Walking into my cancer center waiting room is one of my most sobering experiences. I enter this room -- jam-packed full of men, women, and children -- every three months for a breast cancer follow-up. It never gets easier. It always startles me, stirs my emotions, makes me realize how so many people are touched by such a treacherous and all-consuming disease. The fact that I sit in this room, that I am one of these many people, still doesn't seem real.It's been almost three years since I got a phone call from a surgeon declaring, "You have cancer." I didn't believe it then. Even after all I've been through -- surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and more -- I hardly believe it now. But it's real. I have scars and new hair and a whole new set of worries to prove it.
Walking into that waiting room proves it's real. There's nothing like it. There's also nothing like walking out, with a clean bill of health and the promise of three more months.
Yesterday, I saw my oncologist for one of my every-three-month follow-up visits. As always, I went armed with my list of questions -- which is really my list of worries -- and one by one, I rattled them off. On a little sticky note, I had written: 
I have a new friend who is a new breast cancer survivor. She is surviving a new diagnosis, a recent lumpectomy, and the moments leading up to another surgery to further investigate the margins surrounding the tumor removed from her breast. She is surviving the first phase of her breast cancer journey. A phase full of uncertainty and fear and panic. A phase so new and so fresh and so raw, her mind is whirling. A phase that has her grasping for any bit of direction she can find as she navigates a terrifying, unfamiliar road.
The bikini turns 60 this month and makes news not just for its birthday but also for its new feature -- a built-in alarm to warn wearers to get out of the sun. Not all bikinis will talk -- but those made by Canadian company Solestrom will. Solestrom has created a new bikini that goes on sale next month with a UV meter built into its belt and an alarm that sounds when it's time to seek shade. The meter on the $190 bikini displays a level of UV intensity on a scale from 0 to 20. Three to five is moderate strength, eight to 10 is very high, and anything above 11 is extreme. A person's sensitivity to UV depends mainly on skin type so this scale operates in general terms.
I have been a cheerleader for the breast cancer drug Herceptin ever since I began receiving it. I had my initial worries -- about an allergic reaction that I knew caused death within 24 hours for a handful of women and about possible toxicity to the heart -- but after faring well through my first dose and having now successfully completed my one year obligation to the drug, with no allergic reaction or heart damage, I have come to believe the Herceptin might just be the gem of a drug that the media says it is. Yet now I've read an 
There are all sorts of gifts for dad on Father's Day -- shirts and ties and books and coffee mugs and golf balls -- and many of us have already spent money on the stuff we can wrap up and deliver or mail off to dad on this special day. But some gifts -- the ones we can't wrap up -- have an appeal that is priceless because they focus on the moment, they build relationships, and they promote mental and physical health. And here are just seven simple but everlasting gifts to consider sharing with dad on this Father's Day.
I have had many moments in my life where anxiety and panic have filled my mind. But this is normal and necessary really as life delivers all kinds of situations that produce all sorts of emotions. 
Many forms of relaxation and meditation go back thousands of years, and modern research has proven that relaxation
techniques neutralize stress by producing a calming effect. Stress can exacerbate illness. Relaxation can lessen
anxiety, slow your heart rate, and lower blood pressure in the practice of meditation, yoga, progressive muscle
relaxation, and biofeedback. Relaxation allows your body to enter into an enhanced healing state. 
