As Leroy Sievers says, "Most of you know me as someone with cancer. Google my name -- and yes, I confess, I've done that -- more often than not, it comes up linked to one other word: cancer. But what about all the other things I've been?"

Sievers has been a journalist for most of his adult life. He's also been a baker, a short-order cook, a teacher, and an aspiring author. Yet cancer is the word most often used to describe this man.

But maybe not for long.

Could it be that Sievers -- a man whose life has been derailed by a deadly cancer traveling throughout his body, a man who has been contemplating death with each passing day -- may soon be rid of cancer altogether?

Actually, Sievers already sees glimpses of cancer falling to the wayside.

Having undergone a new procedure called Radio Frequency Ablation -- where needles are stuck into tumors, burning them away from the inside out -- Sievers sees a brighter future. He's seen his latest scans. He's seen the black holes where tumors once lived. He's seen that no new tumors have appeared. He's seen that he may actually survive cancer.

Months ago, this man, who blogs his cancer journey for NPR, was told he would likely not survive the year. Now he realized he may outlive this prediction. And while this is great news, Sievers finds himself a bit unsure about a life without cancer.

"Will I be somebody who used to have cancer?" he says. "I think most cancer patients don't ever think it's really gone. It's just hiding, waiting to jump out and scare us when we least expect it. Will I be able to resume my old life? To rebuild my battered body into what it was before? I don't know. But I know this disease has changed me dramatically in so many ways. I am a different person. Hopefully a better person. You cannot go through an ordeal like this and not be profoundly affected."

Now that's what a call a fresh perspective.

To read previously-written posts about Leroy Sievers, click here.

Molly Ivins (born August 30, 1944 -died January 31, 2007),an American political commentator, journalist, and author based in Austin, Texas. She was a syndicated columnist with nationwide distribution; her column appeared in nearly 400 newspapers across the United States.

Her articles have appeared in 'Esquire', 'The Atlantic Monthly', 'The Nation', 'Harper's', 'The Progressive', 'The Progressive Populist', and 'Mother Jones'. She has been a commentator for 'NPR', 'The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer', and '60 Minutes'.

In 1999, Ivins was diagnosed with stage III inflammatory breast cancer. Joking about it, she said:

'One of the things I said was that I had been in great hopes I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person.'

I wanted to share something Molly wrote about her breast cancer journey.

Magnus Magnusson, former host of the BBC quiz show Mastermind, died just days ago after a four-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He died peacefully at his Glasgow home at the age of 77.

Leroy Sievers has many titles. He's a journalist and a commentator and even a blogger. He's a cancer patient too. And while he accepts cancer patient as one of his working titles, he never would have said this title dominates all others in his life. He is, after all, more than cancer.

On his December 4 NPR podcast and My Cancer blog entry, Sievers reports about a host on a radio call-in show who recently asked him if cancer overshadows everything else in his life.

"No," he answered, recalling the first time he had cancer. He was treated with surgery and moved on. Cancer didn't overshadow anything. But that cancer was different than the cancer now invading his lungs, spine, and brain. And after a bit of thought, Sievers thinks he may have been too quick with his radio response.

This cancer is not a drive-by-disease, he says. It's grabbed him -- and is holding on. It has changed his entire life. He can no longer do everything he once did. And not a day goes by without a reminder of cancer. The treatment, the nausea, the tingling in his hands. Cancer is with him all the time, lurking in the shadows.

Whether he gets the pleasure of remission or the disappointment of a set-back, Sievers realizes he will always be a cancer patient. He realizes that cancer does in fact overshadow everything else in his life.

Previous posts about the cancer journey of Leroy Sievers are as follows:

Journalist Leroy Sievers adjusts to newfound hope
War journalist now witnessing his own cancer death
NPR Leroy Sievers blogs My Cancer

Journalist Lynn Sherr is grieving the husband she lost to lymphoma in 1992. It's taken her many years to fully appreciate how his death affects her and while she once felt pressure from well-intentioned, clueless friends who urged her to move on, Sherr is now completely peaceful about her on-going, long-term grieving process. In fact, she fully plans on grieving -- for the man whose ashes still sit in her lingerie drawer -- for the rest of her life.

Sherr writes in her new memoir, Outside the Box, that it was during an interview with a pioneering psychiatrist about the agony of loss when she made her stunning revelation about grief. It's when she realized she would never fully recover from grief, that it is just fine to never fully recover.

Grieving individuals do not always follow the standard stages of denial, anger, and acceptance. Yet they often feel forced into these boxes by medical professionals, family, and friends who try to move them along and consider them abnormal if they don't get on with life in a set amount of time. But each person's pattern of grief is as unique as each person's pattern of love -- and stages and boxes just don't work. Sherr's breakthrough moment came at the exact moment she learned this.

