Breast cancer survivor Linda Griggs offers a wide variety of hands-on healing products for other survivors -- like an inner child notebook with markers for journaling and expressing emotions, a wooden box with instructions on how to create a healing shrine, a non-fiction account of her own cancer journey, and so much more. Griggs, who also teaches workshops and speaks out on cancer as a hero's quest, is now onto something new. She's stringing beads.

Think about this:

"After helping a young breast cancer survivor make a "power necklace" to help pump her up before chemo, I realized perhaps other survivors might benefit from having their own empowering necklaces," Griggs says.

Griggs has begun making necklaces from natural stones associated with chakras she believes are most relevant to survivors. The root chakra, for example is connected with survival, the sacral chakra with emotional balance, the solar plexus chakra with personal power, the heart chakra with giving and receiving love, and the throat chakra with free expression.

Each necklace -- there are earring sets too -- come with an explanation of the stones and chakras involved and each has its own unique name. There is the Amazon Warrior, the Wild Woman, and the Heart Light.

Think about a visit to Griggs' website when you have a moment. And bead all about the resources this one survivor has crafted for those wishing to transcend the depths of cancer.

I wanted to remind anyone who is interested in attending the 7th Annual Conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer that it is being held this weekend in Arlington, Virginia.

I will be attending and plan on giving updates over the weekend on the many different seminars and workshops. This will be my fifth conference since I was diagnosed in December 2001. It is such an amazing experience.

The seminars and workshops are very informative and you can pick and choose different topics depending on where you are in the treatment process or if you are newly diagnosed with breast cancer or have had a recurrence. There is something for everyone who is a young breast cancer survivor.

I also enjoy being in a room filled with women who are now not just other young survivors but friends.

My friend Deb and I were diagnosed only a few days apart and met on the YSC message boards. She came to visit me this weekend and we celebrated reaching the milestone of five years of survivorship!

www.youngsurvivorsconference.org

Survivorship is the new cancer buzz word -- and what an important word it is. Once left to each individual to define, manage, and transcend, survivorship is now recognized as a distinct phase of cancer recovery -- just as important, and maybe even more so, than diagnosis and treatment.

Linda Griggs, a 13-year breast cancer survivor, clearly remembers the day her chemotherapy ended. With her therapy complete, her hair growing back, and her medical team sending her off to have a nice life, she thought she'd be fine. But she wasn't.

Three months after her last dose of chemotherapy, Griggs was depressed, consumed with worry about how her cancer might come back. And she realized that the end of treatment is not really the end. It's just the beginning.

Griggs told her doctor about her anxiety, about how she was just trying to make it to her next three-month-check up. When her doctor told her, "that's not living," something clicked for Griggs who instantly decided to start living -- really living.

Surviving is about self-nurturing, says Griggs, who has created a kit to help others survive cancer. On her website, she writes that there are a couple of other breast cancer survivor kits out there -- containing tissues, herbal teas, meditation tapes, medical appointment books, and breast cancer resource materials.

"This is not that," she says of her kit that focuses on the emotional upheaval cancer creates.

Griggs' kit is full of hands-on creative materials -- like an inner child notebook, complete with magic markers for journaling and expressing emotions. If you're angry, you can write down angry thoughts. If you're sad, write what makes you sad. Save the pages, tear them up, burn them, do what you wish -- but allow your emotions to flow, Griggs says.

The kit also includes a wooden box with instructions on how to create a healing shrine, a copy of Griggs' non-fiction account of the first five years of her cancer journey, and so much more.

Griggs, who also teaches healing workshops, guides others to understand cancer as a hero's quest. She says when something happens to us -- death, divorce, disease -- we are receiving a call to adventure. All bet's are off. We must start fresh, gather our spirit guides, collect ourselves, dive into the underworld, overcome, and then emerge full of wisdom of growth.

Griggs has emerged -- full of her own wisdom and growth. She is a hero -- on a quest to help others survive a disease that threw her way off track for way too long.

Makeup artist Lori Ovitz has taken her twenty years of cosmetics experience in making celebrities and top models look beautiful, and written Facing the Mirror with Cancer, a book of tips and techniques to help cancer patients look less tired and create a natural glow at a time when cancer treatments can take a physical toll.

Ovitz began volunteering at University of Chicago hospitals working with cancer patients to teach them how to enhance their personal appearance using makeup. According to Ovitz, "Makeup is a very accessible, inexpensive way to make significant changes to your appearance. The tremendous gratitude that I've received from each patient I've worked with inspired me to write Facing the Mirror with Cancer -- A Guide to Using Makeup to make a Difference."

