So yesterday, we were on the phone with Katie Couric...

No, she didn't butt dial us.

It was a conference call with bloggers from SVMoms Group and the purpose was to have a conversation about children and the recession. CBS News will be featuring special programming which will be focussing upon the economy and how children (and their families) are coping in these tough times.

We were asked to submit a couple of questions to get the ball rolling. I sent the following:

Having worked as a school social worker in rural Louisiana, I know all too well the high incidence of children living in poverty existed long before this recession. In my small school in Plain Dealing Louisiana I had students without indoor plumbing or electricity. And this was in the early 90's. It wasn't uncommon for teachers to collect clothing and food for entire families at my school. So while many people, outside of rural communities or poor parts of urban areas, may think this poverty condition is "new" it's not. We've been ignoring the blips on the radar screen for years. The recession has merely made the blips larger and more difficult to ignore.

1. What of the children who have survived hurricanes Katrina, Ivan and now have parents facing an additional hardship of a recession?

2. How are the programs initially set up to meet the needs of this population of children and their families, now effected by the compounded problem of the recession?

Over at DC Metro Moms, I've written a little bit about some of my work with families living in poverty. Aviva worked with Parents As Teachers as a parent educator, visiting families at home and knows how parents worry about how their children will do if the family is under stress too. She encountered families struggling to make ends meet as well as families who had decent resources. We all know parenting can be tough even under good circumstances.

When I worked as a crisis intervention counselor in Kansas, I heard more than my fair share of families dealing with rising health care costs for their children and facing insurmountable insurance hurdles. But this was before the recession. These were times when money may have been tight for families, but at least unemployment levels were reasonable and while we had experienced a brief war during that time, the price of the war wasn't as high as the current situations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not only are military families under far more stress, military families aren't even defined the same way if we consider how many are affiliated with Reservists and National Guard.

Back then, however, the day to day was at least viewed as managable by most people's standards.

Now what's going on? We've got a recession. And families are hurting. Parents are overwhelmed with how to handle job loss, insurance gaps and health care needs. Education budgets are being cut, but at the same time schools are stepping in to be community centers in a way they haven't been doing for quite some time.

And Katie Couric is using her star power to be the voice of the children. Admittedly, I was dubious. I've seen how celebrities adopt a pet project, and then abandon it soon after. But then Katie Couric said something during our phone call that resonated with me. She said she felt this issue was on par with her work to promote awareness about colon cancer. I knew Katie's husband had died from colon cancer. And I knew she had worked tirelessly to get information about colon cancer to the public. She further stated the issue of children and the recession, once addressed, isn't one that will go away and will have to be revisited. Just as she does with colon cancer.

And with that statement, she won me over. We hope you will watch the CBS News coverage of Children of the Recession. It will be featured programming on CBS Evening News, Face the Nation and The Early Show.

Lynch Syndrome sprouts on the family tree

My PE teacher in elementary school was Mr. Lynch. I have no idea why I remember his name when I can hardly remember the names of my relatives. It certainly is not because PE was my favorite class. As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall doing anything possible to get out of participating in PE. I was a ballerina; sports were not my thing. This really has nothing to do with what I am about to write but, for some reason, it's what comes to mind every time I think of Lynch Syndrome.

Six months ago I had never heard of Lynch Syndrome. Then, 72 hours changed everything. It was Yom Kippur Kol Nidre service - the high holiday, the holiest day, a day of repentance and thought. My husband, Kurt, had been so tired lately, his color was all wrong and he was forgetful and grouchy. A good friend of ours saw him at services and told him he was calling in lab work to have done at the hospital in the morning. The next day he went in and had some blood drawn. It was a Thursday. Our friend called a couple of hours later to let me know Kurt was really sick. In fact, his hematocrit was so low, the hospital staff didn't know how he was even walking. Kurt had played softball twice that week! He ordered a CT scan to try to determine where the internal bleeding might be. There was nothing I could do but wait.

A few hours later, another call. The CT scan showed something in his intestines. They thought it was colitis - some inflammation of unknown cause. The first choice to be made: he could go home for the night and then return to the hospital the next day for a colonoscopy or just check in now and get things started. We didn't see much point in delaying things so we met at home just long enough to pack a small bag and return to the hospital. I got him settled and returned home to the kids.

The next morning meant more waiting. I got the kids off to school and went into work. I had to keep busy. The colonoscopy was scheduled for 10 AM. Around 10:30 he called to tell me the surgeon had shingles so he was delayed until the afternoon. I was sitting at my desk when I got the call. The doctor said Kurt was recovering nicely. The procedure had gone well but Kurt needed more surgery. The scope made it far enough to find a mass at the junction of the large and small intestine. "He has colon cancer," the doctor told me in a very matter of fact tone. I suppose the lab results were so extreme, the doctor figured I must have known he was really sick. I thanked him for his call, hung up the phone and went back to work. I was in a bit of a haze but there were things I had to get done before the kids were out of school and there was nothing I could do at the hospital until Kurt woke up.

I was in shock. No, I wasn't. To be perfectly honest, given his mother's history with colon cancer, as soon as I heard the results of the CT scan I expected the diagnosis. I finished up at the office, rounded up the kids and returned to the hospital. Kurt and I talked about the results and the next steps. More surgery. I returned home to explain things to our 3 kids - ages 16, 14 and 8. I called my folks and his mom, then went to bed. On Saturday morning we all went to the hospital. Kurt and I met the surgeon. We were confident in his ability and quite surprised to find out he had been through the same thing just a few years ago. Kurt went into the OR. More waiting.

My folks kept the kids busy. The surgery finally ended. We all sat down in a room while the surgeon explained what he had done. The mass, 8 inches of colon, his appendix and several lymph nodes had all been removed. No colostomy and the abdominal cavity looked good. All good news. The tissue would be sent to pathology but it was just to confirm the cancer diagnosis at this point. After that, the talk of family history and testing for Lynch Syndrome began.

Never having heard of Lynch Syndrome before, I did a little research. Not nearly as much as Kurt did while recovering in the hospital over the next 5 days, but I did look into things a bit. The bottom line was this: Lynch Syndrome is a genetic disposition to get cancer - predominantly colon cancer but other cancers as well. A couple of months after the surgery and about halfway through his chemotherapy, he had the genetic test done. Not surprisingly, it was positive. More choices: do we have the kids tested? If so, when? Does it matter what the test results would be or is it just important to watch them more closely than would be routine for cancer screening? How will this information effect their lives? On the up side, we can look for early signs and do some preventive work. On the down side, do they carry a cloud of having a greater chance of developing cancer?

Cancer is a weird thing. The word makes people speak in hush tones and brings pity. The diagnosis is both terrifying and a relief to know what's going on. The prognosis for Kurt is great at this point but Lynch Syndrome means we could go through this all again with Kurt and/or with our children. The more answers we get, the more questions we seem to have. Perhaps all the confusion, choices and waiting is why my head chooses to go back to elementary school every time I hear someone say, "Lynch."

Stay tuned and I'll let you know about all the other things you need to think about when someone in your life is diagnosed with cancer. The things you don't hear about from the doctors or read about on the websites. The day to day stuff... Of course, it may not be any time real soon. My priorities change even more rapidly now than they did before!