"Bingo! I didn't have to follow anyone's pattern," she writes. "I didn't have to stop being sad. Not only was sadness okay, it was necessary. Nobody can tell you how to mourn. And it's not self-indulgent; it's not wallowing; it's hanging on to something important. We should not avoid bereavement. We should embrace it, welcoming our moments of sorrow as a time to reconnect with the person we've lost."

Sherr reconnects with her husband every chance she gets. He was her best friend, her deepest love, her soul mate, her pal. And she doesn't plan to move on -- ever -- from the sadness that keeps them connected.

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.

Journalist, teacher, mother and eight-year breast cancer survivor Jeanne Sather is a self-described outspoken advocate for the cancer patient's point of view.

A vegetarian since the age of 16 and fairly active, she does not have any of the known risk factors for breast cancer. After an all-clear mammogram at the age of 40, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 43. In an ironic twist of employment fate, the very job she was hired to do in chronicling her life online as a breast cancer patient, may have led to her firing because of the flexible work schedule breast cancer treatment required.

With a sharp clarity and well-earned perspective, Sather is The Assertive Cancer Patient. To our good fortune here at The Cancer Blog, she has agreed to take part in our Survivor Spotlight series featuring interviews with breast cancer survivors.

Leroy Sievers is a journalist who has spent a long career covering dozens of wars. He is accustomed to seeing other people die. But now, he is witnessing his own death. And on a recent NPR podcast, Sievers talks about how his doctors are trying to kill him by pumping poisonous chemotherapy drugs into his body. They haven't succeeded in killing him yet -- but they haven't cured him of cancer yet either.

Blogger Dalene Entenmann wrote about Sievers on July 3, 2006, pointing readers in the direction of his NPR blog My Cancer. Since her posting, Sievers has continued to reflect on his battle and on October 3, he shared an essay about chemotherapy -- the same essay he reads on the NPR poscast. He tells readers and listeners that nowadays he reports for chemotherapy every three weeks and sits for five or six hours while drugs sail through his veins. The drugs just keep coming -- and a vacation from this drug treatment is nowhere in sight. It's become a way of life for a man who is simply buying time. It is a changed life -- one he would happily live without.

Sievers, who thought he won the war against colon cancer and is now fighting brain and lung cancer, wakes each morning and feels pretty good -- as long as he stays in bed. When he gets up, the nausea begins and the tingling in his hands and feet begins. It takes him hours to get going, and eating is the last thing on his mind. But he takes pills that require food so giving up food is not an option. Sievers fights through debilitating fatigue each day, and no longer schedules anything in the morning. Mid-day -- when he feels pretty good -- is when he packs in appointments and meetings. But it all wipes him out and by the end of the day, the nausea and fatigue is back. One-quarter of one day, and Sievers is totally spent. And then each evening is a repeat of each morning.

Sievers is trying a new drug and hopes it will shrink his tumor. He doesn't want to get his hopes up though, and he fears disappointment. Mostly, though, he wants his old life back. Even if just for a few days.

Arizona Daily Star assistant features editor and critic Kathleen Allen was diagnosed with uterine cancer in March. The newspaper where she works is publishing her diary When Cancer Calls as a feature on the newspaper's website.

Allen begins at the beginning, when the first symptoms that something was wrong began to be appear, and at first she ignored the signs of uterine cancer -- her mother had died from uterine cancer but still, Allen told herself it was nothing. From denial, to acceptance to fear, to understanding what cancer meant to her, she takes you with her as she personally recounts the experiences of a cancer diagnosis to cancer survivorship. Here are a just a few excerpts from Allen's diary:

"I do not want to be alone with my thoughts. I don't want to think about what I know I have to think about: healing, changing my lifestyle, changing my life, being a person who has cancer."

"It hits me: I am now a person with cancer. That's my identity. I'm not a sister, writer, wife, aunt, independent woman. I am a cancer victim (I hate that word). And, hopefully, a cancer survivor (oh how I hate that term, too). The realization is paralyzing."

"Last night I was bombarded with vivid dreams. Most were of doctors saying I had to wait to have the cancer cut out. Or that I'm not that sick. You'd think I'd be happy with the last one. Instead, oddly, I fear that people would stop loving me if I was well."

"Funny, I had expected great profundities to come out of having cancer. But my thoughts are consumed with moving without pain, eating right, paying bills, staying healthy. It's very mundane, really. "

"Then, last week, I was gripped with a fear that I was going to die. Soon. I became obsessed with planning trips and activities I've always wanted to do."

And in the final diary entry, Allen reveals what cancer taught her. When Cancer Calls.

