The Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation's mission is to grant wishes, including memory-making events, for metastatic breast cancer patients, while continuing to support, educate and increase resource awareness.

One of the Making Memories fundraisers is Brides Against Breast Cancer. It can give brides-to-be, an opportunity to find the wedding gown of their dreams (at an incredible savings) while making wishes and dreams come true. Click here if you wish to donate your gown.

The Drexelbrook Wedding and Banquet Facility is hosting Nationwide Tour of Gowns on October 10th and 11th. If you live near Drexel Hill, PA you can attend this event and browse over 40 racks of exquisite, named brand and designer wedding gowns costing from $89 to $799.

Event Details:

Drexelbrook Wedding & Banquet Facility. Drexelbrook Drive & Valley road

Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Wednesday, October 10th, 10am - 8pm

Thursday, October 11th, 10am - 8pm

Contact: mminfo@makingmemories.org

Kelly Jo Dowd, mom of 14-year-old golf sensation Dakoda Dowd, died of breast cancer in her Palm Harbor, Fla. home Thursday night. She was 42.

Dowd spent years battling the disease that had spread to her bones, liver, and brain. She also spent years waiting to see her young daughter play in an LPGA event. Her wish came true last spring.

"I'm prouder today than I was yesterday that my daughter has the courage and strength to play with these LPGA professionals," Dowd said after the Ginn Clubs & Resorts LPGA tournament. "And I feel great right now. I feel great. My dream came true out here."

I never tire of cherishing the moment. Sometimes I get busy and distracted and caught up in the hustle and bustle of life, but I always come back to the simple appreciation of time. There's no stopping it -- time -- and there's no telling how my days will unfold as the seconds and minutes and hours tick by, so I try to live in the present with every breath I take.

Cancer taught me this lesson -- this realization that time is not a guarantee, this deep-down feeling that I must soak up every experience that faces me.

Each night when my husband and I check on our sleeping boys, we sigh with amazement and one of us religiously says something like, Wow, they are so great. We never want to lose sight of the joy these sometimes-challenging little people share with us. And so we watch them in their most peaceful moments, while emotion fills our heads and hearts.

My husband has lost sight of his father -- literally. He died eight years ago today and while John can no longer see the man who passed away suddenly, without warning, and at a much-too-young age, his memories are still vivid. It's the simple things he didn't let slip by that are fresh in his mind today.

John wrote this essay for his mom and two brothers and sent it to them today, in honor of his dad whose life he hopes will never escape him.

And then there were four

I think about him just about every day. Most often it's a song that reminds me of Dad, such as Cats in the Cradle, or even one of his favorite TV shows, Quantum Leap. I was shopping in Publix the other day while a great mix of music played -- a song from Three Degree's came on, When Will I See You Again, and I stood there with a thousand-mile stare on my face as I thought of Dad. I work in a building that looks right across the street from the last residence hall I lived in, Yulee Hall -- the last dorm from which Dad muscled all my belongings. I see that building every day.

The passing of time doesn't fade the memories I have of him, the distance between the last one just increases. Just about this time eight years ago, I laid across Dad's chest well after he took is last breath. That memory is forever burned into my mind along side the memory I have of walking past Kristin's room that fateful day many years ago. Before that day there were six of us, then there were five, and now there are four. Every force of nature cannot stop that number from reaching zero, so I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you all that I love you and think about you every day. Although death may be the worst gift of life, the gift of our kids will keep our numbers growing. It's unfortunate he didn't get to meet any of our kids and they didn't get to meet him -- but in a way they do. There is no doubt I share some of his qualities and those (hopefully only the good ones) affect the way I parent, the way I work, and the way I love.

I miss you, Dad.

Love, JP

Today I watched a video of myself. I was interviewing my grandmother about her 83 years worth of memories -- a project my husband and I dreamed up so that my grandma's life story would live on long after her death.

The video was taped in May 2000, three years before my grandma died and four and a half years before I was diagnosed with cancer. My hair was long and blond and straight, like it had been since I was a little girl, and it was twisted and clipped on the top of my head. I instantly longed for this hair -- and for my grandma too -- and just as I was convincing myself that my post-chemotherapy dark, curly hair was merely a new phase of my life -- much like the phase of living without my grandma -- my six-year-old son entered the room, looked at the TV screen and said, "Mommy, I really like your hair like that."

"I do too," I told Joey.

"Can you get it back?" he said.

"No, I can't get it back," I replied, knowing that I would never bleach my hair back to its original natural color and that the forces of nature will forever prevent me from removing the curl that today looked somewhat like what frames a lion's face.

So, no, I can't get my hair back. And I can't get my grandma back. But I am thankful for the video that captures us together, talking and laughing and remembering. And should my own grandchildren ever wish to interview me when I am 83 years old, I will definitely tell them about my sweet and spunky grandma and all of her touching stories. And I will tell them about the great blond hair I had the privilege of wearing for the first 34 years of my life.

Should my cancer come back, should my prognosis be poor, should my life approach an abrupt stop, my one wish would be for enough time to leave something meaningful for my children. It would be something written or something on video, something that would allow me to somehow guide my little boys through their years, something that would offer them a lasting impression of me.

This is just what Melanie Worthington, a Michigan mom, did for her five-year-old son after receiving her diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer.

Worthington made video tapes for her little boy, Theo. Her mother helped her, and they taped mother and son making cookies and playing together at a cabin. They tried to capture anything to remind Theo time of spent with his mom.

And then a few weeks after his 39-year-old mom died, Theo's tapes were stolen by someone who walked through an unlocked door at the Worthington home. Also stolen were two camcorders, a portable DVD player, and other assorted tapes.

Virtually all of Theo's video memories are gone. There are no duplicates of the tapes, and police have no suspects in the case.

"It was like someone had come out and taken her away from us a second time," Worthington's sister said.

Melanie, who died Thanksgiving weekend, was living with Theo, her parents, and her sister in a ranch home on a dirt road. Her parents, both on disability and without a lot of financial resources, have pulled together a $200 reward for the return of the tapes.

"Maybe this is one way we can get them back," said Worthington's mom. "I guess I'm hoping for some kind of miracle."

I once waited to see my oncologist -- in a room with nothing more than outdated magazines and my own wandering mind -- for four hours. I offered up 20 hours of my time for chemotherapy treatments and then spent five days -- two times, for a total of ten days -- waiting in the hospital for doctors to determine how to raise my blood counts and decrease my fever after the completion of a dose-dense chemotherapy attack. I traveled to and from radiation appointments for 35 days, spending an average of 90 minutes on each of these round-trip excursions. I reclined in an infusion chair every three weeks for 12 months so that a new breast cancer wonder drug could sail through my veins. I spent 52 hours in that chair. And I spent countless hours pouring out my emotions to a counselor, in an attempt to clear my mind of all that cancer took from me -- including my time.

These are just seven memories I have of time lost to cancer. There are others -- countless others -- but this should suffice as proof that among all the potential side effects that accompany cancer, loss of time is a guarantee.

According to the first study to put a price tag on the time patients spend battling cancer, it seems the disease steals at least $2.3 billion worth of time for patients in the first year of treatment alone.

Eleven of the most common cancers were included in the study. And it was determined that 368 hours are lost during the first year of treatment for ovarian cancer. For lung cancer, 272 hours are lost. For kidney cancer, 193 hours go down the drain. These hours don't take into account time spent in bed recovering from surgery or chemotherapy treatments. It accounts only for time engaged in actively receiving care -- it counts chemotherapy, radiation, blood tests, scans, surgery, check-ups, waiting to see doctors, and driving to and from appointments.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, sheds new light on the burden of commitment -- the human cost of cancer.

"Cancer is more than the just the dollars and cents for the medicines and the treatments and the doctors. It's also the lost opportunities for the patients," said the American Cancer Society's Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, of this overlooked reality.

Lichtenfeld says this study demonstrates the need for early detection. The earlier cancer is caught, the less time patients spend in the system. It also shows the need for more targeted therapies that spare patients physical side effects and allow them opportunities for taking pills at home instead of receiving treatment in clinics.

I would love to have back the time I spent treating and recovering from cancer. But I'm not heartbroken over my lost time. Because it bought me something in the end -- more time.

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center teaches the art of aromatherapy to soothe and heal. Cherie Perez, a supervising research nurse, teaches a monthly aromatherapy class to answer questions about aromatherapy treatments to cancer survivors and cancer caregivers undergoing treatment.

