Most young teenagers spend their days thinking about boyfriends and girlfriends.  Some teenagers, however, spend their days thinking about life and death.

For children whose parents have cancer, sorting out emotions can be difficult.  One teen took matters into his own hands after his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Jon Wagner Holtz, then 13, founded what started out as a hotline for children of cancer patients and has evolved into Kids Konnected: a support group for children and teens coping with the reality of cancer.

Based in Orange County, Kids Konnected meets twice monthly in an area hospital.  The group, however, sponsors over 20 other organizations that have helped 10,000 children in eight states.  "The idea is for them not to feel alone," says Lynette Wilhardt, a licensed clinical social worker who directs the Orange County program.

Kids Konnected serves children as young as four, but also has a separate group for teens.  This group has compiled a book that they are selling online.  The book started when Wilhardt encouraged the teens to write; sometimes documenting emotions in confidence is easier than discussing them.  The idea took off and after sharing their writing, the group found a donor to sponsor publication of their work.  The result is "Love Sick," a 50-page compilation of poems, stories, essays and art.

Sarah Selski, whose father died of pancreatic cancer when she was 16, describes the moments after a fateful call from his doctor that his passing was imminent.  "We headed to the hospital as fast as we could . . . " she relates. "I was scared, and I knew deep down I had to tell him the one thing I did not want to say. I sat in the hospital room, holding my dad's hand and told him that I loved him forever and that I would be OK if he was ready to die."

Profits from the book will help support the group's work.  It is available for $15.95 at KidsKonnected.org.  To read more about what the group does, click here.

It was announced today that in a monumental move, ABC, CBS, and NBC will collaborate to air a telethon on September 5 featuring a collection of celebrities.  The hour-long special is a fundraiser for cancer research and has been termed "Stand Up to Cancer."

The telethon will include musical performances and appearances from actors, athletes, and journalists.  Viewers will be invited to donate by calling the celebrity-staffed phone bank or by texting.  This sort of collaborative event is rare but not unprecedented.  In recent years, similar fundraisers have been hosted for victims of Hurricane Katrina and September 11th.

Stand Up to Cancer will feature such celebrities as Meryl Streep, Lance Armstrong, Forest Whitaker, Charlize Theron, Hilary Swank, America Ferrera, Danica Patrick, Salma Hayek, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Masi Oka and news anchors Charles Gibson, Brian Williams and Katie Couric.  The list is expected to grow as the event nears.

FOX was invited to join the telethon, but declined so as to focus on their own global outreach project, "Idol Gives Back," centered around American Idol stars.  FOX will promote Stand Up to Cancer by airing public service announcements for the event.

According to the Associated Press, "The telethon is part of a broader initiative aimed at raising money to quicken the pace of research leading to development of new treatments.  The effort is to be administered by the American Association for Cancer Research under the direction of a committee led by Phillip A. Sharp of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT."

A Colorado woman suffering from mesothelioma is seeking compensation for her physical pain and mental anguish.

Joann Dennett worked for 50 years in various positions she believes caused the mesothelioma by exposing her to loose asbestos fibers.  In the suit, she names 73 corporations whose products or environments contained the dangerous carginogen.

Dennett's attorneys claim that the employers failed to warn employees about the risks of asbestos and continued to use the material even when substitutes were available.  The companies also neglected to inform workers of proper handling and hygiene techniques pertaining to asbestos.  Moreover, Dennett has tried but has been unable to locate documents regarding asbestos-use among her former employers.  She suspects these documents were destroyed and has noted this as an impairment to her case.

Because of her illness, Dennett can no longer work.  She is seeking compensation for lost income and medical expenses.  Some of the defendants include Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, General Motors, Goodyear, Honeywell International, Ingersoll-Rand, International Paper, MetLife, Monsanto, and Pfizer.

After a year of chest pain, Anita Steiner was ultimately diagnosed with mesothelioma. She had surgery to remove some of the cancer from her right lung, and doctors gave her only 12 months to live. Although the news was devastating, Steiner was determined to stay positive and was put on a course of palliative chemotherapy to delay the aggressive disease. The positive attitude paid off when doctors told her she was cleared of cancer.

As Steiner celebrated the great news, she suddenly got another scare. "I was trying to unpack boxes in our new house and I just kept throwing up," she recalls. "I thought I might have come out of remission - it was an awful feeling.” Steiner’s blood test came back positive but not for mesothelioma. She was in fact pregnant, something her and her husband had been trying to do with in vitro fertilization before she got sick.  "This is one miracle, meets a second, meets a third, really," says her oncologist, Ian Haines. "The pregnancy part of this is quite extraordinary, let alone it following chemotherapy for mesothelioma, which put her into remission."

At five months pregnant, Steiner is aware of the risk that her cancer will return. She refuses to think about the negatives but does get tested regularly to be safe.” I don't think it helps to dwell,” she said. “Until I get the results of these tests, I feel stressed, but most of the time I just think about the future and having a child. I want to be with that child as he or she grows up." In addition to preparing for the birth of her child, Steiner is devoting her time to warning others about the dangers associated with asbestos.

For Full Article, Click Here.

Along with aiming to reform the child support maintenance system, The United Kingdom’s Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill contains provisions to extend compensation to all people suffering from mesothelioma. The bill provides a way to make lump sum payments to all people suffering from mesothelioma, regardless of how they were exposed to it, within six weeks of them making a claim. People who cannot currently claim would include secondary victims of asbestos, such as spouses and children who were exposed to asbestos through clothing.

The bill is believed to be enacted in October 2008 and will front financial support to those who are unfortunate enough to develop mesothelioma but would not be eligible for payment currently under the 1979 Pneumoconiosis (Workers Compensation) Act or for Industrial Injuries Disablement.

To View the Bill in its entirety, Click Here