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.

It seems Elizabeth Edwards has a good amount of energy, despite her diagnosis of incurable cancer in March, following a previous battle with breast cancer. Perhaps her energy stems from the fact that she is asymptomatic and feeling quite well.

About her health and her husband's campaign, Edwards says, "I feel good and honestly, the campaign is more helpful. I don't sit at home and worry about what's going to happen to me a year from now, two years from now, 10 years from now. I take a pill in the morning and that's when I think about cancer. No other time of the day do I think about my cancer."

While she does admit she doesn't want to push herself too hard, she doesn't worry about the accompanying her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, on his busy campaign trail. And she doesn't worry about what others might think of her decision to press forward.

After diagnosing Freddy Fender with lung cancer, the doctors told him there is nothing they can do for him. At the beginning of the year, he went in for an operation to remove the upper left lobe of his lung due to a fungal infection when the surgeons found two large tumors. A PET scan revealed nine smaller tumors in his pleura - membranes covering the lungs and lining the chest cavity.

Grammy award-winning musician Fender, known for Hispanic/pop, country western and blues, became famous for hits like Before The Next Teardrop Falls, You'll Lose A Good Thing, and Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

According to his bio, in 1960, Wasted Days and Wasted Nights proved to be prophetic. Fender and his bass player were arrested and sent to prison for possession of two marijuana cigarettes. Three years later, Fender went to New Orleans, where he spent the next five years developing his talent in rhythm & blues and Cajun funk.

Fender had a role in Robert Redford's film the Milagro Beanfield War and you can hear his voice in national radio and television campaigns for McDonald's and Miller Lite.

Caller-Times Cassandra Hinojosa quotes Fender in her news article as saying, "I feel very comfortable in my life. I'm one year away from 70 and I've had a good run. I really believe I'm OK. In my mind and in my heart, I feel OK. I cannot complain that I haven't lived long enough, but I'd like to live longer."

In September, with his wife Vangie Huerta at his side, he will visit the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southwestern Regional Medical Center to consider available treatments.

David Letterman recently introduced Fender to his Late Show audience as "one of the greatest voices in all of music."

Every promising drug therapy has a potential dark side. Hycamtin -- topotecan hydrochloride -- a cancer-fighting drug used to treat patients with ovarian and lung cancer, has received FDA approval for treatment of late-stage cervical cancer. When surgery or radiation is not a viable option for women diagnosed with recurrent or incurable cervical cancer, Hycamtin can be added to cisplatin as a combination chemotherapy drug therapy shown to provide life-lengthening benefit.

Combining Hycamtin with cisplatin is not a cure, and in clinical trials showed an additional survival benefit of three months when compared to treatment with cisplatin alone. Who would not choose to live as long as possible, even if you are measuring life in months? However, the combination drug therapy is likely to increase the risk in lowering white cell counts, decreasing blood platelets, inducing nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and hair loss. Quantity of life versus quality of life is the dark side of this drug therapy promise. One woman might choose quantity of life, and another woman choose quality of life. There is no wrong or right but when making a choice it needs to be made with eyes wide open.

For more information, there is a Hycamtin website offering information on how the chemotherapy drug is administered and the side effects a woman can expect during treatment. While it is written for ovarian and lung cancer patients, I believe the basic over all information should be the same for cervical cancer patients.

Thanks to Joel Arellano of Autoblog for this news tip!

At the same Atlanta meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology where the breast cancer drug Tykerb was touted as perhaps the next wonder drug, findings were also released concerning chemotherapy and end-stage cancer. It seems that many patients in the last weeks and days of their lives are receiving chemotherapy -- when it is clear that there is no hope for survival. Perhaps patients don't want to give up and so they choose to fight to the very end. I think I would be hard-pressed to throw in the towel if a doctor thought I might benefit from continued treatment. Miracles do happen.

Doctors may be part of the problem, though, according to researchers. Patients don't want to give up -- and neither do doctors. But cancer specialists report that overly aggressive treatment gives false hope and puts people though unnecessary suffering and costly ordeals when hospice would be a more effective route. The purpose of hospice -- to help people die with dignity and in comfort -- is ineffective, however, when it's not used to its full potential. A large review of Medicare records showed in 1999 that nearly 12 percent of cancer patients died after receiving chemotherapy in the last two weeks of life. This was up from 1993 -- 10 percent -- and is probably higher today. These individuals could have been peacefully preparing for death and instead were suffering through the trials of harsh treatment.

The solution -- that must be implemented by doctors -- is a willingness to accept that there is a time to stop followed by an honest conversation with the patient whose cancer has spread widely and is incurable.

Another study presented at this Atlanta meeting revealed that some patients are not being offered newer treatments that might truly save their lives. New lung cancer treatments have extended survival from 20 percent at one year to 50 percent, for example. Yet only 11 percent of doctors in one Wisconsin study would refer such patients for treatment.

It would be nice to know for sure that one life is about to end, regardless of treatment, and to know that another might be saved because of treatment. And maybe one day -- when treating cancer is an exact science -- this will be a reality.