There might be some bad news out there for men with above or below normal birth weights -- new studies are showing that they might be at a high risk for testicular cancer than those who were born a more normal size. To be more precise, men with low birth weights were 18% more likely to develop testicular cancer than their normal-sized counterparts, and high birth weight men were 12% more likely to be diagnosed with the disease. It should be noted, however, that the findings are only try to seminoma testicular cancer, which is the most prevalent type.

Researchers are not indicating whether they believe there might be a reason to these findings. I wonder if some unhealthy habits of mothers that may have lead to low or high birth weights could be playing a role in the health of their sons later in life? What do you think?

The seven cancer thoughts I present to you today are purely random. They are not linked by theme or category. There is no rhyme or reason for my choosing them. And they do not belong with one another for any other reason than this: they all come directly from my very own head and are somehow related to the disease that lingers in my thoughts for most minutes of most days. Here they are:

1. Vanity is merely a six-letter word. It's certainly not as important after cancer as it is before. I admit vanity played a role in my life prior to my breast cancer diagnosis and still, it's with me to some degree. But more important than vanity now is waking each morning and realizing I'm alive. I don't want to lose weight to look ultra thin. I choose to reach an ideal weight because I want to be healthy. I don't want a tan. I want skin that is free from damage. My clothes? I want them to fit and feel comfortable. That's it.

2. Normal is a thing of the past. It's funny how I worked so hard to look normal after cancer struck (note: here's vanity rearing its head). Prior to losing my hair to chemotherapy, I worked hard at matching my long, straight, blond hair to a wig that would become my disguise for five months. I found the perfect replica of what would eventually tumble from my scalp, and I wore it proudly. A neighbor who knew I was receiving chemotherapy once told my sister, "That's so great Jacki didn't lose her hair." I looked that much like normal, people didn't know anything had changed. Little did I know change was right around the corner. When my hair grew in, it was dark and curly. Not even close to normal.

Green peas are bursting with nutrients. They provide very good amounts vitamin K, vitamin C, vitamin B1 or thiamine, vitamin A vitamin B6, B3, and B2 and lots if dietary fiber, manganese, folate, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, iron, zinc and potassium. Green peas are that little food that is supercharged with nutritional and can supercharge your health.

Green peas are one of the important foods to include in your diet if you oftentimes feel fatigued and sluggish. That is because they provide nutrients that help support the energy-producing cells and systems of the body. They provide nutrients that are important for maintaining bone health. With its great source for iron green peas build normal blood cell formation and function. Low amounts of iron can result in anemia, fatigue, decreased immune function, and learning problems.

Vicki's Green Pea Salad
2 cups fresh green peas. (You can substitute with a 16 ounce package of frozen green peas. Rinse and thaw them for use in the salad.)
1 cup chopped fresh cauliflower ( make sure pieces are chopped about the same size as the peas.)
1 - 8 ounce can sliced water chestnuts (drain and rinse thoroughly and cut into strips)
1 - 8 ounce container sweet grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes sliced in half
1/2 onion minced
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon dry dill

Whisk together the lemon juice, dill, and mayonnaise.
In large bowl mix all of the vegetables. Pour in the mayo and dill dressing and toss.

After several weeks of hiding and down time, a few weeks ago I made an official announcement to the non profit organization that I founded Indie Music For Life and its two entities Laughs For Life and Indiegrrl. I dropped off of this blog page for a month and am ready to write again. I needed a break. A break to sort through things. To sort through life.

When you or a loved one are diagnosed with cancer it changes your life. Finding out you have cancer takes your breath away and from that point your breath is the most valuable thing to you in your life. Breath and time. Nothing is normal any more. Not your dreams, your nightmares, and not your waking moments.

A personal diagnosis of chronic myloid leukemia in February sent me into a whirlwind of emotions. At that point, all the fear, terror, and stomach knots from my past rounds of cancer came back. Nobody free of cancer could ever appreciate how utterly devastating the news of contracting it could be and the news that it has returned is even more devastating because you know what uphill climbs you must make again. Once you have been diagnosed with cancer you always look over your shoulder for the beast to return. He has caught up with me several times now and so I am speeding up in my race trying to see who is the best long distance runner. Every ache you feel or every little un-ordinary thing that happens with your body sends you into " What If " mode. It is extremely hard living in that mode of thinking but you can't avoid it.

