I'm wearing a pretty pink sticky note on my shirt. It was taped on me just recently by my six-year-old Joey who's been busy in kindergarten learning to spell words. He's in the sounding-out stage and as long as he gets his consonants right, we're happy. Joey's teacher says he doesn't need to master the vowels just yet, and with that in mind, Joey is doing a pretty impressive job of crafting real words -- although sometimes he misses.

Tonight, Joey had a hit and a miss. But the sentiment buried in his written message -- cryptic as it was -- is enough to warm my heart.

Joey always links me with breast cancer -- no surprise, since he's been a key player in my match with cancer since it began two years ago -- and so tonight, he wrote on the pink sticky note, Bube skawos. He tells me it reads, Boobie cancer. Not so sure about the cancer part. But the boobie part speaks loud and clear. And even more clear is the breast cancer ribbon he drew on the same sticky note, just before he pinned me with his powerful work of art.

Joey's smile spanned from ear to ear as he presented me with my special badge. And I'm smiling just the same as I look at the little pink piece of paper given to me by my loving little boy.

I took my boys yesterday for a tour of the University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology. Translation for these little boys -- ages five and three -- involves one simple word. Bugs. They love bugs, hunt for bugs, capture bugs, and reluctantly set them free because I coax them into allowing these itty bitty creatures to continue living with their "mommies and daddies." I have a soft spot for all living beings -- bugs included.

We learned some crazy facts about bugs yesterday -- insects is the proper term really. We learned there is one cockroach that can live for seven days without its head. We learned there are two types of Madagascar cockroaches living in a lab in the very same building we visited that if set free, would reproduce so quickly they would become a major pest problem in the state of Florida. And we learned that of all animals on this planet, most are insects. But not only did we learn some crazy facts, we -- well, Joey -- shared a crazy fact too.

Joey is five years old. He is the boy who remembers much of my breast cancer journey. He is the one who helped shave my head, the one who thought a banana would make my sick tummy feel better. He's the one who would blurt out to people we never knew very well, "My mommy is bald," the one who asked me just last night if the metal thing -- my port -- was still in my chest. When I told him it's gone, he jumped up and announced, "Yeah, it's gone!" Cancer is one of many vocabulary words housed in Joey's brain. And sometimes the word comes up unexpectedly, in strange contexts, in surprising ways. Like today.

Our bug tour guide told us that in Africa, mosquitoes transmit diseases that kill millions of people. But those with sickle cell anemia are immune to the deadly diseases due to their compromised red blood cells that somehow fend off disease. This fact prompted Joey to share with the guide, "Did you know when people have cancer, there are bugs that can kill the cancer?" Our guide listened to this crazy fact and said in a kid-friendly way, "No, I did not know that. Who told you that?" Joey told her, "I don't remember but someone told me."

I am not sure what prompted Joey to make this announcement. Perhaps he was trying to one-up the tour guide, to sound like an expert on one of his favorite subjects. Perhaps his imagination was in overdrive and he blurted out the best story he could offer. Perhaps he jumbled up a story he had heard on the topic of cancer. And perhaps he is just simply hopeful that one day, bugs will help cure cancer. And wouldn't that be nice -- a simple mosquito comes along, pierces the skin, and poof, cancer is gone.

My cancer journey would not be nearly as interesting, as enlightening, as tender if Joey was not along with me for the ride. He keeps me busy and keeps my spirits up. He keeps me grounded and keeps life simple. Best of all -- he keeps me laughing.

Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton announced on Thursday -- via his publicist -- that he will miss the beginning of the band's upcoming tour and will rejoin the band in mid-October once he has fully recovered from radiation treatment for throat cancer.

Hamilton, 55, just completed seven weeks of radiation and plans to rest and heal in the company of family. In his absence, David Hull -- a longtime friend and former member of the Joe Perry Project -- will fill in as bassist. The Aerosmith tour -- Route of All Evil -- will begin on September 5 in Columbus, Ohio.