Diahann Carroll, an actress who started her career back in the 50s, and Oscar nominee who has starred in such TV shows as Dynasty, will be reaching out to older women in an effort to raise breast cancer awareness and the breast cancer risks they face. Carroll, who was diagnosed at the age of 63, spoke with CBS The Early Show's Julie Chen about the shock of being diagnosed with breast cancer when she had no family history for the disease. At the time, she said she was much more concerned about preventing age-related diabetes and heart disease.

According to recent surveys, so are most postmenopausal women. The results of a new Harris Interactive survey of nearly 20,000 women revealed that only 37 percent of women 55 or older are concerned about developing breast cancer as they age. The findings also show that three out of every four women don't know that being over 50 is the greatest risk for developing breast cancer. In fact, most women believe that the greatest risk factors are having a family member with the disease and inherited genetic mutations.

Carroll has been hired by Eli Lilly as the spokesperson for the launch the Strength in Knowing: The Facts and Fiction of Breast Cancer Risk campaign and website created to educate postmenopausal women about the real breast cancer risk factors. In the new fall TV season, Carroll will become a part of Grey's Anatomy. She would not give Chen any details. You can watch The CBS The Early Show interview with Carroll here.

John Diamond was a British journalist who died from tongue cancer in 2001. He wrote a book called Because Cowards Get Cancer Too: A Hypochondriac Confronts his Nemesis.

This book is different than your normal cancer read. I say that because of John Diamond's wit and intelligence when writing about his cancer experience. His sarcasm when it came to things like people telling him that he was brave was right on. He didn't think he was brave for going through cancer treatments, he thought that it was his only choice, something he had to do. This book is a realistic look at things that were going on around him and within him. John, you and I are definitely on the same page!

I have already read this book twice and when I find it I'm going to read it again.

Michael Fumento is an author, journalist, and attorney specializing in science and health issues. And he has a lot to say about the Surgeon General's recent announcement that the second-hand smoke debate is over -- that second-hand smoke does in fact kill. Fumento believes that the debate is over means if you have your doubts, then keep them to yourself -- that the topic is not up for discussion any longer. But Fumento states that we should definitely have doubts -- about the effects of second-hand smoke and about what the Surgeon General has to say about it.

Ralph Ginzburg, American author, editor, publisher, photojournalist and outspoken advocate of free speech, has died after battling multiple myeloma. According to the Washington Post, among his supporters were playwright Arthur Miller, journalist I.F. Stone and attorney Melvin Belli.

While Ginzburg earned a degree in accounting, it was journalism that he pursued as a career, working for Esquire magazine, NBC, Reader's Digest, Collier's, LOOK -- and was known for his unorthodox methods of using disguises including that of a clergyman to gain entrance to news events. Ginzburg's first publication was An Unhurried View of Erotica, which explored the undercurrent of pornography in English literature. He went on to publish Eros, a periodical containing articles and photo-essays on love and sex, and later still The Housewife's Handbook on Selective Promiscuity. Ginzburg, self-described as a brandied fruitcake of a publisher, was convicted in 1963 for violating federal obscenity laws for promotional activities in publishing books and magazines on erotica and art.

In 1962, Ginzburg was granted an exclusive interview with 17-year-old Bobby Fischer, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master published by Harpers. According to all accounts, the interview of the reclusive chess genius is still a popular read today. Ginzburg was 76.

"Death and I are hardly strangers. In my career as a journalist, I've covered 14 wars, genocides, natural disasters. I've seen tens of thousands of people die in front of me. Most of those deaths were sudden, brutal, painful, often without dignity." -- Leroy Sievers

Leroy Sievers, after a routine colonoscopy four years ago, was diagnosed with colon cancer. After undergoing surgery, he was diagnosed cancer-free. At the time, he referred to himself as a poster child for early detection and treatment. Earlier this year, he began slurring his words and one side of his face began to droop. Tests revealed a brain tumor. Further tests revealed lung tumors. Sievers asked the doctor for the worst-case scenario -- the doctor gave him six months to live.

Stephen Daniells, a journalist and scientist, has worked both sides of the fence, and as such, has as qualified a voice as any in addressing the controversial debate that rages between science and the media. Scurrilous accusations of journalistic conspiracy are made by scientists when it comes to the sensationalism media employs when reporting scientific research and medical news -- and the journalists equally complain that scientists use the same tactics when they pull out the most attention-getting part of a study while leaving out the better but less interesting facts buried deep within the research findings.

Both sides seem to be exploiting the other by manipulative means. According to Daniells, currently a food science reporter with a PhD in Chemistry from Queen's University Belfast who has worked in research in the Netherlands and France, suggests that all the shaming and blaming needs to stop. The relationship between journalist and scientist must be mended and developed amicably if science is to get a fair deal in the press. Ultimately, where this all leads is to consumers being presented with balanced and accurate science and medical news coverage. Daniells writes an excellent commentary with great examples to support his observations and conclusions.