My past struggles with cancer were very private. But then I was not the head of a non profit organization that raises money for cancer research and educational awareness on the powers of music and laughter as therapy for cancer patients. I wasn't the head of the largest networking group of female songwriters known as Indiegrrl that has since become a part of Indie Music for Life. Laughs For Life had not even been thought of yet and now with the direction and help of good friend and comedian Shelly Ryan it is now a reality. I hadn't even started my music career. Having cancer is what lead me to pursue my career in music and chase my dreams. It wasn't until I started working on my CDs that my cancer became really public other than with my close friends and family and then working to set up the Indie Music For Life non profit put it out there even more.

Cancer is a complicated disease often described by those who know it well in confusing medical, technical, and scientific terms. There's a way to understand it in simple terms, though. And a recent CBS news story features a great run-down on the disease, its causes, how it grows, and more.

Think about this:

• Cancer refers to any one of a large number of diseases characterized by the uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells. These cells have the ability to infiltrate and destroy normal tissue and can spread -- metastasize -- throughout the body.

• Cancer is caused by damage in the DNA. DNA is like a set of instructions for cells and tells cells how to grow and divide. Normal cells can develop mutations in their DNA but can repair most of them. If they cannot make a repair, the cells often die. But certain mutated cells don't repair and don't die. They instead grow and become cancerous.

• Normal, healthy cells grow in an orderly, well-controlled way. They live for a set period of time and then die on schedule. Dead cells are replaced by new normal cells. Cancer cells, in contrast, grow in an uncontrolled manner. They don't die. They accumulate. One malignant cell becomes two, two become four, four become eight, and so on, until a mass of cells -- a tumor -- is created. Tumors remain small until they're able to attract their own blood supply, which allows them to obtain the oxygen and nutrients they need to grow larger.

• Not all cancers form tumors. Leukemia, for example, is a cancer of the blood, bone marrow, lymphatic system, and spleen.
  
  
• Cancer can take decades to develop. By the time a cancerous mass is detected, it's likely that 100 million to one billion cancer cells are present, and the original cancer may have been dividing for five years or more.

• Lung cancer is the top cancer killer among men and women and will kill 160,390 people in 2007.

A friend of mine with breast cancer just sent out an update e-mail to friends and family. She began her message with an apology for her recent lack of communication. But she assured us all that she's been out of the loop not because she's felt sick or tired. It's because she's been too busy with normal life. And that's a good thing, she says.

This friend wasn't so sure how she would fare -- both physically and emotionally -- when she was first diagnosed with cancer. But she seems to have done a champion's job of rolling with the punches. Sure, she's had ups and downs. But she is overwhelmingly positive and hopeful. And jumping off my computer screen as I read her e-mail were at least seven bits of hope that tell me she is doing just fine despite all that is unbelievably hard about breast cancer.

My friend just had her first infusion of Taxol. A breeze, she calls it. One. So easy on her body -- two -- that she headed right out and took her daughter communion dress shopping. Her little love looked beautiful, she wrote. Like a mini-bride. The mother of the mini-bride then -- three -- turned a sad moment into a comforting one when her daughter asked, "Mommy, who do you think will bring me wedding dress shopping?"

Canadian researcher Evangelos Michelakis, associate professor of medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, has stumbled upon something quite remarkable -- a potentially new anti-cancer agent called dichloroacetate, or DCA.

DCA is nothing new -- it's long been used for treatment of rare metabolic disorders -- but using it to fight cancer puts an entirely new spin on the potential of this drug.

"This is one of the most exciting results I've ever had," Michelakis said. "But I can't be overenthusiastic until it works on a human."

Michelakis and his colleagues have successfully used DCA to shrink human lung, breast, and brain tumors in both lab rats and test tubes. And while this type of research may not ordinarily generate a lot of excitement, this specific study is creating a buzz because DCA has been safely used in humans for decades, without adverse side effects.

"One of the big concerns about drugs is that they can harm people but we already know this drug is safe," Michelakis says. "It doesn't even affect normal cells."

