On Friday, Walgreen Co. was ordered by a jury to pay $25.8 million to the family of a cancer patient given a medication that caused a stroke and then several years later, death.

Beth Hippely was prescribed Warfarin, a blood thinner, in 2002 while being treated for breast cancer. According to court documents, the prescription she received at a Walgreen's pharmacy was 10 times what it should have been. The overdose caused a cerebral hemorrhage which led to permanent bodily injury, disability, pain, and then death. Hippely, a mother of three, died at the age of 46. Apparently, the error occurred when a 19-year-old pharmacy technician misfiled the prescription.

Hippely's family has been seeking justice for five years.

I remember thinking when my grandma was a spunky 80-year-old -- still going to aerobics classes in her purple tights -- that it must be sad to be such an age when so many friends and acquaintances are falling ill and passing away. My grandma was always one to care for others, call on others, pray for others -- and often she seemed to be the only one in her circle who was thriving. Somehow, she took it all in stride and continued baking and gardening and sewing and living strong until her own death at the age of 86 -- when she left her remaining friends and acquaintances wondering if their own time on Earth was approaching a quick end. At the time, I thought this loss of friends was merely a side effect of aging. It didn't seem to concern me at my own young age of 30. I didn't really know any 30-year-olds who were dying. And I didn't predict anyone my age would be dying until I was closer to the age of 80. How wrong I was.

I am now 36 years old. And I know many women my age who have died -- most of them because of breast cancer, the same disease I have been fighting for nearly two years. So it's not only sad to me that people my age are dying, it's also quite personal and frightening -- for it could easily me in the same predicament. So I feel vulnerable -- so many years earlier than I imagined.

I think I know how my grandma must have felt when her loved ones were leaving her. And I think I will take her same approach to coping with this unfortunate fact of life. Although I couldn't possibly bake and garden and sew like she did, I can keep busy with my own hobbies and interests. And I can continue living strong until my own death -- which hopefully won't occur until after I've made my appearance in purple tights. About 50 years from now.

It is said that 79-year-old Leonard Kulisek had not suffered any major illness in the years before his unfortunate death, except he did have a prescription for his gout. The Walgreens pharmacist who filled Kulisek's prescription was working under the influence of OxyContin and hydrocodone. Instead of gout medicine, the bottle was filled with insulin pills. The next day, Kulisek slipped into a coma, and for the next 22 months suffered a series of health issues before he died.

The pharmacist admitted to being addicted to painkillers for eight years, and had stolen over 86,000 pills from the pharmacy where he worked. The jurors held Walgreens responsible for failing to catch the drug thefts or notice that the pharmacist had an addiction problem. Walgreens must pay $31 million dollars to the Kulisek family. Walgreens plans an appeal.

Medication errors can occur for a number of reasons. What can you do to avoid medication errors? According to Rx for Safety, the most common reasons that errors happen are:

• Incomplete information about a patient.
• Incomplete information about a medication, such as warnings or side effects.
• Poor communication regarding a prescription such as illegible handwriting, confusion between similar drug names, misuse of zeroes or decimal points or inappropriate abbreviations.
• Lack of appropriate labeling on the drug container or pharmacy shelf.

Before you leave the doctor's office, look at the written prescription. Can you read the handwriting? If you cannot, the pharmacist might have a problem reading it accurately. When you have your prescription filled, ask the pharmacist to answer any questions you might have regarding the medication. Check to make sure that printed literature is included with the prescription detailing information about side effects and proper dosages. On the side of the prescription bottle is a label that describes what the pill looks like. Check to make sure the description of the pill matches the pills inside the bottle.

For more information on additional safeguards, read Avoiding Medical Errors at RX for Safety.

Just before my treatment for breast cancer began and during a consultation about what chemotherapy drugs I was about to receive, my oncologist stepped away from my exam room to check on something. When she returned to the room, she told me that she was determining whether or not I qualified for a clinical trial. I had no idea what this meant at the time. All I knew was what she told me -- that my prognosis was too good at that moment to qualify for anything currently under study. I did not fit a profile for anything. I was not a candidate for a clinical trial.

I now know that clinical trials are a critical component of research -- they validate a drug's success or weakness and they provide hope for many who may be at the end of their treatment rope and need something new to consider. A clinical trial is a comparison of standard treatments to newer treatments in an effort to discover better methods for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Doctors, scientists, and other health professionals conduct these tests according to strict guidelines set by the Food and Drug Administration -- which establishes mandatory guidelines to ensure the maximum safety of the patient.

