Jack Nicholson has been serving up a steady stream of cheer for cancer patients at the Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles hospital.

The Hollywood icon and Oscar winner has been visiting terminal patients and cheering them up with jokes, card games, and behind-the-scenes stories about his career.

Nicholson's next career move comes in the form of a movie called The Bucket List. He plays a dying man in the film and began spending time at the hospital to research his role. But once his film finished, Nicholson kept visiting. He was that touched and moved by the patients.

Hospital staff say the actor's visits do wonders for the patient spirits. The only down side is for Nicholson who finds it hard to leave, knowing he may have seen some of his new friends for the last time.

Beverly called Dr. Jeremy Geffen in a state of panic. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes, just had her breasts removed, and was terrified of her recent diagnosis -- high grade infiltrating ductal carcinoma.

Beverly, age 44, was told by her doctor that she would need chemotherapy and radiation. She had heard horrible stories about chemotherapy. And having never been sick a day in her life, she was scared. So when a friend told her about a caring doctor she heard speak at a conference, Beverly knew she had to locate him. She tracked down his phone number, picked up the phone, dialed, got Dr. Geffen on the phone, and asked him to help. He did.

Beverly was a complete stranger to Dr. Geffen, author of The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transforming the Whole Person. Yet she was like so many people he knew -- people with cancer, confronted with the greatest challenges of their lives, seeking more than just physical remedies, grasping for someone who really cares.

Dr. Geffen received calls like Beverly's every day. And the number of calls seemed to increase with time. It's no wonder really. Cancer is a growing presence -- and more and more people like Beverly are confronting the disease. More and more people like Beverly are seeking more than just science to cure their ailments. And in an effort to harness a little compassion in their lives, patients are reaching for alternative methods of healing -- for their minds and hearts and spirits. Yet few disclose to their doctors their secret missions for fear they will be dismissed.

Beverly knew of Dr. Geffen's belief in holistic healing, his desire to treat the whole person and not just the organs and tissues and cells. So when she asked for his guidance on what treatment protocol to follow -- conventional, alternative, or complementary -- she was a bit surprised at his response.

Dr. Geffen told Beverly that conventional medicine was her best line of defense. Science tells us these methods work -- and abandoning them could be tragic. Dr. Geffen told Beverly that chemotherapy and radiation, when used skillfully and sensibly, can be truly beneficial. But he also suggested she pursue complementary therapies related to diet, nutrition, exercise, and stress relief.

Dr. Geffen believes in balance. And he teaches through his Seven Levels of Healing how we all can achieve balance when considering how to scientifically and emotionally heal our bodies.

Dr. Geffen will detail throughout the chapters of his book how Beverly represents all the strengths and vulnerabilities of the contemporary cancer patient, how Beverly is every one of us.

To read previous posts on the same topic, visit:
The Journey Through Cancer: What Is The Purpose Of Medicine
The Journey Through Cancer: Introduction
Sunday Seven: Seven Levels of Healing on Cancer Journey

Stay tuned for:
The Journey Through Cancer: State-Of-The-Art Medical Care

I'm headed for a Saturday morning workout with my fitness trainer. For one hour, I will physically challenge my body and emotionally charge my spirits. I will sweat and pant and if I am required to do the inner thigh exercise, I will scream. I will also whine -- it's in my nature -- and I will push, pull, bounce, balance, lift, squat, lunge, and run until it's quitting time. I will fall short on some of my exercise expectations. And I will surprise myself and exceed others. In the end, I will feel accomplished, strong, motivated, and ready to tackle the day.

I'm making a comeback. I have come back from the depths of cancer and all of its accompanying treatment, and I have invited this powerhouse of a girl to transform me. She has accepted the challenge -- and she has helped me evolve from a weak, shaky, dizzy cancer patient to a semi-strong, 5K-running breast cancer survivor with biceps that are almost visible at a close distance.

This spunky fitness girl -- also an accomplished kick boxer, wife, and mom of two little ones -- has accepted another one of my challenges. I asked her to share some of her health and fitness expertise so that we all may reap the benefits. And so she kindly extracted some important tidbits from her vast library of knowledge and concisely crafted the responses that follow.

Take it from Fitz Koehler -- exercise and healthy eating habits are key for survival. For all of us. Cancer survivors included.

Why is fitness important for everyone?

100% of the population needs to exercise in some way. For the most part, if you're not working to get stronger, you're going to get weaker. Whether it's tummy time as an infant, gym class as a kid, weight training as an adult, or short walks as a senior, in order to live well and live long, we must eat well and exercise. Plus, a fit lifestyle prevents so many horrible ailments and diseases -- heart disease, some cancers, diabetes, GERD. Who wants any of that?

