1. Today more than half the people diagnosed with cancer are cured? True or False
2. There are no warning signs for cancer, illness tends to come on suddenly? True or False
3. Most cancers are hereditary? True or False
4. Standard treatments for cancer include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy? True or False
5. People going through cancer treatment have fewer side effects when they eat a well balanced diet? True or False

Find out if you answered correctly!

The skin cancer we so desperately try to avoid may be caused, in part, by the very thing we use to prevent the disease -- sunscreen.

Scientists at the University of California report in the journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine that some of the chemicals found in sunscreen products can become cancer-causing agents once they are absorbed into the skin.
And perhaps this is why more and more people are developing skin cancer, despite the increasing use of sun lotions.

"Sunscreens may be doing more harm than good," says lead researcher Dr. Kerry Hanson.

May is the important word here. Sunscreens may contribute in some way to the incidence of skin cancer. But the jury is still out. And experts are not sure right now how significant this research will be in the long run.

Today I offer you not so much a Thought for the Day but a Question for the Day. Before I ask my pressing question, though, I want you to consider this story.

Diagnosed with a rare malignant melanoma on her retina in 2001, Ann Guthrie, a South Carolina wife and mother of two grown sons, endured radiation and chemotherapy. The treatments shrunk Guthrie's tumor, but another mass appeared two years later, forcing the removal of her right eye.

At about the same time Guthrie lost her eye, cancer was discovered in her lungs. It was inoperable. Then cancer landed in her brain. And now, without any approved treatment avenues, Guthrie is out of options.

Like many people with terminal illnesses, this woman is willing to try just about anything -- a clinical trial, experimental drugs, risky treatments -- to extend her life. If she's going to die anyway, why not? She just might live longer. And if she doesn't, she could at least help advance science by offering herself up as a sort of guinea pig.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed changes that would make it easier for patients to access options like these, it's just not that simple right now.

There are ethical issues -- like weighing the needs of people who think anything is better than death against the need of society to prove drugs and treatments work safely. The only way to ensure a sort of balance is through clinical trials -- and letting anyone participate in clinical trials, for example, would make the results harder to interpret.

And there are medical and legal risks. What if terminally ill patients end up in worse shape after a treatment with an experimental drug, for example? What if the FDA or a physician is considered responsible for adverse drug reactions?

Denying terminal patients their last bits of hope is difficult. "It's a hard discussion to have with a patient and his family," says one doctor. "There's a lot of tears. We all would love to be able to get them access to some form of therapy."

And now for my question:

What do you think about terminally ill cancer patients and their access to anything that might extend -- or save -- their lives?

Angelina Jolie, who told CNN host Larry King on December 18 that her 56-year-old mother was battling ovarian cancer, is now confirming that her mother passed away on Saturday afternoon.

According to a new release, Angelina Jolie and brother James Haven were with their mom, actress Marcheline Bertrand, when she died this weekend at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. It is reported that Jolie's boyfriend, Brad Pitt, was at the hospital with Jolie and her brother.

Bertrand, divorced from Jolie's Oscar-winning actor father Jon Voight and primary caretaker of her children, had small roles in the movies Lookin' to Get Out in 1982 and The Man Who Loved Women in 1983.

A private funeral is planned -- and the family asks that donations be made to the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

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.

I know I'm stressed out but I didn't know cancer cells could be stressed out too. Most cancer cells exhibit overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The researches thought that this ROS was responsible for helping the cancer cell survive and grow. Dr. Peng Huang from the Department of Molecular Pathology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center thinks that increased ROS generation may also make cancer cells highly vulnerable to some treatment agents that would not be toxic to normal cells.

In the September issue of the journal Cancer Cell the research showed that scientists have found a way to take advantage the oxidative stress common in cancer cells. This approach has the therapeutic advantage of selectively targeting cancer cells while exhibiting minimal toxicity in normal cells.

I don't know the difference between regular stress and oxidative stress but whatever way we can mess with a cancer cell and have it be less toxic to the body is fine with me!

I can't decide what to do about my port now that my breast cancer treatment is over. It's been an on-going internal battle. I don't know whether I should leave it in place -- tunneled underneath the skin on my collarbone where it is available and accessible should I ever need further infusions of cancer-fighting drugs -- or whether I should have it removed since there is no real purpose for it right now. There is the issue of superstition and safety -- leaving it right where it is allows for easy use if cancer returns and prevents another surgery to implant a new one. But there is also the issue of moving on -- and removing it because I don't need it, because I may never need it. One doctor told me recently that it should come out because if it remains in my body, I risk infection. And anything foreign in my body for an extended period of time is not completely safe. But a cancer survivor told me that she had hers removed immediately after treatment and had to get a new one because her cancer recurred three months later.

I am accustomed to wrestling matches like this one -- like my stand-off between treatment with Taxol or without Taxol, between anti-depressant or no anti-depressant, between vegan diets and traditional diets. Sometimes I can make a good call. Sometimes I just can't decide. Like right now.

I have committed myself to only one breast cancer fitness event at the moment. I hope to one day branch out a bit and walk and run in different festivities, in different cities, for different purposes. But for now, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer -- sponsored by the American Cancer Society -- is my cause. Last year was my first time participating in Making Strides. I raised about $3,500 to help fund research, education, advocacy, and patient services -- and I walked the average five mile course that wound me through a quaint neighborhood in my city of Gainesville, Florida. This year, I plan to raise even more money and to run the same course. But not yet. The walk does not take place until October 14 -- which leaves me plenty of time to work on my fundraising goal and my running goal and plenty of time to help kick off this year's Making Strides.

I received my official Making Strides Kickoff invitation in the mail today -- an invitation to attend a dinner celebration where I can learn about the latest in breast cancer news from leaders in my medical community, listen to an inspirational personal story from a breast cancer survivor, and learn more about early breast cancer detection. So my calendar is marked for August 22 when I will attend this party-of-sorts that will jump start a major event in the major fight against breast cancer -- the disease that will one day touch the life of everyone is some way. Like it has already touched mine.

I've been wearing a breast cancer bracelet that jingles with charms in the shapes of hearts, with inspiring little messages like Go with your heart. One of the heart charms is a watch. My friend sent me this shortly after my breast cancer diagnosis. I love this bracelet. So I was sad the other day when the glass piece covering the watch somehow cracked and shattered. I only realized this when I tried to check the time and learned that my watch was not actually telling time anymore. So I went for my back-up -- another watch, exactly the same and also given to me as a gift. I replaced my old watch with the new watch and then days later, my new watch was not working. I think water got inside the glass and damaged the battery or the mechanisms -- or something. I'm sure I could repair the watches -- and I considered this -- but then it entered my mind that maybe this is a message that I am okay now without all my breast cancer gear.

In the continuing battle of the bulge, and realizing that more families eat out more often than ever before, the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, commissioned a report to discover ways to stop the growing weight gain epidemic. Based on the Keystone Report, the FDA is recommending that restaurants cut back on portions, serve more fruits and vegetables and provide nutritional and caloric information with the meals they serve.

You can imagine how well this is going over with the 900,000 restaurants and other food establishments in this country. For a restaurant to implement what the government is suggesting they do, the report itself notes that the laboratory work needed to calculate the calorie content of a menu item can cost $100, or anywhere from $11,500 to $46,000 to analyze an entire menu. That is not taking into account any menu changes. But who exactly is making us fat?