Perez first became involved with aromatherapy to help those diagnosed with fibromyalgia deal with the physical pain and discomfort caused by the disease. She now shares her professional knowledge of the basics of aromatherapy in each hour long class. Her classes are offered free of charge at the wellness center at M.D. Anderson. The wellness center focuses on helping patients and caregivers deal with the non-medical issues of living with cancer. This is the first complementary facility to be built on the campus of a comprehensive cancer center.

In the future Perez looks to designing research strategies to examine how aromatherapy can be used to treat or heal burns from radiation treatments. She would also like to explore aromatherapy in the use of pre-treatment anxiety and also manage loss of memory issues in cancer survivors.

Why do some researchers believe that aromatherapy is beneficial?

Our sense of smell is 10,000 times stronger than any of our other senses. The receptors in your nose communicate with two structures that are imbedded deep in your brain and serve as the storehouses for emotions and memories. It is believed that the stimulation of these structures influences our physical, emotional and mental health.

To read more about the uses of aromatherapy click here.

Survivor Crop, hosted by Ever After Scrapbooks, is an annual 24 hour scrapbooking marathon to raise money for breast cancer.

Now in its fifth year, participants come together to scrapbook, attend classes, play games, hold a raffle, enjoy catered breakfast and dinner, receive a Survivor T-shirt and scrapbooking freebies.

Breast cancer survivors attending will be telling their stories and the organizers promise a few scrapbooking surprises during the event.

In the last four years this event has raised over $116,000 dollars for the San Diego Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National MS Foundation, and each year the event gets bigger. The first one was held in a tent in the parking lot of the Ever After Scrapbooks store. This year's event will be held indoors in a much larger area on October 21st and 22nd. Each year, an Ultimate Survivor is chosen. For more information, visit the Ever After Scrapbooks website and the Survivor Crop blog.

I ran on my treadmill today while listening to a song by the band Green Day. I have always liked the song -- Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) -- but I like it more at this moment in my life than ever before because it speaks about looking back on the past in light of unexpected journeys -- and because my unexpected journey with breast cancer makes me look at everything differently. And when I look back at my life one day, I want to say that I had the time of my life. And that's why I like this song. And that's why I share it here today. Because I hope that in the end, we all can look back with the crystal clear knowledge that we had the time of our lives.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

In the moment of despair, the cliche time heals all wounds may seem anything but comforting. But that's because it's true. It takes time to heal and we are not in the right frame of mind just as something unfortunate has happened to accept -- or believe -- this advice that might come flowing from a well-wisher's lips. It's popular wisdom. It's commonly offered as comfort. It's easy to spit out. And while our wounds do not exactly fade with the passage of time, we are able to put a more positive spin on them. But it's tough to appreciate this until the unfortunate moment is long gone.

According to a recent study -- summarized in the September 2006 Ladies Home Journal magazine -- memories of distressing events, like the death of a loved one, don't go away but they do gradually get colored by more hopeful emotions. As time passes, we tend to remember strongly emotional experiences as positive even if they were once harrowing. "People are resilient," says one researcher. "We come to terms with our experiences in as positive a way as we can." So we may eventually see the death of a friend as something that made us stronger, something that reminds us to treasure our friendships. Our ability to find such meaning in the saddest of times helps transform it into a valuable experience -- and not just a sad one.

And this is exactly how I feel about having had cancer. No one could have convinced me at the time of my diagnosis that time would heal my wounds. I wasn't even sure how much time I had left on this planet. I was panic-stricken and frightened and tended to defeat conventional wisdom. But now that two years worth of time has passed me by and I am pretty certain I will continue surviving for a long time, I realize time is responsible for my positive outlook. Time did not completely heal my wounds -- I still have days when my wounds are raw -- but it surely bandaged them. And so I do believe time heals all wounds -- in a way -- and I am thankful for each moment of time I have to marvel at this truth.

There are all sorts of gifts for dad on Father's Day -- shirts and ties and books and coffee mugs and golf balls -- and many of us have already spent money on the stuff we can wrap up and deliver or mail off to dad on this special day. But some gifts -- the ones we can't wrap up -- have an appeal that is priceless because they focus on the moment, they build relationships, and they promote mental and physical health. And here are just seven simple but everlasting gifts to consider sharing with dad on this Father's Day.