Diem Brown Shares How Her Chemo-Brain Sends Her to Dumb-Dumbville

In her PEOPLE.com blog, Diem Brown, the Real World/Road Rules Challenge contestant recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer for the second time, opens up about her desire for a child and the ups and downs of cancer and fertility procedures.

I have always been a list girl: Things I need to accomplish by a certain age; places I want to visit within five years; must-haves for my fall wardrobe. I actually have lists of my lists! 

I have always believed that by writing your hopes, dreams and your daily errands down, the lists become achievable. I guess it's that whole The Secret thang Oprah talked about, but basically for me, lists equal getting things done and moving forward.

At this moment in my life, I HAVE to make lists just to keep my head on straight! Any patient will tell you: Just because you're ill, the world doesn't slow down. If anything your world becomes more cluttered and overwhelming.

Admittedly I have slacked on certain areas in my life, like getting back to people in a timely manor, daily errands, bills – even my work has taken a hit. But making a list helps me map out how to get back on track.

I mentioned feeling overwhelmed and having to make a list to keep your head on straight, well this is why …
 

You have heard of "pregnancy brain"? Well, I imagine "chemo brain" works the same way. I feel like my head is so clouded that seemingly simple tasks take SO much effort to accomplish.
 

Returning an item to a store but leaving your receipt at home. Frantically searching for your keys only to find them right in front of your face . Walking out the front door, forgetting the keys you just found and locking yourself out.

Oh, and my favorite: missing your flight home for Thanksgiving because you told the cab diver the wrong airport (JFK not LGA) so you book a last-minute train home to D.C. Then, when your train arrives at your destination, you leave your purse on the train!
 

Yep that pretty much sums up my Thanksgiving travel day from hell. I had chemo on the Monday before Thanksgiving so traveling on Wednesday felt like my world was crashing over me. The train from N.Y.C. to Washington D.C. was completely FULL, yet I looked so green in the face no one sat next to me. I had to laugh a lil inside because I don't think I would have sat next to me either ... I looked like a ticking time bomb!
 

When the train arrived in D.C. I gathered my items and headed outside, thankful to see a street vender selling watermelon (my go-to post chemo food). I reached for my wallet and BOOM! You know that moment when you realized you've misplaced something? Your mind instantly paints the picture of exactly where the item is.

Mentally retracing my steps leaving the train, I remembered grabbing my jacket, getting my suitcase down from over head, packing up my Tina Fey Bossy Pants book and errr ... the seat back pocket! DAMN! How did I forget to check the seat back pocket?!

A vivid image of my sad lonely purse on an empty train makes my mind race of what's inside my purse. My ID, my credit cards, my apartment keys, checks I haven't cashed and MY MEDS.

Damn damn damn … now you start making a NEW list while realizing how much money and time your absent mind will cost you. Okay, I have to cancel my credit cards, see if I can remember who the checks in my wallet were from and ask them to stop payment, get my sister's apartment key to make a copy, try to find a doctor that's working on Thanksgiving to write me a new prescription, oh, and my ID! I also have to make a DMV appointment. Great, just great.
 

The floodgates have opened and tears start trailing down your face. Stressed out, overwhelmed and soooo annoyed that your mind isn't working as it should. This, my friends, is an example of chemo brain!
 

I called my sister crying, asking her to pick me up as I had no cash or credit cards for a cab home to my dad's house in Virginia. I was being overly emotional over a lost purse so my sister tried to talk me down saying each of the items are replaceable and that it was so clear to her my emotions were from my recent chemo treatment.
 

I have had so many of these "chemo brain" moments they really do start to make you feel crazy! Like there is a tiny mischievous elf inside your head playing hide and seek with things you should remember. No one really talks about "chemo brain" but it is soooo real. Now I have so much compassion for women dealing with pregnancy brain!
 

My sister keeps telling me to not be so hard on myself, that chemo is powerful and I'm more or less doped up 24/7. I hear my sisters words and realize my only way to fight this mischievous lil "chemo brain"-inducing self is to take a deep breath and continue making my lists!
 

This Week's List  

1. Don't be so hard on yourself for chemo brain, Dopey, and make that N.Y.C. DMV appointment! 

Ahhh, much better. If any of you have any chemo brain, pregnancy brain or just plain dodo brain stories I'd love to hear them. I think sharing our crazy moments makes us all feel way better and a heck of a lot less crazy! :)

Check back for updates every Thursday: Diem will be chronicling exclusively for PEOPLE.com her journey through fertility treatments, chemotherapy and her quest to educate others about ovarian health. You can also follow her on Twitter @DiemBrown.

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Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

DEAR ABBY: My wife and I have been married for five years. I recently discovered that she made between 10 and 20 porn videos when she was 19. We got married when she was 27. We have four kids from two previous marriages.I am devastated. When I confronted her about it, she cried harder than I had ever seen. She said she was lost, and it's the biggest regret of her entire life.I understand how hard it can be to tell someone you have done something like this. I haven't led a perfect life either, and I have my own skeletons and things that I would never mention. But still, I can't get over this. ...

