Apparently the movie In the Land of Women is playing somewhere in the United States -- it was released on April 20 -- but I can't seem to find it in my area. I want to find it, though, because it stars actress Meg Ryan as Sarah Hardwicke, a woman rediscovering herself as she recovers from breast cancer.

Breast cancer is not the main theme in this movie. It's mostly about a successful writer, played by The O.C.'s Adam Brody, who loses a girl, moves to a new town to care for his grandmother, and finds a new girl. Her mom is Sarah Hardwicke.

I learned about this movie just today while reading an interview with Meg Ryan in the May 2007 issue of Redbook.

Last week, I watched actress Emma Thompson portray with real power a life derailed by cancer in the 2001 HBO screen adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Wit by Margaret Edson.

I watched the movie, on DVD and in the privacy of my own home, almost six years after it was released -- and two years after my own cancer derailment. I like the order in which it all happened -- having cancer and then watching the movie, rather than watching the movie and then having cancer.

Thompson's portrayal of Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., professor of 17th-century English poetry, and expert on the sonnets of John Donne, was entirely real -- so real I sometimes felt I was reliving my own journey with cancer.

The cold, impersonal delivery of Bearing's treatment plan -- eight high-dose, experimental chemotherapy treatments taken over the course of eight months for stage-four metastatic ovarian cancer, an aggressive and advanced form -- reminded me of the matter-of-fact manner in which doctors speak to patients, the manner in which my own oncologist spoke to me, void of compassion and warmth and concern.

The on-going sterile and clinical interactions Bearing encounters from doctors, technicians, nurses, and medical students allowed me to appreciate the very few caring souls who crossed my medical path.

Bearing resolves to become a scholar on cancer, just as she has on Donne. And while I am no Ph.D. scholar, I did study cancer, sometimes to a fault, in order to acquire some sort of control over what was happening to me.

Chemotherapy makes Bearing sick. It made me sick too. Chemotherapy lands Bearing in hospital isolation. It landed me there too. Cancer scares Bearing. It scared me too.

Sometimes, cancer -- the return of cancer -- still scares me. But mostly, I am happy to be alive, happy to be watching movies that authentically capture the reality of cancer, movies that make me proud to have overcome what Bearing's doctor calls an insidious disease.

Our days start early now that Joey is in kindergarten and school begins promptly at 7:45 AM. His daddy gets him out of bed at 6:30 AM so he can have some time to wake to the world before shuffling out the door, and we've happily found that Mister Rogers' Neighborhood comes on at just this time. The same Mister Rogers that first appeared on television in Canada in 1963 and then in the United States in 1967 -- with a gentle man, Mister Rogers himself, spreading his calm but uplifting messages to children and nurturing personalities of kids everywhere.

The last original episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was aired in 2001. And in 2003, Fred McFeeley Rogers died at the age of 74 after a brief bout with stomach cancer. But his legacy lives on as his show -- the longest-running PBS program ever -- still graces the television screen. I remember watching this show with my grandmother when I was a little girl. And now I get to watch it with my little boy -- who can also visit Mister Rogers on the PBS website.

Today, Joey and I started our day with a cheery little song, sung by the man who hated television and joined it only to bring about change -- to use this fabulous instrument to guide children in a positive direction. And here is what he sang this morning -- the song that is still playing in my head as I take on the day ahead of me.

It's such a good feeling to know you're alive.
It's such a happy feeling: You're growing inside.
And when you wake up ready to say,
"I think I'll make a snappy new day."
It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling,
The feeling you know that we're friends.

I hope it's a good day in your neighborhood.

In the past year, I have had three severe skin reactions characterized by red, itchy, burning bumps that start on my chest and without fail climb over my shoulders and onto my back. They last for a few weeks, are irritated by the Florida heat, and have had no known cause -- until today when I visited my dermatologist for a skin cancer screening and briefed her on this bizarre condition that has kept me away from sunscreen and out of the swimming pool and in hiding from the sun. I have suspected that sunscreen, chlorine, the sun -- or some combination of the three -- have been my potential irritants. So I've been avoiding them altogether. But I learned today that the sunscreen and the chlorine are not to blame. That leaves the sun, which is the most likely culprit -- and only because I have received chemotherapy with one very toxic drug. Adriamycin.

