“So have I been a good patient?” I asked of my husband Dave.

“Yeah, this time,” he replied.

“This time? What does that mean?”

“Well, you were knocked out during and then you slept most of the time afterward.”

Gee. Thanks. Here I was thinking Divas make pretty good patients. After all, when we finally do take care of ourselves, we still have to take care of everyone else first.

To get ready for my tooth extraction, I cleaned the house. Made sure the refrigerator was stocked. Got my prescriptions filled. Went over the post-op instructions with Dave and then left them by my chair in plain view. All the things I’d do if I were caring for someone else.

So, thankyouverymuch, I think I was a pretty good patient.

What about you, fellow Diva? When was the last time you were a patient? Did you take care of everyone else first?

Now tell me this doesn’t sound like a really doable way to get your summer fitness program going: Sign up for the Stepathon, sponsored by the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, and start working up to taking 10,000 steps a day — that’s five miles, all in. How to get started? Head to Laurelwood Shopping Center tomorrow morning between 8 and 9:30 to sign up at a discounted $15 (you can sign up online for $20, under 18 steppers for less), and snag a t-shirt, goodie bag and — key to a walking workout routine — a pedometer.

I’ve been a walker for a while now, but I’ve never used a pedometer, and don’t really know how hard it’s going to be to get to 10,000 steps a day. …
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I got this note yesterday from Molly, and she’s zeroed in on just the thing I’ve been thinking about this week, as the weather gets warm and the summer shorts, sundresses and — ack! — swimsuits come out of hiding. Does any woman love her abs? What have you seen actually work to make them look like this picture? (Yeah, I know this model’s probably 18, but still …)

From Molly: I am 45, healthy, and in good shape. I am nutritionally conscious, go to the gym three times a week and am OK with a few extra pounds. But how do you get a flat stomach? I mean really. Do your readers have any personal experience of anything that works short of Boot Camp? Is it all exercise or is there anything nutritional that makes a difference? I’d love to hear from real women about this. (But in the meantime I’m going to start doing sit ups while watching TV… Thanks and have a great day!

You say you’ve been putting off getting a mammogram because it just takes too long? Or it hurts too much? Meet Ellen Stucker, Survivor Chair of the local Race for the Cure, and a 17-year breast cancer survivor (that’s Ellen in the red shirt in the photo, laughing at a recent Flying Colors cancer support group meeting). She wrote this essay “in honor of my mother and her courage: Alma Wilson Holroyd, 1/27/23-7/2/95.” Yes, Ellen’s mother died of breast cancer. Read on, and let Ellen change your mind …

It happened to me again this week. I was sitting in the waiting room of Baptist Hospital, overlooking the fountain in the tranquility garden and dreading the upcoming tests.

Soon I heard the old refrain: “I’ve been here two hours already, and I still haven’ had my ultrasound.” Answered by …
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In all of the discussion about Elizabeth Edwards’s breast cancer recurrence, I kept waiting to hear what women who’d faced a metastasis of their original cancer, just like Elizabeth, had to say, what they thought of the choices she’s made.

And waited, and waited.

So today my column contains the thoughts of those women, many of whom have faced disease much more advanced than Elizabeth’s. Luane Semos’s story really touched me (that’s Luane on the left in the picture). She had been undergoing fertility treatments when, at 34, she had her first diagnosis …
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