One of the fundamental premises of cancer biology is that mitochondria -- the energy producing units of cells -- are permanently damaged by cancer. What DCA does is revive the mitochondrial function, encouraging the death of cancer cells.

The overwhelming hope is that DCA will move right to human testing. But the overwhelming fear is that it will not -- because of economic reasons. There is no longer a patent on DCA so it is not owned by any one company. With little chance of one group making a large profit, there may be no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in research.

Sadly, this drug -- that appears to work remarkably well -- may never benefit cancer patients. All because no one stands to make billions of dollars from it.

A new year. A new law. Effective today, smokers are banned from lighting up in most public places in Washington DC .

Restaurants, bars, and indoor workplaces are now considered smoke-free in the District. The new law takes full effect today -- January 2, 2007.

More than half of the nation's population now lives in areas where smoking is banned in public places, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

In 2006 alone, nine statewide bans were adopted by lawmakers. In total, 22 states have passed smoking bans. And 16 states have passed laws banning smoking in bars.

In addition to Washington DC, smoking bans also go into effect today in Bloomington and Normal, Illinois.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Techniscan Medical Systems (TMS), a Utah-based company that has developed an ultrasound imaging system known as UltraSound CTTM, a $2.8 million dollar small business grant to go forward with a radiation-free, non-invasive, breast cancer screening device that does not compress the breast during examination.

How does it work? While a woman is lying face down, the breast is suspended in warm water and an ultrasound scanner rotates in a circle, producing detailed 3-D images. According to the company, the diagnostic imaging tool will be able to detect normal, benign and malignant tissues in the breast.

To learn more about the UltraSound CTTM, visit the TMS website.

I still can't believe I got breast cancer. I really can't believe it's been two years since my whole journey began.

I found a lump in my breast on November 16, 2004. It took eight days of doctoring and worry before the mystery that lingered beneath the skin of my left breast unfolded.

Ever since that November day, I have been documenting my struggles and triumphs with a disease that turned my life upside down.

It all started exactly like this.

On November 16, 2004, I felt a lump in my left breast while taking a shower. I have always been aware of what my breasts feel like. I have a lot of dense tissue -- so dense that the surgeon who performed my breast reduction had trouble separating the tissue to take some out and leave some in.

My breasts always seem lumpy to me and I never knew if I'd be able to tell the difference between normal and abnormal tissue. Four years ago I had a mammogram because of something I felt. It all turned out fine -- it was just the dense tissue. All of my annual GYN visits have revealed nothing abnormal. But I've always been aware and curious which is why I found something in the shower. I knew it was not normal.

It was hard and felt like a small green pea. It moved around and for the first few days, I had a hard time locating it. Once I became obsessed with it, I could find it immediately.

I've never had a problem with crying. My tears of joy and sorrow have always flowed easily, and I have never regretted shedding any one of them. I once told a college student I mentored who was hesitant to cry over a work-related scenario that I cry all the time. She later told me my confession sticks in her mind -- my ability and willingness to cry freely, without reservation. I told her I consider crying a cleansing, therapeutic process. I told her that I always feel replenished after a good cry. And I still believe this, years and years after my encounter with this student.

I cried just a few days ago while talking to my doctor and then my mom about how cancer may prevent me from having another child, if not physically, then emotionally. I just don't know if I could peacefully experience a pregnancy with the fear of cancer recurrence. And this makes me cry. Because I want another child. But I don't think I will have one. I cried at my oncologist appointment the other day while talking about the death of a friend. I cry while reading certain books and while watching sad movies and television shows. Two nights ago, I cried while watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, about a breast cancer survivor. I cry when recalling the births of my babies and while marveling at my little growing boys. And I know I will cry when I read a journal a friend just shared with me, written by his uncle who lost a daughter to brain cancer.

Tears cleanse my soul. And sometimes, they complicate matters. They make me wonder how well I am, two years after my cancer diagnosis. I interpret my tears now more than ever, in an effort to determine how well I am coping with life in survival mode. I wonder if the tears that frequently well up in my eyes are normal or if they are indicative of the depression that prompted my oncologist to prescribe an anti-depressant. I consider that perhaps I should be better able to handle some topics, some situations, some tough experiences without becoming weepy. And I also realize that perhaps my tears are completely normal, that I could be ultra sensitive to my every emotion, that as long as I feel happy and function easily, I am just fine.

