I am Melanie Bone, a physician, a cancer survivor, a mother and a wife, and your friend. My website is your cancer community. Find information and support here; read my weekly column, Surviving Life, which addresses all sorts of cancer-related topics. Search my Q and A devoted to questions about cancer - big and small, common and less common and use this opportunity to submit your own private questions. Read my blog and reader testimonials - even find the perfect gift to give a cancer patient!

By 2040, half the population may be diagnosed with some type of cancer so we will all be touched directly or indirectly by cancer. When I had Stage lll breast cancer in 2000, I was surrounded by help - excellent doctors, wonderfully supportive friends, and my precious children and family. Still, I lay awake at night, scared of what was to come. I knew that nobody could have the surgery for me; nobody could take the chemotherapy or radiation on my behalf. I think I was more afraid because I knew so much about cancer. Alive five years later, I realize that I’d spent too much time being afraid so, instead, I used my fear to inspire me.

Now, I devote my life to ending the fear of cancer. Why? Cancer is not that different from other illnesses such as heart disease. In fact, more of us will die of a heart attack than of cancer, yet we are less afraid of being told we have heart disease.

Let’s put cancer in its place: it may be right in front of you, it might be walking next to you for your entire life, or on a shelf in the attic. C-A-N-C-E-R.... a word that turns lives upside down every minute of every day. Don’t face this alone - join our cancer community