I vividly remember the best and worst night of my year. As Barack Obama cheered “Yes, We Can,” my mother was absent-mindedly thumbing what we all agreed was a lump on her chest. I took comfort in the fact that she said it hurt—cancer doesn’t hurt. She’ll be fine, I thought. But as we toasted champagne and hugged each other for Obama’s victory, with brows slightly furrowed, I prayed for my mother, my strong and stubborn mother. I didn’t go with her to the doctor—my father did. I probably slept until noon, which was a common occurrence since I’d just driven all my belongings and my cat 1,991 miles from New York City to Santa Fe in three days. I was jobless, tentatively moving to Los Angeles in a few months and had no idea what I was doing with my future. And it turned out that my 58-year-old mother, my best friend and deepest confidant, had breast cancer.

So maybe I would go to former sitcom star Suzanne Somers for advice about how to shape up my thighs (remember the Thigh Master?), but certainly not for tips about how to help cure cancer. In her new book, Knockout: Interviews With Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer And How To Prevent It In The First Place (it’s her 19th book … I know ... what the heck is she writing about?), Suzanne is making some outrageous claims that are making people at the American Cancer Society outraged.

Here’s a quick way to get cancer—or at least foot cancer (if that even existed until now)—the Solafeet Foot Tanner, another useless and overpriced object brought to you by the endlessly entertaining SkyMall catalogue. Marketed to golfers who want to “rid themselves of ugly sock tan lines,” all you have to do is stick your feet into the machine for 15 minutes a day (which probably takes off a day of your life with each session). But apparently there are people in the world who suffer from tan line embarrassment:

“If you always feel like people are gawking at your white feet and the unsightly tan lines around your ankles when you wear sandals or pumps, then you need the Solafeet foot tanner ... Then you can go from the golf course to the clubhouse in confidence.”

So, basically, you can live it up (for only $229.99) before the doctors amputate both your feet. Awesome. [SkyMall.com]

Viva Las Vegas is a popular stripper based in Portland, Oregon. A preacher’s daughter, she was raised in the Midwest before she moved to the West, where she worked as a nude dancer for over a dozen years. Eventually, she wondered if it was time to retire. Last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After chemo made her hair fall out and a mastectomy left her with one breast, she wasn’t sure what to do. So, she wrote a book about her experiences: Magic Gardens: The Memoirs of Viva Las Vegas. After the lump was removed, extra skin from a cadaver was used to cover the area, but she resisted having her breast rebuilt with an implant. And then, she went back to stripping ... [The Daily Beast]

Sorry, ladies, we’ve got another thing to add to your ever-growing list of cancer-causing products: scented candles. Burning candles super often in enclosed spaces could lead to asthma, eczema or even cancer. Most candles are made of paraffin wax and—just our luck— are the kind that, when lit, produce dangerous chemicals like toluene and benzene. So if you are going to woo your partner with a candlelit dinner or a sexy striptease in a dim room, opt for beeswax or soy candles, they’re safer. [Daily Mail]

We know we’re supposed to head to the lady doctor once a year for a gyno and breast exam to catch any signs of cancer early. But these days, women can even go one step further—they can get genetic testing. Women who get tested for BRCA gene mutations will know if they are 60% more likely to develop breast and/or ovarian cancer over the course of their lives. It’s a great step in cancer prediction and prevention, but for women who test positive it also presents serious issues and some heavy decision-making. [CNN]

I love reading. I might love it more than orgasms, sleeping or eating. And I will read anything, high or low, because I’ve enjoyed “smart books” like Katharine Graham’s autobiography as much as “trashy books” like The Other Boleyn Sister. I just can’t stand people who get on their high horse and sniff that a 10th grader could have written Twilight. It was a good read—who cares?

I’ve read two novels by Jodi Picoult—My Sister’s Keeper and Nineteen Minutes—which were both three-hanky reads about suburban families with troubled kids (cancer in one, a school shooting in another). But NPR has a different perspective on the Picoult oeuvre.

Many of us know cancer patients who are here today and gone within a matter of weeks. The New York Times recently ran a piece with some much needed insight as to why. All the millions of dollars raised at “Walk for the Cure” and “Relays for Life” are deposited into a large pot of grant research money, and one would like to believe that the money is being given to the most advanced, inventive ideas out there that could potentially cure cancer. Unfortunately, the truth is that the dough usually goes to small research projects that are pretty much useless and will have the slightest, if any, impact on finding the cure.

Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who died Tuesday, left the country after divorcing her husband in the ‘90s to watch over a small group of people who were working and chillin’ (literally) in the South Pole. Soon enough, however, Jerri realized the one who really needed watching was herself. When she was 47, this daring doc discovered a lump in her breast that she knew was cancer. The last flights out of the South Pole had left and no one was going in or out until the weather became safe for traveling.

Sirens siren Heather Wood Rudulph has written a piece for Huffington Post about five reasons we still need feminism, including the recent murder of abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, and the propensity of pop culture to make women look like marriage-crazy loons.

Her five reasons are just dandy, but why limit ourselves to only five? It was depressingly easy to think of five more reasons we need more of the F-word.

There has been a lot of sex-related stuff in the news over the last couple days, which makes complete sense because April is STD Awareness Month, and, you know, the S in STD stands for sexually.

According to a new study, HPV is moving on up…to mouths!  That’s right, just when you thought Gardasil and Cervarix solved all your problems, now you have to worry about what else you’ve been opening wide.  Since the ‘70s. throat cancer cases have doubled, and the research shows HPV is to blame, with 39% of all occurrences caused by the human papilloma virus. Before you go cutting your man off from his favorite foreplay, listen to this: men are 35% more likely than women to develop oral cancer from HPV. Sheesh, making a new man go downtown may be riskier than you both think!  Still, there’s more bad news—as of yet, there is no way to test male genitalia for HPV or anyone’s throat to see if they’re a carrier.  So, it’s a roll of the dice and doctors fear you may even be able to contract the virus from kissing. There goes all the fun! Since this throat cancer link is a new revelation, the cervical cancer vaccines haven’t been tested or proven to prevent it. So, deep throat, you might want to use a condom for oral sex or just give that random stranger a handy and call it a night! [ABC News]

With the news this morning that Renee Zellweger had a cancer scare back in 1996, we started thinking about just how many female celebrities have battled breast cancer in the last few years—it’s been almost as frequent as the number of those having twins! Christina Applegate, Sheryl Crowe, Melissa Etheridge, Edie Falco, Olivia Newton John, Cynthia Nixon, Robin Roberts, Kylie Minogue, and Elizabeth Edwards are among the many women in the news who have battled breast cancer and it really indicates how many more women NOT making headlines are facing the disease themselves. According to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure, nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year and about 40,000 women will die from the disease. With that in mind, I wanted to compile a list of must know information for women about breast cancer—when to get checked out, what to look for, what your personal risk is, etc. Check it out, after the jump….

From tofu to chocolate milk, soy has been sweepin’ the nation. In addition to helping lactose intolerant freelance writers enjoy a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal every now and again, the lil’ bean is chock full of calcium, protein, fiber, iron, zinc, and magnesium, plus it’s the only vegetable that can give you amino acids. But the nutritional goodies are just the tip of where the health benefits begin for us ladies. According to new studies, soy will fend off hot flashes from the ‘pause (although it will not stop you from getting dragged to see Menopause the Musical with your mom who laughs waaaaaay too hard at the jokey rhymes). Soy also reduces the risk of developing breast cancer by 18%  in women with a high BMI (body mass index). Not sure how high your BMI is?  Check out this chart while you chow down on a delicious Tofutti ice cream sandwich. [Health World and Health Castle]

While boobalicious models in booze ads are known for boosting sales, this time it’s more than just for show, it’s for a good cause.  A cheeky new line of wines from Cleavage Creek feature labels with sexy Breast Cancer Survivors—like Carson Daly’s mom—showing off their décolletage. Napa Valley winery owner and activist, Budge Brown, came up with the idea to raise funds for a cure after his wife of 48 years passed away from the disease which almost 200,000 women a year are diagnosed with in America alone. “My goal was to honor their courage and inspire them,” the 75-year-old proprietor said of his plans. The bottles retail for $15 and 10% of the purchase price goes to various Breast Cancer organizations.  [Trend Hunter]

Medical studies can be very confusing and seemingly contradictory. Take studies on alcohol consumption. Sometimes we’ll read that drinking a little bit will do our bones good, and then we’ll hear that drinking even two drinks per day increases our risk of cancer. The chief of preventative medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital offered some clarification on U.S. News & World Report’s website: “First of all, no one should begin drinking alcohol in order to reap health benefits, since it’s very difficult to predict whether risks will outweigh benefits and vice versa.” Personally, I think it’s a crapshoot. [PubMed.com, Sydney Morning Herald, USNews.com]