Cancer: An antagonist in human story

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Dear Cancer,

For centuries you have slithered inside our bodies. You silently grow, wrapping all the structures that come your way. As you become big, you siphon away all the power and energy from me. While you bloom, I tragically wither. Usually when discovered, you have already broken my seams, and have travelled within me, wide and far. By the time I find you innocuously peep through an organ, you have already composed my requiem. Not to mention, you are a monster antagonist for all virtues human beings live for.

Humanity thrives for affection, trust, and discipline. You are an antithesis for all of these virtues. You started of as a normal cell in my body. All cells have a role to play, and so did you. You either protected a path, produced an elixir, or performed a move. You could have simply stopped doing you bit, and others would have taken over. Rather, you became a rogue, loosing all affection for the organ that in the past had nurtured you well. You chose deceit to evade body’s system to take care of unwell cells. Discipline gave way to anarchy and you embarked on a villainous, destructive course. Your betrayal is devastating, not only for me, but also for my entire family.

Why do we call you as Cancer ?

In Greek mythology, Hera raises multi-faceted monstrous swamp-dweller hydra, to kill Hercules. As Hercules slays one of its heads, two new ones form. We would have called you hydra, but you are even more sinister. Hidden from plain sight, Hera had also raised a giant crab. When Hercules and Hydra are engaged in a duel, crab lifts itself to bite. Hercules now has two fronts to fight. This is pure deceit. This is probably the reason, you are named after the crab (or karkinos in Greek).

Our bodies keep fighting against you, causing agony, and pain. Initially we loose our energy reserves, and then fat and muscle. We not only loose our weight and appetite, but also joy, enthusiasm, and jest for life. You are a malady we want to get rid of, using all the resources we can.

Teamwork

Cancer, do you know that our teamwork is your end-game. This is precisely what also happened in Hercules story. It was a tough fight. Initially regenerating hydra gains an upper hand. Subsequently, Hercules’s nephew Lolaus gets a brilliant idea. He scorches Hydra’s neck-stumps with fire, cauterising them soon after their beheading. Eventually, Hercules manages to kill hydra and he also crushes Crab under his feet. Nonetheless, Hera hid hydra and karkinos (or cancer) in the sky, and we see them both as constellations.

We have also had our learning curve, on how to get rid of you from our bodies. You have many forms. We can remove some of you surgically from our body, mostly to find you growing again. So we also burn any of your remnants with radiation, or anti-cancer chemotherapy. Over the years, we have perfected our protocols. Now we know better, which tools to use, in what sequence and dosing. A team of biologists, pathologists, radiologists, surgeons, radiation specialists, haematologists and medical oncologists have all contributed to this learning.

Earlier the better

Our team is watching you closely, and with each passing day, we are improving ourselves. We know very well, that we will have an upper hand, only when you are still tiny. About a hundred years ago, we discovered pap-smear. A crude but effective method to find you under a microscope. Since then, our focus is to discover you, when you are small and have just turned rogue. You do get caught under a microscope, as with a large amount of chromatin you are barely able to hide.

Not only do we need to catch you early, but we also need to avoid all the noxious stimuli (such as smoking and tobacco) that cause your betrayal. Since you are commonly found in breast, lungs, uterus, and inside the mouth – these are the locations we closely watch out. We put any suspicious group of cells under a microscope, to nip you in the bud. Indeed, our screening efforts have paid off by reducing cancer deaths in many parts of the world.

We also know that if it is late, battle is lost. You would outgrow our efforts. While you are devoid of any compassion, and will continue to grow – we need to provide comfort and care to the dying soul. We carefully contain our emotions, and try to savour all living moments with memories of life. Life may pass, but our affection never does.

Towards a success story

Today, we have many of us that have survived you. Many survivors are eager to help others cope and live. We have also formed many aid organisations, so as to pool available resources. Success begets success.

Since the year 2000, we observe 4th February as world cancer day. It is not to glorify your deeds, but to strengthen our resolve to fight you. We want all of us to screen, diagnose, and treat early – so that we see less and less of you. We also want to prevent your existence, by all means available to us. Smoking is widely discouraged, use of many noxious chemicals is eliminated, and radiation exposures are more controlled. We already have vaccines against two of your forms that occur in uterus and liver. Battle is long, but we shall surely win.

Sincerely,

A Human