The Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation's mission is to grant wishes, including memory-making events, for metastatic breast cancer patients, while continuing to support, educate and increase resource awareness.

One of the Making Memories fundraisers is Brides Against Breast Cancer. It can give brides-to-be, an opportunity to find the wedding gown of their dreams (at an incredible savings) while making wishes and dreams come true. Click here if you wish to donate your gown.

The Drexelbrook Wedding and Banquet Facility is hosting Nationwide Tour of Gowns on October 10th and 11th. If you live near Drexel Hill, PA you can attend this event and browse over 40 racks of exquisite, named brand and designer wedding gowns costing from $89 to $799.

Event Details:

Drexelbrook Wedding & Banquet Facility. Drexelbrook Drive & Valley road

Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Wednesday, October 10th, 10am - 8pm

Thursday, October 11th, 10am - 8pm

Contact: mminfo@makingmemories.org

A poodle named Lucy refuses to leave her owners side and has become very popular with the nurses and visitors. The patient Maggie Bellamy is staying at the hospice while she is undergoing cancer treatments.

Lucy likes to snuggle up on the rug near Maggie's bed and goes for short walks around the grounds. Ms. Bellamy said "I thought it was incredible when I was told that Lucy could come and stay with me in the hospice. She frets over me, but is very well behaved and everyone fell in love with her. She is good therapy for other patients too."

Lucy is the only dog you will see at this hospice. Dogs belonging to Pets as Therapy also pop in with their owners to visit patients.

Fraser Meek, manager of the hospice in-patient unit, said "We are happy to welcome a patient's pet to be bought along either for a visit, or to stay in the room where possible. Visits from gentle pets help the patients relax and add to the homely atmosphere of the hospice".

What a nice story!

Few would disagree that the health care system in this country is breaking down. If you are one of the 45 million without health insurance you already know how difficult it is to get health care, and if you have medical insurance you continue to watch as your insurance premiums and deductibles go up year after year. Medicine has become more about money and less about patient care. We are told we spend more because we have the best health care system in the world.

But as Maggie Mahar points out in her new book, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much, "We spend twice as much as Japan on health care -- yet few would argue that our health care system is twice as good." Mahar, a seasoned financial journalist, takes an in depth look at what she calls America's complicated and increasingly dysfunctional health care system, and what she finds is disturbing. Frankly, from a patient's perspective, it's reprehensible.

Doctors aren't allowed to function as doctors in putting a patient's needs first -- no -- medicine is business and corporations decide on a patient's treatment. To put it bluntly, medicine is a market-driven $2 trillion industry rife with competition. To cite just one example of what is taking place, and to illustrate how medicine truly sees itself  -- Milwaukee hospitals spent more in one year on advertising than fast food business did. Reviewers are calling Mahar's book a thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned study. I call it gutsy because she takes no prisoners and she isn't keeping any secrets. Until the day comes when doctors are allowed to practice medicine once again, with the priority on the patient and not corporate profit, the wheels on this buggy are going to keep falling off one by one until the axle completely splits in two. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the system works and what motivates the players. The patients aren't even in the game. And that is what is truly appalling.