Listen up!

"All Access" and "Hollywood Hoopla"and "Inside Mario Lopez" are those shows that come on after the network news after dinner, just when your nerves are frayed from the latest out of Washington, New York, Addis Ababa, Walla Walla, and Paducah.

So I tend to turn over to a Simpsons rerun or the ballgame, because I have this fear that all of the Four Chrises (Evans, Hemsworth, Pine, and Pratt) could stand en masse on my porch, and I couldn't identify a single one of them. Celebrity ignorance is a lot of fun, although I still claim a certain cachet here at home for being the one to tell Peggy that Lil' Bow Wow was now known simply as Bow Wow.

But medical knowledge is good, and it paid off for Inside Edition anchor Deborah Norville. She's back to work now, but was out for a while this year for surgery to remove most of her thyroid. She had a cancer scare, and as they say on that type of show, "Wait til you hear!" how she knew she had a problem!

Doctors called it a routine procedure, but to be honest, with anyone who makes a living speaking, there is always a worry when they operate near where the nerves that control your voice box are located.

When the scars fade, no one will able even to tell that Norville had surgery.  And that's ironic, because it was a sharp eyed viewer with some medical knowledge and a hi-definition television who spotted a lump on Deborah’s neck.

The viewer contacted the show, and Norville wisely saw a doctor, who found nothing serious at the time, but had recently done more testing and said that nodules on her thyroid tested positive for cancer.

So she won't need any further treatment, but she is using this teachable moment to remind everyone to get regular checkups, and to listen when someone tells you something seems amiss!