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Husband accused of cooking wife kept her head in freezer, police say

A  68-year-old Oceanside man
accused of killing his 73-year-old wife, then cooking her body parts on
their kitchen stove, will be in court next week to answer the charges.

Frederick Joseph Hengl pleaded not guilty last week as bizarre details emerged about him and his late wife.

Neighbors said they saw Hengl outside wearing a purple dress, pink makeup
and various articles of jewelry, including a pearl necklace. The
neighbors told Fox 5 News that his wife was once seen roaming outside with a knife making religious comments such as “God will smite you.”

A preliminary hearing is slated for Dec. 5 in which more details might become available. 

Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Flaherty told Vista Superior Court Judge
J. Marshall Hockett that police found pieces of meat cooking on the
stove at the family home and a severed head in the freezer.

Hockett ordered Hengl kept in jail on $5 million bail.

Police are unclear when Hengl's wife, Anna Faris, was killed. They
went to the couple's home after neighbors reported a strange smell and
hearing the sound of a power saw.

Several
people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had been
behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering around
carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements, telling
people such things as, “God will smite you.”

Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.

One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLS2FbXM

Several people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had
been behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering
around carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements,
telling people such things as, “God will smite you.”

Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.

One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLRAPQk6

"There is no evidence of cannibalism at this time," Flaherty told reporters.

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As Opposition Meets in Cairo, More Violence Mars Syria

The Syrian opposition pushed ahead on military and political fronts on Wednesday, as rebels shot down a government warplane in the north of Syria and a newly formed coalition started talks in Cairo on how to pick a transitional government to replace that of President Bashar al-Assad.

The coalition, whose official name is the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, was formed at a meeting in Qatar earlier this month, and has already been anointed with official recognition from Britain, France, Turkey and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. But in order to encourage further recognition internationally, it must tackle the broader problem of uniting multiple groups in exile and rebels on the ground in Syria.

That challenge was apparent on the first day of what are expected to be two days of talks in Egypt. Disagreements emerged over the composition of the coalition when the Syrian National Council, one of its members, tried to increase the number of its representatives.

“Nothing will proceed until we work this out,” said one council member at the talks, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The talks took place against the backdrop of a 20-month civil war in which about 40,000 people have been killed so far in clashes between armed rebels and jihadist forces on one side and Mr. Assad’s military on the other. The conflict has flared at various times along Syria’s borders with Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and Jordan and in most of the country’s cities, including deadly car bombings on Wednesday near Damascus, the capital.

In Turkey, once an ally of the Assad government, a team of NATO inspectors visited sites on Wednesday where the alliance might install batteries of Patriot antiaircraft missiles that Turkey, a member, has requested to prevent any incursions by the Syrian air force, which has become the Assad government’s main weapon against the rebels. Patriot missiles have also been discussed as a way of enforcing a no-fly zone over rebel-held areas of Syria near the Turkish border if one is imposed.

Meanwhile, opposition politicians gathered in a Cairo hotel to shape an alternative government. Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the national council, said in an interview with Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language broadcaster sponsored by the United States government, that the talks were more likely to decide on the selection process than to choose actual candidates.

Khaled Khoja, a coalition member attending the talks, said: “I don’t think we’ll be discussing the election of a transitional government during the meeting today. We’re still discussing whether to have a government or to have committees instead.”

State media said on Wednesday that at least 34 people, and possibly many more, died in the two car bombings in Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus that is populated by minorities.

The official SANA news agency said the explosions struck at about 7 a.m. and were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Assad.

The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood was home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.

The death toll was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.

There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and antigovernment activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.

Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting out of the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.

“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.

Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says, “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”

The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed each other for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”

On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.

In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.

Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy.

Hala Droubi reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris; Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Is Jessica Simpson Pregnant Again?

Buzz

By Rennie Dyball

11/28/2012 at 03:00 PM EST

Is 7-month-old Maxwell Drew a big sister-to-be?

Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson – who welcomed their daughter in May – are expecting another child, according to reports widely circulating online.

When asked about the latest baby buzz, Simpson's publicist told PEOPLE, "I'm not going to comment on this speculation."

The star and Weight Watchers spokeswoman, 32, (who showed off her 60-pound weight loss this month) called Maxwell's birth "the greatest experience of our lives."

In May, she told PEOPLE, "I don't want to have another baby right away but I do want to have more kids. Having babies back to back has to be so hard."

Having baby No. 2 is all about timing, she added during the interview about becoming a mom.

"I really want to give Maxwell all of the attention and all of the love and time that I possibly can give her," she said. "When I feel like it's the right time to bring another little one into the family, I will. I won't wait too long but I won't do it immediately."

Simpson and former NFL player Johnson, 32, started dating in May 2010 and were engaged six months later.

Tweeted Simpson this month: "I am so grateful for my new lil family! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!"

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a nine-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Baby girl hospitalized after nearly drowning in toilet

A 6-month-old baby was recovering at Children's Hospital Los Angeles on Tuesday after she fell in a toilet and nearly drowned at her Sun Valley home, police said.

