How I Swam the English Channel -- 4 Months After Breast Cancer Surgery

Friday, October 12, 2012 How I Swam the English Channel -- 4 Months After Breast Cancer Surgery I stood on the swim platform at the stern of the Sea Satin, a 36-foot Dutch Steel ocean cruiser, shivering, teeth chattering with the frigid 60° F water of the English Channel lapping over my feet and ankles. I was wearing only my navy blue speedo swim suit, white silicone cap and green tinted goggles. There was a red blinking light clipped to my goggle straps and a green glowing light stick double-safety pinned to the back straps of my suit. It was dark -- just past 10:30 p.m. I stared down into the black choppy waters, willing myself to jump in. Exactly four months earlier, on March 27, 2012, I underwent a lumpectomy in my left breast. My breast surgeon at the University of Michigan, Dr. Lisa Newman, removed a 2.2 centimeter mass and five lymph nodes. I was 44 years old and one day. LOOK: Women React To The VP Debate New HPV Vaccine May Have Huge Benefits For Women Petition Launched Against 'Skinny Minnie' The Best Tweets From Women This Week The Online Dating You Should Be Doing BLOG POSTS Agapi Stassinopoulos: A Wave of Happiness When surfing, you often wait for the wave to come, and then you ride it. In our lives, the wonderful thing is that we can make that wave happen by engaging in what brings that about for us, making a habit of it by practicing riding our wave more often. Marlo Thomas: Women and the 2012 Vote: It's Our Year! The economy may be sagging, the unemployment rate may be dispiriting, and the presidential candidates may be at each other's throats, but here's the good news: Women can decide the fate of the nation. Mehmet Oz, M.D.: The HPV and Cancer Stats You Can't Afford to Ignore The scary truth is that many women don't know they have HPV. You may believe you aren't at risk anymore if you're married or in a monogamous relationship. This simply isn't true. Elizabethe C. Payne: What Young Girls Don't Need to Hear For girls, "slut" and its derivatives are among the most common and most feared of possible pejoratives hurled in the high-school social arena, equivalent in regulatory power to the "fag" label for boys. Both "slut" and "fag" tell young people that they are doing their gender "wrong." Greg Hodge: The Ugly Truth of Online Dating: Top 10 Lies Told by Internet Daters Running an exclusive online dating site myself, I can attest to the constant battle in working to maintain the integrity of online dating communities by weeding out disingenuous profiles -- yes, surprise surprise! Online daters lie.

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