I had a free massage the other day, compliments of a local massage workshop called Caring for Clients with Cancer.

This hands-on gift came to me by way of a woman who was once a scientist and is now a massage therapist. Concerned that cancer patients are rarely encouraged to cash in on the benefits of touch therapy, this woman merged her two disciplines so she could help patients heal in a holistic manner. And so her workshop was born. And I was invited to take part.

I received one completely soothing and invigorating massage. I also received one completely inspiring packet of quotes -- that I've already read over and over again -- related to recovery and healing. Each quote is so perfect in its message, and I wish I could share them all today. But time and space are limited at the moment, and I can only share a few.

So here are seven of my favorite quotes, free for the taking, a gift from me to you. Take a moment to read them, share them, savor them, and quietly reflect on the power of these simple words.

People who have been through illness's dark passage can occasionally give us a glimpse, not only of what it is like to become whole, but of what it is to be more fully human.
--Marc Ian Barasch
The Healing Path

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.
--Patti Smith

What matters is this: you can look at a scar and see hurt or you can look at a scar and see healing. Try to understand.
--Sheri Reynolds

I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk through the rain.
--Audre Lorde

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.
--Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.
--H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control; the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
--Henry J.M. Nouwen

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?

In 1999, Art beCAUSE, a non-profit organization was founded by two best friends, breast cancer survivor Eleanor F. Anbinder and art gallery owner Joyce Crieger. Anbinder had been diagnosed with breast cancer and over the years of her cancer survivorship she had watched other women die from the disease.

When Anbinder was diagnosed, she did not have a family history of breast cancer. In becoming active with Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, she began to wonder what was causing the increased rates of breast cancer diagnosis.

With her best friend, Joyce Creiger owner of Creiger Dane Gallery on Newbury Street, the two decided to use a percentage of the profits from art sold in the gallery to fund research to look into the environmental causes of breast cancer. Art beCAUSE supports three organizations: The National Breast Cancer Coalition, Silent Spring and Seed the Scientist. You can visit Art beCAUSE on the web to learn more about the organization's events and activities.

Charlie Emrich, in Glowing chickens bring hope in fight against cancer, calls fluorescent chickens, "cool in a creepy, mad-scientist sort of way." When you consider that scientists have combined jellyfish DNA with chickens to create illuminated birds, you can kind of see it from Emrich's descriptive perspective.

The purpose of chickens that glow, is that scientists can track antibody-based therapies that might prove valuable in treating human cancers.

UC Davis Cancer Center Dr. Joseph Tuscano explains that, "One of the problems with modern drugs is that they're not very specific. Even aspirin is not very specific. Antibodies, on the other hand are highly, highly specific meaning that, like an archer's arrow, they can effectively target a disease. Antibody-based therapies are one of the biggest advances in cancer treatment in the last 40 years."

Emrich quotes researchers of the project and takes you through the purpose and process of genetically-modified glow-in-the-dark chickens in the potential development of antibody-based therapies to one day treat cancer here.

The last post in Anita Robert's blog My Journey -- where she shared her thoughts and feeling about the difficulties and surrealism of being diagnosed with cancer, going through cancer treatments and trying to survive cancer -- reads: Anita's journey ended peacefully at home on May 26, 2006. Robert's journey battling gastric cancer has come to an end.

Dr. Roberts, the 49th most-cited scientist in the world and the third most-cited female scientist, chief of the Laboratory of Cell Regulation and Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute, had found blogging a therapeutic tool for introspection and in communicating and connecting with others online. She had created a special page in her blog for devotions, mantras, words of faith, guidance or wisdom tradition, and invited readers to share some of their own. She was highly-regarded and much loved by the people she worked with, and most deeply loved by her family and friends. Her adult children wrote The Song of BellaDonna: a true story of hope when they learned of her cancer diagnosis. Dr. Anita Roberts was 66.

Stephen Daniells, a journalist and scientist, has worked both sides of the fence, and as such, has as qualified a voice as any in addressing the controversial debate that rages between science and the media. Scurrilous accusations of journalistic conspiracy are made by scientists when it comes to the sensationalism media employs when reporting scientific research and medical news -- and the journalists equally complain that scientists use the same tactics when they pull out the most attention-getting part of a study while leaving out the better but less interesting facts buried deep within the research findings.

Both sides seem to be exploiting the other by manipulative means. According to Daniells, currently a food science reporter with a PhD in Chemistry from Queen's University Belfast who has worked in research in the Netherlands and France, suggests that all the shaming and blaming needs to stop. The relationship between journalist and scientist must be mended and developed amicably if science is to get a fair deal in the press. Ultimately, where this all leads is to consumers being presented with balanced and accurate science and medical news coverage. Daniells writes an excellent commentary with great examples to support his observations and conclusions.