Among the many messages he has received is one from Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist who has himself overcome cancer.

BBC: Hartson starts cancer treatment

For after cheating death, and giving millions of people hope and inspiration to overcome their personal battles against cancer, Lance Armstrong will not be able to pedal off into the sunset as an American Hero without a care in the world.

FORBES: OH HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN

However, Jacques Donnez and his colleagues at the Catholic University of Louvain, in Belgium, have gone one better, with news that they have overcome this hurdle, and that one of their cancer patients who received an ovarian graft has conceived naturally and is expecting a child at the end of September.

ECONOMIST: Frozen ovaries could help women to stay fertile

On Saturday, Venezuelan Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said President Chavez "had overcome" the respiratory infection he had contracted following his fourth cancer surgery on 11 December.

BBC: Venezuela VP Maduro reads out 'Chavez letter' at summit

Instead, the players have vowed to overcome Milan for their manager, Tito Vilanova, who is undergoing cancer treatment in New York.

WSJ: Barcelona Has to Pick Itself Up

Or drugs that keep cancer patients from losing their appetites or tinker with the wiring in your brain to help you overcome fear.

FORBES: The Secrets of Scent

All I have is my past, but as I have been in counseling (up until two years ago, when it became physically impossible to do so.) to overcome my past-I endured three life threatening health diagnoses-polio, Hepatitis C, and breast cancer-as well as three abusive men-my first husband beat me unmercifully.

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