To publish her book, Ovitz and her husband Bruce, a 35 year cancer survivor, created Belle Press -- named to honor the memory of her grandmother Belle Michel -- so that 50 percent of the profits from the book could go to cancer research.

"Cancer does not have to rob you of self-esteem or beauty. By teaching cancer patients how to apply makeup, I've seen firsthand what an incredible transformation occurs in their appearance and how much better they feel about themselves. I've written this book because I want to reach cancer patients everywhere so they can learn the tricks of my trade," Lori Ovitz states with assurance.

You can order Facing the Mirror with Cancer, a 200-page book featuring step-by-step tips and techniques for dealing with appearance issues during cancer treatment and beyond, here.

As a cancer survivor, cancer is never very far away. But there is more to life than cancer, and on National Cancer Survivor's Day, TELETOON is airing two public service announcements, PSAs, created by Gilda's Club's Noogieland members. While each of the seven children, aged 8 through 12, know cancer, Gilda's Club invited them to join an animation workshop to focus on concerns all kids have, and to help them see beyond their cancer experience. Scheduled to air on National Cancer Survivor's Day, the two PSAs deal with peer pressure and bullying and active living.

The wisdom of Gilda's Club, the National Film Board Mediatheque, and Toronto-based digital animation producer 9 Story Entertainment in taking these children out of the often singular focus cancer can cause, and having them reconnect to the every day issues relevant to them and their peers is profound and healing.

TELETOON is Canada's first and only round the clock animation network broadcasting in English and French. "Since the inception of the animation workshops, TELETOON has partnered with arts organizations, with elementary schools, and with kids clubs to promote the idea that all kids, no matter what their background, have an opinion regarding the issues that affect them," says Len Cochrane, TELETOON President. "We are proud and thankful that Gilda's Club, the NFB Mediatheque and 9 Story supported the founding principle of this community-based initiative, and assisted kids with the tools to better express their ideas and opinions."

Yes. We take our experiences with us but we do not need to become our experiences. Life goes on -- as it should.

I've been wondering lately about how I might alter my diet in a post-cancer world. I am a moderate eater -- I eat moderate amounts of meat and fruits and vegetables and grains and dairy. And moderate amounts of fats and sweets too. Sometimes I wonder if I am doing myself a disservice by eating meat and processed foods and refined sugar. I've gathered many opinions that indicate that the further our food comes from the dirt of this Earth, the worse it is for us. That perhaps the increase in cancer cases in the United States is linked to the increase in diets rich in artificial stuff. Part of me resists this speculation -- maybe because I enjoy a variety of foods from the entire food pyramid and I just don't want to give them up.  And part of me believes that if this argument is true, then I am a fool to not jump on board and take control of my future health. So I've taken the first step -- I've done some research and have located a destination where I could explore this route with detail and precision by practicing a whole new way of eating and being.

Hippocrates Health Institute, a leader in the field of natural and complementary health care and education since 1956, teaches a vegan diet with a focus on implementing this lifestyle at home. Food is served in its purest form and is fresh, organic, and enzyme-rich. Food is not the only focus at this institute, however. Whole body healing includes various therapies, exercise, and workshops. While living on the premises of this West Palm Beach, Florida oasis for a minimum of one week and a maximum of three weeks, I could cleanse myself of the toxins and stress and anxiety that have invaded my body as a result of cancer. It's tempting. And maybe when my treatment is complete in August, I will become a student of this philosophy. Just maybe.

I have been invited to a celebration. A celebration of cancer survivorship. I received my invitation the other day for a picnic of sorts sponsored by my local American Cancer Society office, and I have since learned that in communities all over the map, similar celebrations will happen. June 4 is National Cancer Survivors Day and that is surely cause for a party. 

National Cancer Survivors Day is recognized annually, on the first Sunday in June. This year marks the 19th year of this special occasion that will feature in more than 700 communities an array of carnivals, parades, art exhibits, races, dances, workshops and more. The idea for this day began 21 years ago when a lung cancer survivor and his wife sponsored a rally in Kansas City, Missouri and the idea caught on. Now the non-profit National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation supports hundreds of hospitals, support groups, and other organizations that host events on this day. 

It's nice to know that the hospital and clinics and organizations that are stops on my breast cancer journey may be recipients of the festivities that take place in my city on June 4. And it's nice to know that I have a celebration to attend in honor of all those, like me, who have been victorious in the war against cancer.