Clinical trials rely on volunteers -- and sadly, there is a current shortage of patients willing to participate in trials. Experts say that, for the past few decades, just five to 10 percent of all cancer patients in the United States have joined a clinical trial. There is an urgent need -- because the demand for willing, eligible participants far exceeds the supply. Some experts are even recommending that the small pool of candidates that does exist be rationed to only the most important cancer studies -- leaving other studies with no hope for completion. There is no good solution in sight. But the reasons for the shortage are becoming apparent. It's not that patients are unwilling to join. It's that they are unaware, uninformed, not even sure this opportunity is possible -- because doctors are not suggesting trials to their patients. Treatment on a protocol is more demanding for doctors than routine medical care. And it costs doctors to submit to a trial. And trials burden doctors with regulations and paperwork. And some doctors worry about litigation if something experimental goes wrong. So they often don't approach the topic -- and the result is that a wonder drug may sit in a dark freezer because there are not enough people to test it. This potential wonder drug may never show promise, may never save a life, may never see the light of day.

So I guess my oncologist was ahead of the game in this matter -- she compared my diagnosis and prognosis with the needs of all available clinical trials and found that there was not match. Had she not done this, I would have never thought to ask about the possibility -- which is exactly what patients should do instead of waiting for a doctor to make the suggestion. Because it may never happen.

For more information on clinical trials, please visit the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups.

The first time you hear incredulous news you might be inclined to wonder aloud in stunned amazement -- how did that happen?! -- which is exactly how I reacted when I read about John Heron in Scotland, who was diagnosed with kidney cancer and scheduled to have his cancerous tumor removed only to have his healthy kidney removed instead. The hospital apologized, his wife refused comment. Aren't there just times when saying you are sorry just does not mean what it could. I understood his wife's silence. There are events in life that just leave you speechless. What happened to Heron more than qualified.

In today's The Daily Times of Marysville Tennessee is a new report that Goldie Claude has quite a bit to say about the surgeon who removed her healthy kidney and left the cancerous kidney. The 86 year-old woman is distraught and suing her doctors over the tragic error. Before the operation she worked two 12-hour shifts every weekend taking care of patients at a small health care facility. Bless her heart, she's 86. According to Claude, who is left with one-third of one kidney, says she can't work now and is having nervous spells. I can imagine.

There is a lesson here that needs to be put forward. In the event you ever find yourself scheduled for surgery, take a permanent marker and ask a trusted family member or friend to write on your body instructions on what should be removed. With arrows if necessary. Never mind if you grew up with your mother telling you to quit writing on yourself with a ballpoint pen. Just do it. Remember what happened to John and Goldie.

Once in awhile, I come across a story and all I am left wondering is -- how did that happen?! Here's another story for the how did that happen file. Derek Kirchen, 67, a retired construction worker, kept collapsing and he kept getting pneumonia. While the doctors said that could not be sure to the reasons why Kirchen was suffering in this way, they guessed it might be due to lung cancer -- even though the tests and x-rays failed to indicate he had the definitive signs of lung cancer. But that was their best guess -- lung cancer. An alarming suggestion to make to someone suffering symptoms with no other explanation. Kirchen was scheduled for exploratory surgery and what the surgeon found surprised everyone. When the black lump was removed from Kirchen's left lung, it turned out to be a cashew. Kirchen says he hasn't had a cashew since Christmas 2004.

In the news feature, Kirchen is quoted as saying, "I just don't know how it got there. It's a complete mystery. When I came round all the nurses were giggling, as they couldn't believe it was a nut. I can't remember choking on a nut. It's ironic really as I don't even like the darned things." Better a cashew than cancer. It's an odd but happy ending.

And not to make disparaging comparisons to one part of the world over another, but of all the news stories that seem most fit for the how did that happen file, two others occurred in the same part of the world. I refer you to the lung cancer patient found smoldering in his hospital bed and the one where surgeons removed a healthy kidney and left the patient with only one kidney -- the kidney riddled with cancerous tumors. The stories about George McGarry and John Heron did not have such a happy ending. It makes you wonder though -- is the medical community there different than elsewhere -- or are these events happening elsewhere but simply not making the news?