I plan to iron all this out at my next and final counseling session that I need to schedule. This closing session will allow me to wrap up two year's worth of cancer issues, to close one chapter of my life and begin another. I just need to make the appointment. Which I have yet to do. Because contemplating the end of something so healing seems so daunting. And for better or for worse, this makes me cry.

Danny became aware of my port just before it was removed. He was only 18 months old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my journey went pretty much unnoticed by this small boy who had no idea ports were not standard on every person he met. Now he is three years old and even though he still has no real idea why a port popped up from underneath my skin for two years, he did come to realize it was something akin to a boo-boo that one day goes away.

My port went away on September 15. And ever since that day, Danny has been very concerned about the incision that marks the spot once home to a foreign device. For one week after my port removal, my incision was covered. Danny wondered why. I told him I was healing, that I had to keep my boo-boo protected, that I could not take a shower because it could not get wet. Danny was very attentive. He pulled at the neck of my shirt every time I held him to sneak a peak at the site of my surgery. He asked if it hurt, if doctors cut me with a knife, if new skin was growing underneath my bandage. "Yes", "yes", and "yes." I told him. And one day when I decided to take a shower, despite orders to keep the area completely dry, Danny said, "The doctor said you cannot take a shower." I told him, "I know." And he said, "But actually you did take a shower." I told him he was right and hoped he would not pursue my disobedience any further. He did not -- he was just checking up on me, he was just concerned about me, he was just wondering if I may have compromised something. I told him I was fine.

I did not do any damage with my rebellious shower, my bandage is off, and Danny only peeks once in a while to monitor the area. He is mostly back to his normal life, free from all nursing duties. And I am mostly back to life, free from my port and happily showered in love by my littlest guy -- the guy who was once oblivious to all things cancer related, the guy who somehow became my caregiver.

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.

For me, it's the small things that matter most as I heal from breast cancer. Like a hand on my shoulder, a note in the mail, a phone call to see how I'm doing -- and a happy boobie card my friend and fitness trainer gave me the other day. I went to her house for a training session, and she greeted me at the door with a purple piece of paper cut into the shape of breasts. Butterfly stickers marked the nipple areas and the words Good Luck, Jacki were written happily in red marker. Just the day before I received this cheery gift, we had spoken about my upcoming mammogram and ultrasound for a suspicious lump I had discovered in my breast. We have spoken about my whole cancer journey over the course of my whole training journey -- so she knows all about the ups and downs. And when she sensed my dip in spirits, she reached out, with love and concern -- and with happy boobies.

My mammogram and ultrasound turned out just fine. Nothing is wrong. What I felt is just normal tissue. My cancer is not back. So my spirits are back up -- and my happy boobies are hanging on my refrigerator as a reminder of the support that still surrounds me every day.

The New Zealand Herald has quoted Nobel Laureate and principal scientist at Cancer Research UK Sir Tim Hunt as predicting that while targeted cancer drugs will continue to be developed, it is not likely that a penicillin-type wonder drug to cure cancer will be found. Basically, he explains that cancer cells work the same as normal cells do, but to eliminate cancer cells would mean wiping out normal cells in the process. At least, that is my understanding of what he said. Here is the exact quote, in case I am missing something vital in the translation:

"Basically cancer cells grow using all the same mechanisms that normal cells in the body use. So you could stop the cancer cell growing by standing the right distance from an atom bomb, but then all your other cells also stop growing at the same time." To me, that almost sounds like the standard chemotherapy we go through now.

I am not a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, and I respect the intelligence and training of any scientist who has achieved that honored status, but I do not know that I completely agree with his prediction. I don't know that there will be one specific wonder drug like penicillin, that you take and the cancer is gone, but I do think the advancements made in targeted therapies will one day make it seem as if there is a wonder drug. Cancer is over one hundred different diseases. It might simply be a matter of diagnosing the specific cancer, and then administering a specific targeted drug for that cancer. I realize this is a ways off, but I am hopeful for the future of cancer treatments.

Then again, who knows what scientists will stumble upon in their studies. Could there be a penicillin out there for cancer? Might be. I don't think we can rule out any potential possibility. That's my opinion. What say you?