My dermatologist told me about a phenomenon called UV Recall that is associated with Adriamycin. Apparently the toxicity of this drug, even though administered long ago, can be recalled, causing a reaction when the UV rays of the sun soak into my skin. Sunscreen may help, my doctor told me, but she cautioned me that it is just a screen -- it does not offer full protection. And she said the best suncreen option would include zinc oxide. I think for me, though, staying out of the sun is my best bet. It's not ideal -- it means I will remain on the fringe of the swimming pool, hiding in the shade, while my boys swim their little hearts out. And tropical vacations will be off my wish list. And I will seek outdoor fun mostly after the sun goes down. But this is okay -- I knew there were long-term side effects of chemotherapy drugs. I am just thankful for now that my heart has not been compromised -- a side effect of both Adriamycin and the drug Herceptin that I have also received. And it's also not a bad thing that the steps I must now take to prevent skin reactions are also the steps that protect me from skin cancer. So in some sort of round-about way, my inconvenient skin issues may just help me stay healthy. And that's just fine with me.

At the end of March, we told you about nine lawsuits filed in a California court against the makers of five of the most popular sunscreen brands in the U.S. -- Coppertone, Hawaiian Tropic, Banana Boat, Neutrogena and BullFrog -- accusing sunscreen makers of misleading consumers on how well their lotions block the sun's harmful rays, putting millions of people at risk of skin cancer.

Over the weekend, over 166 separate news stories have been filed about these lawsuits. At first I wondered why now, over two months after the news first came out about the lawsuits, suddenly the peaked interest. Are we short on new health news? Maybe.

However, with all the additional coverage, I was able to learn that the accusations might not be a matter of exaggerated claims alone, but a scurrilous attempt to skirt the laws in deliberately misrepresenting the value of sunscreen products for the purpose of profit at the expense of human lives in increased skin cancer risks. Have we just come to a time when we might as well assume that all companies deceive and that our government seems incompetent to protect its citizens? Maybe so.

Here's how this whole situation happened, and why there are now nine lawsuits filed against some of the biggest names in sunblock lotion products. Sunscreen makers claim their sunscreen lotion is waterproof and acts as a sunblock. Years ago, the FDA wanted the claims changed to read water resistant instead of waterproof and sunscreen instead of sunblock. Because the FDA has never imposed the changes, the big name sun lotion makers chose to go with the more descriptive wording that made the lotions sound more effective than they were in actual fact. To some, it might seem a matter of semantics but words have power. The change from sunblock to sunscreen and waterproof to the more accurate water resistant could mean a potential difference in profits. What's at stake? Years of consumer health.

Five women.  Five different stories and experiences.  Five breast cancer survivors.  All sharing their messages of struggle and hope and survival in ways they may not have imagined when they first gathered in September 2004 for a writing and theatre workshop with Sacred Cliffs Productions. They debuted a stage performance in December 2004 titled Bosom Buddies: An exploration of breast cancer in the words of survivors and were met with a tremendous response.  After much regional media coverage and offers to tour the New England area with their inspiring messages, Sacred Cliffs is committing their work to a screen adaptation called Getting It Off Our Chests.

Sacred cliffs are those moments we all know so well -- moments when something life-changing happens in our worlds and our only choice is to step off the cliff into uncharted territory.  We all handle these cliffs differently.  Some jump off with eagerness and excitement; some with uncertainty; some with fear and dread.  Regardless, we all have a story to tell once the jump is complete. Just like these five women who share with their audiences stories full of courage, laughter, fear, pain -- stories about life beyond breast cancer.

Getting It Off Our Chests, funded by a non-profit organization, is told by the women themselves, in their own words.  Already, thousands of people have witnessed the wonder of this performance -- a performance that will surely touch the lives of all who hear the empowering voices of these five women.