Do you have a good family doctor - either a GP or an Internist? If not, you're either lucky and have little need of a doctor, or you are suffering from can't-get-appointmentitis.

CNN provides an article about doctors who provide same-day appointment service. Is this really all that novel? I hope not - I can get in same day with my Internist or someone in his group, and that has proven VITAL in a few cases, especially with last year's strep infection.

I can't imagine not being able to see the doctor when it's necessary. For things like a physical or the yearly woman's visit, there's no need for same-day service, though the article points out that there are few cancelled appointments that way.

By the way, the Dr. Thackquab thing is from my father. He had some goofy names for imaginary characters. That was one of them. He also - now this is way off topic - had his own "language" he would walk around talking in. One of his "greetings" was Giddy b'Sow. I think it was a friendly greeting. Further on this, I actually knew of a Dr. Bonebrake. Poor guy never had a shot at an orthopaedic career, obviously.

hln

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I missed this story as it was occurring, but young cancer patient Alexandra Scott, who with her idea raised almost 3/4 of a million dollars for cancer research, has died. She was 8 not-so-innocent years old.

Can you imagine having to understand serious illness and death at 8 and younger? At 8 I was in the 3rd grade. It was 1980. I was good at spelling, and it was a year before I would contract the chicken pox, which was the only serious thing to happen to me in childhood. How...normal.

But young Alex, no. She was diagnosed before she was a year old. Life and cancer were synonymous.

Alexandra, diagnosed just before her first birthday with neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer, decided to set up a lemonade stand to raise money for treatment. She took in $2,000 that first year, and a series of stands had raised a total of $200,000 after four years.

In June, lemonade stand fund-raisers were set up in all 50 states, as well as in Canada and France, and Alexandra and her family appeared on Oprah Winfrey's TV program and the "Today" show.

Alex hoped that her Alex's Lemonade Stand charity would raise $1 million this year for cancer research. The effort has passed the $700,000 mark, and Volvo of North America had pledged to hold a fall fund-raising event to assure that the $1 million goal would be reached, Liz Scott said.

Since June, Alex's quality of life had dropped off, and her health had severely deteriorated in the last few days, her mother said. Still, her daughter was determined to push forward even as her condition worsened, she said.

"She had a lot of faith and faith in research and trying the newest things," Liz Scott said.

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