The baby's mother called police shortly before 10 a.m. and said her daughter had fallen in the toilet, LAPD Officer Luis Garcia said. The woman said her 2-year-old daughter was playing with the infant in the bathroom and locked the door, and the mother had to kick the door down to get inside.

When officers arrived at the home in the 8200 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the baby wasn't breathing, Garcia said. They performed CPR and managed to resuscitate the girl before she was airlifted to an area hospital.

Garcia said Tuesday afternoon the girl was in stable condition and was expected to be released from the hospital later in the day.

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Follow Kate Mather on Twitter or Google+.

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Protesters Gather Again in Cairo Streets to Denounce Morsi

CAIRO — Thousands of people flowed into the streets of Cairo, the Egyptian capital, Tuesday afternoon for a day of protest against President Mohamed Morsi’s attempt to assert broad new powers for the duration of the country’s political transition, dismissing his efforts just the night before to reaffirm his deference to Egyptian law and courts.

By early Tuesday afternoon in Cairo, a dense crowd of hundreds had gathered outside the headquarters of a trade group for lawyers, and thousands more had filed in around a small tent city in Tahrir Square. In an echo of the chants against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian’s ousted president, almost two years ago, they shouted, “Leave, leave!” and “Bring down the regime!” They also denounced the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with Mr. Morsi.

A few blocks away, in a square near the American Embassy and the Interior Ministry headquarters, groups of young men resumed a running battle that began nine days ago, throwing rocks and tear gas canisters at riot police officers. Although those clashes grew out of anger over the deaths of dozens of protesters in similar clashes one year ago, many of the combatants have happily adopted the banner of protest against Mr. Morsi as well.

Egyptian television had captured the growing polarization of the country on Monday in split-screen coverage of two simultaneous funerals, each for a teenage boy killed in clashes set off by disputes over the new president’s powers. Thousands of supporters of Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood marched through the streets of the Nile Delta city of Damanhour to bury a 15-year-old killed outside a Brotherhood office during an attack by protesters. And in Tahrir Square here in Cairo, thousands gathered to bury a 16-year-old killed in clashes with riot police officers and to chant slogans blaming Mr. Morsi for his death. “Morsi killed him,” the boy’s father said in a video statement circulated over the Internet.

“Now blood has been spilled by political factions, so this is not going to go away,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a professor at the American University in Cairo and a left-leaning activist, adding that these were the first deaths rival factions had blamed on each other and not on the security forces of the Mubarak government since the uprising began last year. Still larger crowds were expected in the evening, as marchers from around the city headed for the square. Many schools and other businesses had closed in anticipation of bedlam, and on Monday, the Brotherhood called off a rival demonstration in support of the president, saying it wanted to avoid violence.

Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council met again on Tuesday to consider its response to the president, and the leader of Al Azhar, a center of Sunni Muslim learning that is regarded as the pre-eminent moral authority here, met with groups of political leaders in an effort to resolve the battle over the president’s decree and the deadlock in the constitutional assembly, which is trying to draw up a new constitution.

But even as Mr. Morsi met with top judges Monday night in an effort to resolve the crisis, a coalition of opposition leaders held a news conference to declare that preserving the role of the courts was only the first step in a broader campaign against what Abdel Haleem Qandeil, a liberal intellectual, called “the miserable failure of the rule of the Muslim Brothers.” Mr. Morsi “unilaterally broke the contract with the people,” he declared. “We have to be ready to stand up to this group, protest to protest, square to square, and to confront the bullying.”

Mr. Morsi’s effort to remove the last check on his power over the political transition had brought the country’s fractious opposition groups together for the first time in a united front against the Brotherhood. But the show of unity papered over deep divisions between groups and even within them, said Ms. Mahdi of the American University.

“This is not a united front, and I am inside it,” she said. “Every single political group in the country is now divided over this — is this decree revolutionary justice or building a new dictatorship? Should we align ourselves with folool” — the colloquial term for the remnants of the old political elite — “or should we be revolutionary purists? Is it a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak judiciary, or is this the beginning of a fascist regime in the making?”

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

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What Does Brad Pitt Think of the Parodies of His Chanel No. 5 Commercial?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/27/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

Saturday Night Live spoofed him. Several times. Heck, even dogs did it. But Brad Pitt still stands by his not-so-popular Chanel No. 5 commercial.

“I kind of liked it,” he told Access Hollywood on Monday. “I respect what [Chanel does]. They do some really quality things.”

However, he also respects the people who’ve made fun of it.

“I haven’t [seen the parodies],” he added, “but I say absolutely fair play.”

Yep — the man who made millions off the trippy 30-second spot hasn’t had the chance to catch SNL on Hulu yet. “I’ve been overseas,” he shared, “so I’ve been blissfully protected.”

But that’s not to say he won’t have a chuckle eventually; he told Extra he would probably watch the SNL spoofs (starring Taran Killam) when he wasn’t working so much. And we’ll look forward to hearing his reaction. Tell us: Are you still not so into the Chanel No. 5 ads?

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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