You and I even have been in a life-and-death struggle for six years, but we’ve got never spoken to one another.
It's time we talked.
To some people, it could seem crazy to speak on to cancer cells. But studies on the placebo effect and its evil twin, the nocebo effect, show that our thoughts and beliefs can heal or harm our bodies. The mind-body connections usually are not yet well understood, but I hope you and I can discover a option to have an open conversation.
First, let me admit that it's hard to not hate you. You turned my golden years the other way up. My relaxed journey to retirement became a harrowing, pain-filled journey.
When the small lump on my neck was diagnosed as metastatic cancer for which there isn’t a cure, fear shot through me like a killer. I step by step realized that fear and terror could break, or even perhaps shorten, the time I had left. This encouraged me to return to terms with the thought of dying while doing every part I could to remain alive.
Because you’re an especially rare type of apocrine cancer, I even have no data on my life expectancy. However, by the point you were discovered, you had already spread to greater than three dozen lymph nodes in my neck – not a great sign. Now you could have grown into increasingly large, bruised patches on my face, neck and chest, reminding me of my mortality each time I look within the mirror.
My talented care team at Stanford University Medical Center, led by Dr. Alexander Dimitrios Colevas and Dr. Anne Lynn Su Chang, dug deep into their bag of tricks in the hunt for a cure. I underwent surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, and photodynamic therapy. Each of those treatments had terrible unwanted side effects, none of which had lasting effects. Several set me back. I even have at all times moved forward.
Along with my fear and hatred for you, I also developed a grudging respect. You are tough and resilient, qualities I sought in myself to survive you.
Motifs of mutated cells
You always demand my attention, but refuse to present up your secrets. Why did you mutate? Could I even have prevented this? And more importantly, what can I do now to stop you?
I don't even know what to make of you. People speak about “fighting” you as in case you were an invading alien force. You usually are not. You are a mutation of my very own cells. How can I fight except by applying available medical treatments? I can't kick, punch, stab or shoot you and see no profit in simply assuming a belligerent stance.
You're acting like you need to kill me. But can mutated cells have intentions? Does every cell have intentions? The three trillion cells in my body are connected to one another through complex biochemical and electrical interactions. Are in addition they connected by some form of consciousness?
The conscious mind is usually in comparison with a CEO who shouts orders to his brain, which the body then carries out. But nerve impulses cannot travel fast enough to permit the brain to regulate the fingers of a concert violinist. To determine which notes to play, she must depend on the conscious mind she has developed in her hands through training and practice.
Your cancer cells also behave as in the event that they have some form of consciousness or intelligence. They recruit healthy cells to form blood vessels that feed your tumors. They mask themselves to cover from the immune system's killer T cells.
What form of communication takes place at your level? Is it a language I can ever learn? I hope so, because there’s something I actually need to let you know.
It says: Please stop dividing and die.
Request a deal
That's a giant ask, but hear me out. Healthy cells divide a set variety of times after which die. Your refusal to follow nature's plan and reproduce recklessly is a misguided pursuit of immortality, because in case you kill me, you’ll die too.
Yes, by continuing to share, you may extend your life just a little. But if you could have a consciousness, it is best to take into consideration sacrificing yourself for the common good. After all, I represent my whole self, while you’re only an element of it.
I don't intend to make you are feeling guilty. I doubt that you could have any hostile intentions. You are the offspring of a healthy cell that lived a standard life until something happened and adjusted it. Now, like all living things, you need to proceed living, even when circumstances beyond your control have brought your well-being into conflict with mine. And who knows, possibly I’m accountable for those circumstances.
My doctors don't know what caused you to mutate, but I exposed myself to quite a few cancer risk aspects. I smoked cigarettes for years and still drink alcohol. I ate loads of pork and worked in stressful each day journalism for a long time. Maybe I made you what you’re.
There is little question that I – or more accurately, my immune system – didn’t rid myself of you before you may do damage. My cancer risk aspects include the best of all – old age. I’m 75, an age in life when biological systems are inclined to weaken. If my T cells were still at their best, you and I probably wouldn't be having this conversation.
And yet here I stand on the gates of eternity, begging for a deal.
You and I won’t ever be friends, but possibly we will coexist.
What do you’re thinking that?
Hello. Can you hear me?
Originally published:
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