Zofran (Ondansetron) tablets are used to prevent nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. I remember Zofran costing about $30 a tablet back in 2002 when I was receiving chemotherapy. I was lucky I had insurance that covered the high cost of the drugs I needed. Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration approved the first generic versions of Zofran.

Gary j. Buehler, director, Office of General Drugs, says "This approval will result in significant savings for the American public. Generic drugs are safe and effective alternatives to brand name drugs and undergo a thorough scientific and regulatory review".

Generic drugs usually cost a fraction of the price of the brand-name drugs.

On Sunday, for the very first time, I read a magazine article about the hospital where I received treatment for breast cancer. I had never before seen mention of my hospital, my doctors, my city in anything other than local and regional newspapers and on area television stations. I figured news about Shands Hospital at The University of Florida was out there -- in more areas than my own -- because it's a well-known facility. People travel from all over to receive treatment here. So I know it's a good place. But to see in the October 2006 issue of Good Housekeeping an actual blurb about a new kind of lumpectomy -- pioneered right here in Gainesville, Florida -- is exciting.

I am the happy recipient of this new kind of lumpectomy -- which really is not new at all. It was developed 20 years ago by the surgeon who performed my own lumpectomy, and it allows women who undergo lumpectomy the chance to avoid return trips to the operating room.

The method is called frozen section analysis, and it was first used by Dr. Edward Copland III, first director of the UF Shands Cancer Center, who was tired of waiting for pathology reports and tired of operating on patients two and three times to ensure clear tumor margins.

It all happens like this -- a surgeon removes the breast cancer tumor, takes tissue samples, freezes them in an embedding compound, and sends them to a pathologist for immediate analysis. In a typical case, this frozen section process adds just 15 minutes to the operating time. If pathology reveals more tissue must be removed, the surgeon returns to the patient, still under anesthesia, and continues surgery. The patient does not need to return for more surgery.

Surgeons at most institutions rely on a method called permanent section analysis to determine whether or not cancerous cells remain along the margins of a tumor. The technique is labor-intensive, takes days to complete, and requires patients to return for additional surgery if margins are not clear. Surgeons using the frozen section method still consult permanent sections to confirm margins are clear -- but they are mostly certain of their findings during frozen section.

Studies show frozen section analysis to be safe and effective -- and it adds just $851 to the cost of surgery, a savings considering the cost of returning for surgery as a result of permanent analysis.

There are many advantages -- but the procedure is tricky and on occasion can fail to detect some cancerous margins, indicating frozen section should continue to be used in conjunction with permanent section. Opponents of the practice say false positives could result in unnecessary mastectomy. But Copeland says this has never happened at UF -- and he would never remove a woman's breasts until permanent section confirmed it was necessary.

Despite the promise of this method, only a handful of institutions make practice of this surgery-sparing technique. Shands at UF is the only hospital in North Florida where breast surgeons perform frozen section analysis on a regular basis.

The procedure -- which is not risky, is not harmful, and clearly saves patients from returning for surgery -- is the exact procedure I received almost two years ago. Dr. Copeland removed my tumor, froze tissue samples, sent them to pathology, and 15 minutes later knew my tumor had clear margins and had not spread to my lymph nodes. He visited my family in the hospital waiting room just after surgery and told them the good news -- clear margins, no spread, a 1.1 cm. tumor, stage I. And while other tumor criteria, such as ER/PR status and HER2 status, did not come my way immediately, I at least knew the basics when I woke from surgery. No waiting. No worrying. No complaints.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, we are fully into the fall season. In the southern hemisphere, they are enjoying spring, and looking forward to the upcoming summer. To maximize daylight hours, we turn our clocks ahead one hour each spring, and turn the clocks back one hour each fall. However, this has become a bit of a debate in Australia, as Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is digging in his heels, locking his knees, and crossing his arms against his chest in refusing to follow fellow countrymen in Western Australia when it comes to considering the policy of instituting daylight saving time.

Beattie is well-intentioned but ill-informed in his concern that the extra hour of light might increase the already high risk of skin cancer in Queensland. Adding an extra hour at the end of the day -- or the beginning of the day -- depending on how you want to view it, will not increase skin cancer risks resulting from excessive exposure to sunlight. The hours of the day when the sun is most damaging, and most dangerous in increasing skin cancer risks, is the middle of the day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

According to The Skin Foundation, to reduce skin cancer risks, we need to protect ourselves year-round by staying out of the sun during peak hours of 10a.m. to 4p.m., by wearing a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a sun protection factor SPF 15 or higher, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses, avoiding the use of tanning parlors and artificial tanning devices, keeping newborns out of the sun, teaching children good sun-protective practices, examining skin from head-to-toe once a month, having a professional examination annually, and avoiding sunburn.

For more information about skin cancer myths and fact, read Skin cancer myths debunked by dermatologists.

Almost five years later, the memory is still as vivid as if it were happening now as I tell you that while showering, I discovered a lump in my breast. My hand stopped, my breath caught, and my stomach clenched in terror. Instinctively, I knew I was in trouble. After mammogram, ultrasound, biopsy and the first of three surgeries, the diagnosis of breast cancer was not the most optimistic one. My lobular breast cancer had spread beyond the breast into lymph nodes -- and perhaps elsewhere not yet clearly detected.

I would spend the next four years peering over my shoulder, wondering if the shadow of death would visit me with another cancer diagnosis, and if so, where would it settle in this time. If I ate pizza topped with jalapenos for that extra kick of flavor and got a stomach ache, I wondered -- had cancer spread to my liver? If I spent a day met with seemingly endless frustrations and annoyances and got a headache -- had the cancer spread to my brain?

While there is nothing rational about these leaps to a cancer conclusion based on evidence suggesting I suffered from logically explainable modern life maladies that antacid or aspirin might easily cure, for the newly-diagnosed surviving breast cancer, it is not uncommon for the mind to immediately race to an impending cancer-based doom for every day aches and pains. I am here to tell you that for the first few years it will be quite normal to have totally unreasonable fears.

Not willing to subject myself to this screeching fingernails on the blackboard fear without finding something to muffle the sound, I began creating personal rituals that suggested hope and affirmed life. With each one I was stating the value of my life and staking my claim to my future. For each woman, the personal rituals will be different. Here are a few I created that might give you some ideas for your own: