Author Leah Hager Cohen says her blog is inspired by her mother, for at least two reasons. One: it is because of her mom that she's a writer. "She has seen me for a writer my whole life, ever since I could make up stories and dictate them to her," says Cohen. Two: her mom is fighting ovarian cancer, has been since April 2006 when she was 62. Cohen's blog -- Love As a Found Object -- is for her mom and about her mom. It is quite a blog.

In an entry written in September 2006, Cohen shares:

My mother is perhaps the most energetic person I know, and my children, who collectively run a close second, have grown accustomed to having her set the pace when she is around. She's the one who persuaded me, six years ago, that the kids and I did not need a dining room nearly so much as we needed a "project room." She usually arrives for visits bearing the raw materials and mental blueprint for some art or engineering project into which she and the kids then plunge together. Even though we've all had months to get used to her cancer, her tiredness still seems strange, as does the chemo-haze from which she regards us more quietly than is her wont. She seems almost an imposter in this muffled state, so accustomed are we to having her lead us on capers and jaunts through real and metaphorical woods.

Did you know, statistically, that one out of every 10,000 patients who have surgery leave the operating room with a surgical sponge or other foreign object inside their body? While this type of unfortunate incidence is rare, it does happen and there are people attempting to come up with a way to make sure the odds of it happening are reduced to zero.

One solution being considered is the placement of a radiofrequency ID (RFID) chip in surgical sponges. At the end of surgery, a wand to detect the chip is waved over the patient. The wand would alert the surgical staff if a sponge has been left in the body of the patient.

The current method involves a sponge count. Sponges are counted before surgery and then counted again at the end of surgery. But, according to the researchers, counting is susceptible to human error. At this time, they are working out the cost-effectiveness of the chip in surgical sponges -- and how they would go about changing work flow in the operating room.