Okay, everyone comment with the line from this section that most resonates with you and explain why. I'll go first.
"Like lunatic cartographers, chemotherapists frantically drew and redrew their strategies to annihilate cancer" (208). Who doesn't like a good simile?
But the one that really resonates with me is the following, "But the basic purpose is not to save that patient's particular life but to find means of saving the lives of others" (203). This sentence paired with the description of the chemo wards of the 70's makes me hopeful about how far cancer researchers have come. I've been on the chemo ward with my mom and I witnessed Ms. Engelhardt's chemo, and it is nothing like what it being described here. In the chemo ward at Lemmen Holton, the most disturbing signs of cancer are the numerous head scarves and the pallor of the patients. But, the anti-nausea drugs that we have now take care of the effects of cisplatin. I mean, it isn't like anyone feels 100% heatlthy during chemo of any kind, but when you compare what it looks like now with the way it looked before...it's much more manageable. It still almost completely decimates the patient, especially by the end. They still have to destroy the cells and then build it all back up. But,f rom what i've seen, having chemotherapy in 2014 is quite different than during the 70's. And the truth is that now, particular lives are saved. Although the "magic bullet" idea still seems present, there is much more research to draw upon when doctor's choose chemotherapy drugs. The bullets are more likely to hit the target.
Okay, now you go.
To continue on that theme of "magic bullets", my line was:
ReplyDelete"What this war needed was simply 'bullets', whether magical or not, to annihilate cancer."
I am a bit of a history and military nerd, and I found this sentence profoundly true. The thing is, tanks won't shoot without tank shells, artillery cannot support an attack without ammunition, and infantry cannot hope to do meaningful damage without bullets. When you fight a war against an enemy of far greater numbers, is adaptable, and sneaks behind your lines again and again, what you need is ammunition. It doesn't matter what kind, as long as it is ammunition.
An interesting note: as I was writing the part up there about what kind of enemy it was, has anyone else noticed the similarities between the War on Cancer and the war in Vietnam?
Hi Gregory! Were you thinking the fact that some soldiers really didn't want to go to war, like how no one would ever choose to have cancer (except for Barry Marshall later in the book) but they are "drafted" into the war on cancer?
DeleteImagine, then, if you are fighting a literal war with humans and they are impervious to regular old bullets....think about having to find out what the correct ammunition is to defeat the enemy. Then imagine, you find that ammunition and your enemy adapts to it. Becomes invulnerable. So, it's back to the drawing board. In the meantime, lives are lost. You are impatient to find the right ammunition, but you don't even know your enemy. So,you just throw whatever is available at it--here's a chair, maybe a lamp--with little regard for "side effects." Until all of a sudden you launch some new ammunition, that actually comes from the enemy himself, you hit the target and inflict a mortal wound. Oh, but wait. He's a zombie. He's undead. That last part is silly, I know. But I was experiencing "flow." By the way, great syntax, Gregory. Say some more about the parallel between cancer and Vietnam. I want to know what you are thinking. And, don't think that I am not about to throw a party right now over these two comments on one post!!!!!!!!!
DeleteWhen I mentioned the parallels, what I was actually thinking about was the fact that in Vietnam, the US was fighting not only the North Vietnamese army, but also the Viet-Cong. The Viet-Cong were not of greater numbers than the Americans, but they were incredibly adaptive and clever. Once they settled in a region, it was incredibly difficult to root them out. More than that, they didn't operate as a standard army. They snuck past the frontlines time and time again, able to blend into the local populations.
DeleteSo, to summarize the main connections between the Viet-Cong and cancer:
Both blend into their environments fairly easily;
Both can infiltrate other regions of the body/country;
Both are extremely adaptable, able to develop countermeasures to "enemy" weapons;
Not only all that, but there's also a connection between the methods of fighting. In Vietnam, the Americans used anything they could against the VC: Napalm strikes, massive bombings, regular patrols, random airdrops of infantry into enemy territory. They also combined these in many ways, searching for an effective solution to the VC. Similarly, oncologists at that time were throwing any drug they could at cancer, and combining them in many ways, searching for that ever-elusive cure.
I do not mean to say, however, that the connection you made, Emily, was wrong. I actually hadn't even thought of that!
DeleteI also highlighted and wrote in my notes about the quote that says fixing patients now isn't the main point. I was reading MJ's interview in the back of the book and he talks about how important it is to do clinical trials. That quote and his belief that clinical trials are important really go together in my opinion. Perhaps a certain clinical trial has a better way to cure a type of cancer, but no one would find out without participating.
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ReplyDelete