1. My very new friend Anissa, whom I’ve admired from a afar in the blogosphere for some time, had a stroke this week.  She’s 35.  And has a husband and three kids.  And loads of friends who are praying for her.  I can’t get my head around this one.  How is this even possible?  If you want to see if there’s a little something you can do to help her family, you can take a look here.

2. Other things I can’t grasp?  Now we’re not supposed to get mammograms until we’re 50, so all the 49 and under crowd can just wish and keep their fingers crossed that they’ll be lucky and won’t get breast cancer until they’re older?

Tell that to my friend Susan.  Or my friend Debbie. Or my late friend Marjorie.  Or Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  Or countless other women we’ve known under the age of 50 with no family history or risk factors who saved their lives by getting screening mammograms.

I have no problem with medical experts revising their opinions based on medicine and science about what works and what doesn’t, but the timing of this report seems awfully suspect, as we’re debating other health care for women, including abortions and contraceptives (yeah, they want to prevent federal funding for that in health care reform, too), as well as care for women who have been victims of domestic violence. I understand from a wonky friend that the way the current health care bill is written, the insurers under the legislation will only be required to pay for things that are ranked “A” or “B” by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The USPSTF has now given screening mammograms for women 49 and under a “C” rating.  You do the math.

Already half a million women a year die from breast cancer.  How many more will now not know  they’re a ticking time bomb because insurance companies might not be required to pay for screenings because of this new recommendation?

3. And speaking of bombs, don’t even get me started on hungry children.  Seriously, we’re spending almost $900 billion on two wars this year, but we don’t have enough to feed 13  million hungry Americans, over four million of whom are children?

When I clean up the mess from my head explosion, I’ll try to gather my thoughts a little more eloquently.