Sharing my thoughts on 42 pages today. Whew.
Summertime sure does get in the way, don't she?
(intentional grammatical error to create an effect there; also known as a
"rhetorical choice." Writers make tons of them, consciously and
subconsciously--or maybe instinctively is a better word choice there.)
Actually,
I want to back track a bit because I noticed that an important thing
happens on p. 130, and that is the creation of the protocols and the
community, "the cooperative group model [that] galvanized medicine."
Kind of a big deal, that. And evidence that no matter how much some of
us (myself included) like to "fly solo", the meeting of minds is a
powerful thing. I know what you are thinking right now. "Group work
sucks." And that very well may be....but it is reality.
Does it seem really terrible to anyone else that poor Min Chiu Li lost his job?
I
love this sentence: (aka "Golden Line") "The academic stodginess of
the leukemia consortium--its insistence on progressively and
systematically testing one drug combination after another--was now
driving Freireich progressively and systematically mad"(139).
And
it is interesting to think about the medical community's reluctance to
use a four drug treatment back in the '60's when we learn that Carla
will be treated with NINE of them.
On p. 146, Mukherjee
spends a paragraph defining "Failure". Definition is one of the modes
of discourse along with Narration, Argumentation (which always feels
redundant to me as everything is an argument), Comparison and Contrast
(which we get later with the two narratives that begin the "Anatomical
Tumor" chapter), Classification, Cause and Effect, Description (for
which you must admit that--for a scientist-Mukherjee has a strong
command. Case in point: the patient. Beatrice Sorenson, p. 153-154),
Process Analysis (shall we just say the whole book?).
I
appreciate the way that Mukherjee throws a line in every once in awhile
that forces me to review who certain people are. For example, on p.
149, he brings us into his reminiscence of "the Chiribaya mummy, to
Atossa, to Halsted's young woman awaiting her mastectomy," or on p. 158
during his description of Hodgkin's disease, he reminds us of
"Halstedt's vision of cancer on its way to becoming Galen's." Makes one
pause, doesn't it. Start flipping back frantically through pages to
figure out who the heck Galen is, keeps all of us honest and
accountable. We even hear about ol' Virchow again on p. 146. (You might notice the ways in which I've blended in the quotations here. Being able to effectively blend quoted material in a variety of ways is an important skill to master in a composition class.)
Other
golden lines: "In 1898, some thirty years after Hodgkin's death, an
Austrian pathologist, Carl Sternberg, was looking through a microscope
at a patient's glands when he found a peculiar series of cells staring
back at him: giant, disorganized cells with cleaved, bilobed
nuclei--"owl's eyes," as he described them, glaring sullenly out from
the forests of lymph" (157).
"She was almost
preternaturally minuscule: about eighty-five pounds and four and a half
feet tall, with birdlike features and delicate bones that seemed to hang
together like twigs in winter" (154).
"Every three weeks, just as his counts recovered, the whole cycle would begin all over agian--Sisyphus on chemotherapy" (152).
"But
the story of leukemia--the story of cancer-- isn't the story of doctors
who struggle and survive, moving from one institution to another. It
is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one
embankment of illness to another" (148). Actually, that whole paragraph
is eloquently written.
And then we get the example of
(Exemplification is another mode of discourse that belongs in the list) Mukherjee's primary research with the VAMP survivor. A challenge:
can you include some primary research in this Monster project we are
going to spend our time on in the first quarter or so? I mean, anybody
can look up articles on the internet, right? Ahhhhhh, but to find a
source to interview. Really interview. Someone you haven't talked to
before. I'm not talking about interviewing your grandma here, who I'm
sure is a very fine person and more than willing to help you out.
Thanks, Grandma. No, I'm talking about investigative work here. Not
investigative work that puts you in danger, of course. But, work that
stretches you out of your comfort zone a bit, requires you to make a
phone call or write a letter of inquiry.
This post is long enough. I'll write another for the next 20 pages so as not to overwhelm anyone. (Too late?)
Noooooo! Not group work! ...Do we at least get to choose our groups? :)
ReplyDeleteYes, very sad that Min Chiu Li lost his job, even though he was right.
I loved the last two full paragraphs on page 146, where Mukherjee defines failure. Especially the structure of the last bit of the last paragraph.
I absolutely have been flipping back frantically, trying to remember a name or a person. And it doesn't take me very long to forget a name. Recalling the different people helps, though. Quite a bit earlier in the book, on page 111, Mukherjee introduces Dr. Clarence Cook Little. One page later, he mentions Little again, and I've already forgotten who he is. Another example: Vannevar Bush on pages 119 and 120.
I enjoyed the Sisyphus line as well. Also golden: "Like Hippocrates, it was as if we, too, had naively lumped the lumps" (155).
Primary research. Reminds me of the good old days of National History Day. No grandmas, but what about cousins? :) I just saw mine on Sunday, after he had chemo on Saturday. Or maybe I could reach out and actually try to interview one of his doctors. However, right now I'd rather not dwell on any project called the "Monster project".