Breast cancer survivor and rocker Sheryl Crow says she conquered cancer in part due to the type of research funded by "FFANY Shoes on Sale." This Fashion Footwear Association of New York shoe sale features thousands of beautiful shoes sold at half the manufacturer's suggested retail price. All net proceeds are donated to the breast cancer cause.

If you love shoes and wish to help further the fight against breast cancer, tune in to QVC for a night of shopping on October 17 from 7:00 - 10:00 PM ET.

Over the past 10 years, "FFANY Shoes On Sale" has raised more than $16 million and sold over 950,000 pairs of shoes to benefit breast cancer research and education programs. Here's to another great year.

This morning I attended the kickoff breakfast for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk being held October, 28th in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is a noncompetitive walk to help fight breast cancer and provide hope to people facing the disease. Your participation will support the American Cancer Society's lifesaving research, prevention, early detection, and support programs for thousands of patients and their families.

I learned today that Making Strides is more than just a walk -- it is the amazing progress that is being made to defeat breast cancer. This is truly an inspiring event!

Check out Making Strides for Breast Cancer walks in your area -- here.

A study published in the journal Cancer says that improvements in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer are making a difference and patients are living longer with the disease.

Researchers in Canada conducted a study evaluating 2,000 women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The time periods in the study were broken up into four groups dating from 1991 until 2001. The researchers concluded that one year survival improved from 55 percent to 71 percent and two year survival improved from 33 percent to 45 percent.

The introduction of new chemotherapy drugs, new approaches to hormonal therapy, and new targeted therapy have been introduced over the period of time evaluated in the study.

Advertising executive and author Lois Wyse died Friday at her Manhattan home of stomach cancer. She was 80.

Perhaps best known for her famous slogan, With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good, Wyse -- who founded Wyse Advertising with her first husband Marc and went on to win the J.M. Smucker Company account -- was also the brains behind this name: Bed, Bath & Beyond. The small retail chain began as Bed and Bath. Wyse thought it would fare better with a more complete name.

Wyse was a powerful woman in business. Her company was chosen to create the first television advertising campaign for New Woman magazine. She was was the first woman on the board of the Consolidated Natural Gas Company and the Higbee Company, and she was a founding member of both the Committee of 200, a group of women with executive jobs, and of Catalyst, a women's research organization.

Limits are being placed on profits doctors can make on some cancer drugs, causing oncologists to search for new income. Some fear these physicians may resort to prescribing additional treatments for some patients. Not just any treatments, though -- just the ones with the best reimbursements.

Until 2005, Medicare paid a markup of 20 to 100 percent for many cancer drugs. In 2005, Congress changed the reimbursement system to pay physicians just six percent more than the average price for a given treatment. This decrease has made it difficult for small practices to break even on cancer drug purchases because the purchases are not large enough to receive rebates or discounts from drug manufacturers.

According to a recent New York Times article, some oncologists have attempted to increase profits by performing chemotherapy more often, ordering more diagnostic scans, and by putting pressure on patients to make out-of-pocket drug co-payments.

Say it isn't so.

Opera singer Beverly Sills is reportedly at a Manhattan hospital, gravely ill with cancer and with her daughter by her side. This comes from the Associated Press and while those who know her best neither confirm nor deny the news, Sills did cite health and family reasons when she resigned as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera two years ago.

Cancer first struck Sills in 1974. She underwent successful surgery and went on to make her Met singing debut in 1975.

Sills, 78, first hit the opera circuit in 1947 in Philadelphia. She had a bit role in Carmen and later became a star with the smaller New York City Opera and was acclaimed for performances in Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe, Massenet's Manon, and Handel's Guilio Cesare. Known by the nickname Bubbles -- which some say matches her personality perfectly -- the red-haired diva made many appearances on The Tonight Show and The Muppet Show. She also sang often with her friend Carol Burnett.

High-profile television and newspaper gosspip columnist Claudia Cohen, most recently a regular correspondent covering entertainment for the syndicated talk show Live With Regis and Kelly, died Friday of ovarian cancer. She was 56.

Known for her aggressive pursuit of celebrity news and her public divorce from billionaire businessman Ronald O. Perelman, Cohen first hit the spotlight in the late 1970s as a reporter and editor for Page Six of The New York Post. She went on to write a gossip column titled I, Claudia for The Daily News of New York, report for Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, and dish celebrity dirt for ABC's The Morning Show.

Cohen is survived by her parents, a brother, and a daughter.

Former Green Bay, New England, and Cleveland football player Joe Andruzzi has just completed the first of a 12-step series of chemotherapy treatments for Burkitt's lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Andruzzi, married and dad to four children, was released by the Browns on May 2 so he and his family could move to New Jersey. Then last week, Andruzzi began experiencing abdominal pain and other symptoms. He consulted with the Browns' medical staff, underwent a colonoscopy, learned an abnormality was found, and then headed to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston where he was diagnosed with Burkitt's.

The cure rate for Burkitt's -- a rapidly growing, rare form of cancer that strikes only 100 people in the United States each year -- is about 80 percent if patients receive intensive therapy, according to the National Cancer Institute. The other patient survival factor is the stage of the disease. Andruzzi's stage has not been publicly reported.

