you let them make some choices about what goes into their lunchbox, they are more likely to eat it.
• Avoid the peanut butter and jelly rut. Nothing wrong with the traditional, but try new foods. Make it a food adventure.
• While everyone is still on summer break, encourage children to prepare their own lunch. Dr. Bravender suggests easy-to-make ideas like graham crackers with peanut butter and a glass of milk; fresh fruit with cheese cubes; a hard boiled egg with whole grain crackers; yogurt with a sliced banana; granola bars with milk; or tortilla chips and bean dip made without hydrogenated oils.
  

Ultimately, as the mother, what foods come in to the home are my choosing, so I try to make nutritious choices in food purchases. But I have found great success over the years by taking my kids to the grocery store with me, and allowing them to choose between several choices I offer. We also take a look at new foods, and talk about the food item. We read ingredients. Some we decide, by group vote, to bring home and try. During the growing seasons, they are with me when I stop at a roadside stand to buy local produce straight from the field, and each year we have an annual tradition of blueberry picking enough blueberries to last most of the year ahead. Food can be fun, and learning about good food a lifetime benefit in cancer prevention.

Screenings for colorectal cancer offer more than a chance for early treatment -- they offer the chance to avoid cancer completely. The disease usually starts with growths called polyps that can take a decade to turn cancerous. If polyps are found and removed, cancer can be avoided altogether. Yet many are avoiding the screening. And polyps that go undetected can turn to a cancer that can lurk silently in anyone -- especially during middle age and beyond. And black Americans are especially at risk.

Almost 42 million Americans over the age of 50 are not getting checked for colorectal cancer -- the nation's No. 2 cancer killer. Perhaps it's the financial burden that comes with the life-saving procedure. Now in five states, a government-funded program is offering free testing for the poor. But still, many will fall through the cracks in many states. And while Medicare pays for screenings, this federal program is for people 65 and older -- a long wait for someone at age 50 who needs the test but does not have insurance.

Perhaps it's the part of the body under study that steers people away. Perhaps it's the manner in which the test is performed -- a long, flexible tube is used to visually inspect the colon -- that turns heads in the wrong direction. While the financial burden is a valid deterrent, other worries or fears should be put to rest. The test is not all that bad, says one doctor who had a colonoscopy himself. The worst part of the whole experience may be the liquid mixture that is consumed prior to the test that cleans out the system -- minor discomfort really in the scope of the alternative. Cancer.

Colonocopies are recommended just once every 10 years. And nearly 60 percent of deaths from colorectal cancer can be prevented if each person over the age of 50 finds some way to make this screening happen. And if not this screening, there are other options -- like a fecal test that is done annually but is more more affordable and can be quite effective too. So consider your options. And make a choice.

Parents may want to save their kids' baby teeth for more than just nostalgic reasons -- they may want to save them because they are rich in stem cells and the pulp tissue could provide the means to treatment for injuries and disease. BioEden Inc. is a new company out of Austin, Texas pioneering this effort that is so new some doubt science will ever catch up with the expectations of this firm. But President Jeff Johnson says all evidence indicates that baby teeth are a wonderful source of stem cells -- cells that doctors and researchers pursue for their capability of replicating and morphing into specialized cells that can be used to repair the body. Experts think baby teeth stem cells might one day be used for bone, teeth, and even nerve cell regeneration which could hold potential for spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Parents may find brochures in their dentist offices featuring the benefits of banking their children's teeth once they fall out. And pursuing tooth banking is no different than pursuing any other dental procedure. There are fees involved, of course -- banking fees and perhaps referral fees from dental offices -- and other considerations that each parent must weigh. Dr. Phil Hunke, president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and pediatric dentist for 32 years, says the idea of removing cells and freezing them holds true promise -- and he may want to bank the tooth of a child or grandchild once he learns more. Dr. Kevin Donly, a professor of pediatric dentistry, says he sees some potential but will not be banking teeth for his three little boys. He just doesn't think he's at the point where it's necessary. Another pediatric dentist -- Dr. John Updyke -- believes that if money were not an issue, all parents should bank their kids' teeth. But many young families can't afford the initial $595 and the $89 annual storage cost it requires. And without a solid scientific backing, tooth banking might not come up as a priority for many when it may take 10 years or more to even determine how useful these specific stem cells will be.

My son shaved my head 16 months ago.  My hair was falling out in clumps from chemotherapy, and I thought the trauma of losing my hair all at once would be somehow less painful than watching it fall from my scalp one batch at a time.  It was still traumatic -- and I cried -- but Joey told me, "It's only a haircut, mommy.  You are not going to die."  Joey was four.  I was 34.  And he was right -- I did not die.  And my hair is growing back. 

It's not the same long, blond, straight hair I once had -- it's now short and dark and curly.  But I have hair.  It feels a whole lot better than not having hair.  Losing my hair was hard.  Being bald was hard.  I never found the strength or courage to flaunt my shiny scalp and I searched high and low for the perfect cover-up.  I found it at Hip Hats.