I took my boys yesterday for a tour of the University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology. Translation for these little boys -- ages five and three -- involves one simple word. Bugs. They love bugs, hunt for bugs, capture bugs, and reluctantly set them free because I coax them into allowing these itty bitty creatures to continue living with their "mommies and daddies." I have a soft spot for all living beings -- bugs included.

We learned some crazy facts about bugs yesterday -- insects is the proper term really. We learned there is one cockroach that can live for seven days without its head. We learned there are two types of Madagascar cockroaches living in a lab in the very same building we visited that if set free, would reproduce so quickly they would become a major pest problem in the state of Florida. And we learned that of all animals on this planet, most are insects. But not only did we learn some crazy facts, we -- well, Joey -- shared a crazy fact too.

Joey is five years old. He is the boy who remembers much of my breast cancer journey. He is the one who helped shave my head, the one who thought a banana would make my sick tummy feel better. He's the one who would blurt out to people we never knew very well, "My mommy is bald," the one who asked me just last night if the metal thing -- my port -- was still in my chest. When I told him it's gone, he jumped up and announced, "Yeah, it's gone!" Cancer is one of many vocabulary words housed in Joey's brain. And sometimes the word comes up unexpectedly, in strange contexts, in surprising ways. Like today.

Our bug tour guide told us that in Africa, mosquitoes transmit diseases that kill millions of people. But those with sickle cell anemia are immune to the deadly diseases due to their compromised red blood cells that somehow fend off disease. This fact prompted Joey to share with the guide, "Did you know when people have cancer, there are bugs that can kill the cancer?" Our guide listened to this crazy fact and said in a kid-friendly way, "No, I did not know that. Who told you that?" Joey told her, "I don't remember but someone told me."

I am not sure what prompted Joey to make this announcement. Perhaps he was trying to one-up the tour guide, to sound like an expert on one of his favorite subjects. Perhaps his imagination was in overdrive and he blurted out the best story he could offer. Perhaps he jumbled up a story he had heard on the topic of cancer. And perhaps he is just simply hopeful that one day, bugs will help cure cancer. And wouldn't that be nice -- a simple mosquito comes along, pierces the skin, and poof, cancer is gone.

My cancer journey would not be nearly as interesting, as enlightening, as tender if Joey was not along with me for the ride. He keeps me busy and keeps my spirits up. He keeps me grounded and keeps life simple. Best of all -- he keeps me laughing.

Grammy award winning country musician Freddy Fender died Saturday, just days after he had returned home from the hospital, seriously ill from treatment for lung cancer and a blood infection.

Fender's wife, Vangie Huerta, announced in August that her husband, at the age of 69, was suffering from inoperable cancer and that he was hoping for a miracle. But his cancer spread, and his health declined. Yet his spirits remained high -- and he recently told one newspaper reporter, "I'm one year away from 70 and I've had a good run."

Fender's career began when he returned from service in the Marine Corps in the late 1950s and created his stage name from a brand of guitar -- Fender. Success did not arrive for some time -- and not until after Fender experimented with a rock-country-Latin sound, served time for marijuana possession, and worked for a period of time as a mechanic did fame hit.

Born Baldemar Huerta in 1937, Fender is know for his hits Before the Next Teardrop Falls, Wasted Days and Wasted Nights and You'll Lose a Good Thing. In 1999, Fender received his own Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and he won his third and last Grammy in 2002.

Despite fame, Fender lived a hard life. He spoke openly about his battles with drug and alcohol abuse. He struggled with diabetes and Hepatitis C. And he received a kidney transplant in 2002 and a liver transplant in 2004.

Fender, who passed away at his Corpus Christi home surrounded by family, is survived by his wife and four children.

Suzanne Pleshette's agent reported on Friday that the actress is currently undergoing treatment for lung cancer. The cancer was discovered during a routine X-ray and was no bigger than a grain of sand. Pleshette apparently feels very lucky and is in great spirits as she receives outpatient chemotherapy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center -- where the cancer was diagnosed.

It may be possible to learn happiness -- like we might learn to cook or learn to dance -- by merely taking a class. Some refute this idea and believe you can't actually pursue happiness. You either have it or you don't. But some psychologists are embracing a whole new approach to psychology -- they call it positive psychology -- and they say it focuses on training the mind to focus on the past as very positive. It's completely different from traditional psychology where time is spent trying to determine why someone is so horribly sad. This movement, invented by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman in 1998 when he was president of the American Psychological Association, provides a scientific validated set of exercises -- known as interventions -- that lead happiness seekers to their ultimate destination.