Yesterday I visited the High Points Monument at High Point State Park. It was a fitting day to visit the monument -- Memorial Day. The monument was built and dedicated to the memory of New Jersey's wartime heros. Construction was started in 1928 and completed in 1930.

My husband and I climbed the stairs up the 220- foot structure for a breathtaking view of the ridges of the Pocono Mountains, the Catskill Mountains and the Wallkill River Valley.

The high points in my life can come unexpectedly. I think we should all think about what the high points in our lives have been and cherish the memories. A camping trip in an RV, my husband and two dogs this weekend was definitely a high point in my life. High points don't have to be something monumental -- no pun intended. High points can be small things that make the day a joyful one.

Find as many high points in your life as you can.

I remember a time when I visited tanning salons and was assured by those working the front desks that tanning beds were safer than the sun. Many years later, I know this is entirely untrue.

Think about this:

The New Zealand Cancer Society experts say sunbeds should never be used as a tanning method because the risk of skin cancer is too great.

Tanning bed UV radiation is five times stronger than UV from the sun, says one doctor who also suggests people wrongly assume sunbeds are safer than the sun. Instead, they place individuals at significant risk for harm. In fact, the risk of developing melanoma, the deadliest from of skin cancer, increases by 75 percent for those who use a tanning bed before the age of 35.

The Cancer Society, wishing to ban the use of sunbeds for anyone under age 18, has commissioned further research into the use of this deadly practice.

There's so much more to life than money. At the same time, the daily grind definitely depends some on this coveted staple. For one man, whose life did depend on money, it could have been everything. But it wasn't.

Think about this:

Wayne Schenk won $1 million in the New York lottery on January 12 after purchasing a $5 scratch-off ticket. His jackpot win came just five weeks after his diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer was delivered. His one wish: to receive a lump sum so he could receive specialized treatment for his advanced disease.

Lottery officials claim they were sympathetic but just couldn't give him a lump sum. The best they could do was issue him $50,000 annual installments for 20 years.

Schenk, 51, only survived for a little more than one year. He died on April 23 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse. At the time of his death, he had received just $34,000.

So money isn't everything. But could it have been?

Back in the news: the link between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer. This time, the connection is seemingly more conclusive than before, when some argued that many factors influence the risk of breast cancer, that HRT could not do the job all on its own.

Now, two separate studies offer up powerful evidence that HRT is linked to tumor growth. Case in point: when use of the therapy drops, so do incidences of breast cancer.

New figures in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest there have been 16,000 fewer cases of breast cancer nationwide since mid-2002, when women stopped taking their hormone pills following the federal Women's Health Initiative announcement connecting the therapy with increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attack.

Many did not want to believe HRT was to blame for so many breast cancer diagnoses. And maybe it's not the actual cause of the disease, but the fuel for tumors trying to grow.

These new findings do not appear to be a statistical fluke, says one doctor. Numbers have been computed and re-computed, and the message is clear: HRT is strongly implicated as the guilty party. There is just no other culprit, says a statistician at the National Cancer Institute.

Wyeth, maker of Premarin and Prempro -- two forms of hormone therapy -- continues to caution women against drawing any conclusions about HRT and breast cancer. There still may be broader explanation for the decline in cases, say their spokespeople.

If you've ever visited the website My Breast Cancer Network, part of the Health Central conglomerate of health and medical information, you know the appeal of this site is its insightful navigation menu, comprised of three helpful locators -- Find, Manage, and Connect.

With a click on the Find button, you can search answers to questions, check symptoms, and locate resources. Choose Manage and you can take action, achieve goals, and resolve problems. If you wish to get advice, find support, and share your experiences, take a simple tour through the Connect community.

My Breast Cancer Network currently invites all viewers to connect with one another through a new feature: Show Us Your Chemo Style. You can simply visit this portion of the site and view photos submitted by others. Or you can submit a photo and caption of yourself, a friend, a family member. My Breast Cancer Network says it like this:

What does it mean to be confident during and after chemotherapy? Are you proud to be bald and beautiful? Does a wig, scarf or hat make sense for you and your style? We'd also love to see your new hair, as it grows back in. Share your favorite photos!

I did it -- go take a look -- and you can too.

You may not have known it but actor Sean Connery has been fearing cancer for the past two decades.

The Scottish Connery, 76, has been seeing doctors for 20 years so growths in his throat could be monitored. Fearing the worst -- cancer -- Connery wanted to stay on top of things.

Results from a recent medical appointment reveal Connery has been given the all-clear, according to his brother Neil who is also plagued by throat polyps.

Some were concerned about Connery's absence from a New York Tartan Week charity show he was scheduled to host two weeks ago. Apparently, there was nothing to worry about. He was just just getting his check-up, and he later assured fans he is in good health.

"It is something which needs to be followed through," says his brother. "You have to have yearly checks and that is why Sean went to the hospital, just to make sure everything was all right."

Connery's father died of throat cancer at age 69. Connery himself was rushed home from filming in Africa in 1993 due to throat problems. He later received radiotherapy treatment.

Daily consumption of red meat increases the risk of breast cancer. Daily consumption of red meat doesn't increase the risk of breast cancer. Ahhh. Which one is it?

In a previous post, I cited research that supported the increased risk. And now I've come across something new.

Think about this:

A nutritionist from New Zealand is disputing research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, claiming that women who ate more than100g of meat each day had the highest risk of developing breast cancer.