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"When I dream, I have hair. And I can run again. In my dreams last night I played an entire soccer game without a break. But when I woke up, my weak legs stumbled as I caught a glimpse of my bald head in the mirror. Damn, I thought. I still have cancer. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like your dreams have become your real life and your real life has become a nightmare,&amp;quot; my husband, Pete, observed as he was driving me home from chemotherapy one afternoon. That&amp;#039;s profound for a man whose default TV channel is The Food Network.  Mine used to be CNN, but ever since I found out I have non Hodgkin&amp;#039;s lymphoma \u2013 a disease that&amp;#039;s most common in people 20 years older than I am \u2013 I&amp;#039;ve switched to E! Entertainment Television. It seems that when you&amp;#039;re forced to face your mortality at the tender age of 40, you can be amused, if not comforted, by the fact that Lindsay Lohan can&amp;#039;t stay out of trouble. Where I used to watch Wolf Blitzer&amp;#039;s expos\u00E9s on the Iraq War, now I&amp;#039;m more likely to tune into Ryan Seacrest&amp;#039;s top story, which, this week, was Justin Timberlake&amp;#039;s introduction of his new girlfriend to the public. Riveting. Months ago, I wound down at the end of the day watching Glen Beck rant about illegal aliens. Now, I&amp;#039;d much rather watch Billy Bush in his global hunt for the whereabouts of Britney Spears. (Latest sighting: driving her Mercedes in Hollywood traffic for two hours.) Exciting. I&amp;#039;m not alone in my newfound fascination for celebrity gossip. When I was in the hospital for several five-day chemo infusions this summer, we oncology patients passed around celebrity magazines like front-line soldiers sharing newspapers from home. We quickly switched off the local news (too depressing) in favor of Access Hollywood (abnormally captivating). Hearing about Paris Hilton&amp;#039;s despair caused by spending all of 23 days in jail assured me that the world has indeed been turned upside-down, which is exactly how it felt when I got my diagnosis. I spent more time in the hospital \u2013 with tubes pumping chemicals into my body \u2013 than the heiress spent behind bars. Boo hoo, Paris. Boo hoo. Yet watching celebrity news when you have cancer is a bit like watching the clown fish play while you&amp;#039;re dunked in the shark tank across the hall at the aquarium. It&amp;#039;s a nice little distraction from your nightmare, and I need it. I hope that when I dream tonight, I get to play soccer with David Beckham. At the end of the game, I&amp;#039;ll shake the sweat out of my hair. Then when I wake up, I&amp;#039;ll cover up my bald head and see what&amp;#039;s new with Beckham and his pop star wife on E! News&amp;#039; hot gossip. It&amp;#039;s the only way I can make sense out of this nightmare. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2040/good-grief-090407/>