National Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Week is right around the corner, and it’s a great reminder to help raise awareness about previvors and their risk for cancer.

Check out our latest press release on the subject: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. In some ways, September 11th, 2001 seems like so long ago. In others, I remember it like it was yesterday. I guess that makes sense. We tend to remember every detail of certain days in our lives—for me, it’s the happy ones like my wedding day and the birth of my children, as well as the sad ones like the day I lost loved ones, such as my grandparents. Of course, September 11th falls into the latter category—it was one horrific day I’ll never forget.

I was living in New York on that fateful morning. (To read more about my personal experience, read my previous blog post on the topic.)  And for the last 9 years, I’ve spent the anniversary with my husband watching news reports and commemorative TV specials late at night after our kids were asleep.

But this year is different. This will be the first year we will actually share the day with our children. And I was a little torn about just how to do that.

I recently found out that Previvors won gold at this year’s Mom’s Choice Awards in the category of health, nutrition, fitness and safety.  I’m very thankful that the book was recognized.

While not all previvors are moms (or dads, for that matter), so many of them are. In fact, the five women featured in Previvors are all mothers, and they explain how being a parent affected their decisions when facing their cancer risk. Check out the chapter in the book entitled, “A Mother’s Legacy” to find out how.

Of course, I hope the book keeps helping all previvors first facing their risk. And thanks again to the Mom’s Choice Awards committee for honoring my book. I am very grateful.

I just got back from the annual FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered) conference in Orlando. This marks my fourth consecutive year attending the event, and it never ceases to amaze me how empowering the conference can be. Hundreds of women and men from all over the world join to learn about the latest news and research regarding hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. They come together to share in the comfort of others who completely understand what they are going through.

But that’s not enough.

I found out some very exciting news today: My book, Previvors, is the winner of  the 2011 International Book Award for the Best Health Book in the “Cancer” category. Here’s a link to the press release: www.internationalbookawards.com/2011pressrelease.html.

It’s an amazing feeling, being recognized for all of the work that went into this important book. The five women featured in Previvors and I are thrilled!

Potty training is one of those things that once you go through it, it’s like it never happened. My daughter and son have been out of diapers for 4 and 2 years respectively, but I can barely remember the kids ever wearing them.

So it was fun for me to work on a quiz for Parents.com about this very subject matter. It’s called What’s Your Potty Training I.Q.? and it actually brought back some memories.

Whether you’re in the dirty diaper trenches or you haven’t changed one in years, take the quiz and see how much you really know about this major milestone.

Recently, I wrote a piece for Parents.com entitled 8 Positive Ways to Address Children’s Gender Identity Issues. It’s funny, as adults we’ve come so far when it comes to accepting one another’s differences. But, for children, any difference can be traumatizing—even something as innocuous as wearing glasses or a different-colored shirt than the rest of the class. So how do you handle it when your son wants to wear princess dresses or your daughter wants to be the only girl on the baseball team?

The recent popularity of My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis has really brought the issue of gender identity into the limelight. I hope my article helps do that even further. I’m curious to hear what you think!

Let me be straight about this: I am a huge fan of the technology that’s available to us today (and I’m not just saying that because I’m married to a software developer.) I’d be lost without my DVR; running with anything heavier than an IPod would be unthinkable; and I honestly can’t imagine not being able to access my email anywhere, anytime. But after what happened to me this past Friday night, I actually started to question whether or not our countless forms of communication and means of capturing memories are doing us more harm than good.

In my book, Previvors, I include a chapter entitled “A Promising Future.” And under the section about breast cancer screening, I talk about different promising techniques on the horizon. Well, one of the ones I mentioned already came to fruition: The Food and Drug Administration just approved the first three-dimensional mammography system to screen for breast cancer. (It was developed by Hologic.)

So what are 3-D mammograms? Here’s the explanation from my book:

It seems my Huffington Post blog about the silence behind infertility yesterday struck a nerve with some people: In one day, more than 1,600 men and women recommended it on Facebook and 117 people shared their comments.

That’s not to say all the comments were positive ones. Many people argue that those with infertility should just stop “complaining” and adopt. Others assume is that IVF is the only form of infertility treatment. One even likens the “need” to have a child to the “need” to eat a pizza. And a few say that we already have made great strides and that infertility gets plenty of attention and coverage.