Recently, International Agency for Research on Cancer researchers concluded a study which stated that 3.6 percent of all cancer cases worldwide are related to alcohol drinking. Today, the Centre of Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University published a report that alcoholism and binge drinking in the northern Britain cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Liverpool and Durham will shorten the lives of men and women who live there and create years of health-related illnesses.

The blame for the drinking problems focuses on the government's allowance of 24-hour drinking, inexpensive booze, a night-time economy of bars and clubs and a failure to educate the public on the dangers of excessive drinking, binge drinking and alcoholism. This report, along with political conservatives, are making a public statement against what they call irresponsible actions on the part of the British government that would create an environment that promotes excess drinking, binge drinking and alcoholism.

The report indicated almost three in ten people admit binge drinking. According to director of the Centre for Public Health Professor Mark Bellis, "We hope that making these statistics widely available will highlight that we are no longer a nation enjoying a harmless tipple but increasingly one developing a dangerous alcohol addiction."

My breast cancer friend Adriene -- who I wrote about on May 19 -- e-mailed me today about a friend of a friend who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. This friend -- Jen -- is 31 years old and just yesterday had a lumpectomy. Adriene asked if I could be in touch with Jen since, like her, I am young and I am a breast cancer survivor and I had a lumpectomy. So far, we are somewhat alike. And depending on the results of Jen's pathology report, we may be even more alike -- if she follows a path anything like mine that included chemotherapy and radiation therapy and Herceptin therapy -- or our paths might diverge from one another. Regardless, I feel a connection to this woman, much like I do with anyone with cancer whose path I cross, anyone who is sent my way, anyone who finds me for the sole purpose of support.

So I told Adriene in my return e-mail, "Yes, I will contact Jen." And I have already sent her an e-mail. And I hope when she reads it that she finds a trace of comfort, a hint of encouragement, a glimpse of hope that can somehow transform scared souls into confident spirits. I hope that she emerges from under the rock of breast cancer. Like I did. Like Adriene did.

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 wrote earlier today about my mom -- about how she was headed for a mammogram this afternoon. She has since been for her exam, returned, and shared the news that we all wish for -- everything looks fine. Nothing suspicious. No cancer. And so that is my gift for today.

I have received many gifts as a result of cancer -- the news of a clean and clear mammogram is just one such gift. There are many emotional gifts I've received since my breast cancer diagnosis a year and a half ago -- extra love, overwhelming support, loads of kindness, an abundance of prayers, recent compliments about my new dark, curly hair. And I've received many tangible gifts too that comfort me every day. When I walk into my kitchen, I see an angel made from a paper clip, a bead, and a ribbon -- it was a gift from my Chemo Angel once I graduated from my eight-week course in chemotherapy. When I walk into my bedroom, I see the quilt on my bed that was made by the loving hands of my mom friends and then delivered to my doorstep when I was sick, tired, and bald. I see a pink stuffed breast cancer bear sitting on my dresser and yellow, fuzzy, comfy socks inside my dresser drawer. I see a box of cards and letters and books and relaxation tapes -- and so much more -- that sits in another room. I wear a breast cancer charm bracelet that dangles from one arm and another that jingles from my other arm and a backpack that hangs from my back. I am surrounded by gifts that were priceless when they were given to me and are just as priceless today.

These gifts that adorn my personal space lift my spirits, warm my soul, inspire me. They are constant reminders of where I've been and how far I've come. My gifts -- good news from a mammogram, emotional rewards, and actual tokens of the love and support that surround me -- have become a therapy I never looked for, never knew I'd discover, and never would trade for anything.

During my chemotherapy for breast cancer, I received the drug Adriamycin. Adriamycin is toxic and harsh and so powerful that when it makes contact with the skin it can cause a severe burn. How this drug cycled through my body without singeing my veins, I am not sure. Somehow, I survived it and can think back on this drug that is often called The Red Dragon.  It is wicked and fierce and unkind -- yet lifesaving as well.

The word dragon conjures up various images for me. I can clearly visualize the red liquid that dripped into my body many months ago with the purpose of attacking cancer cells. I also picture toy action figures that often cover my living room floor -- my five-year-old has a current love for dragons, and we have all shapes and sizes at our house. And lately, when I think of dragons, I see women in boats -- powerful women practicing the ancient sport of dragon boating.

I know women who participate in this sport through Team Survivor -- a group that provides free opportunities for physical fitness for women with cancer. And I just learned about Hope Afloat, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania's first breast cancer survivor dragon boat racing team.  With a mission of challenging their limits and not limiting their challenges, these women strive to awaken the dragon within through hope, support, and adventure.  This floating support group has been in existence since 2001 and welcomes all women with a history of breast cancer. Weekly practice, monthly meetings, and racing keeps these women in good shape and in good spirits. Go team!