1:1 Care To Kill Cancer
I read The Design Legacy of Covid? It’s All Around You and got to thinking about the fingerprints past crises have left on my life. Think airport screenings and masks and QR codes. But rather than carefully sculpted scars, undesigned legacies came to mind.
Undesigned legacies of past crises scatter around me like fistfuls of ashes. They are nearly invisible irritants tossed up in the air. They become particulate matter showering down around me. I collide with these particles of the past in the most unexpected ways. Yesterday, I hit one example head-on while driving a well-worn road. I was heading towards the city's center for a simple errand. Like on autopilot, I daydreamed while driving. I was thinking up a friend's future baby shower gift.
Let me back up. A colleague at the academic cancer research center where I work will soon have a much-wanted, highly unexpected baby. The colleague, a physician-scientist, is dedicated to understanding life and her patients' medical problems. She thinks big and boldly and has a strong belief in the common good. This rebel female over-forty has her sights set on starting a cancer research lab of her own in the future. She is a tremendous mentor and will make a world-class mom; I am over the moon for her and her budding family and volunteered to organize a baby shower.
Baby showers are an onerous task under normal circumstances. There are additional burdens given pandemic precautions and restrictions. For twenty-plus months, with safeguards to protect patients and each other and families, no one in the cancer research center has wanted to be together in the same room at the same time, let alone eat cake together. But thanks to science and vaccines, we are able and willing to show up for this special person. The mother-to-be was prodded out of her humble shell and did her part to provide a baby registry and a guest list. Like our COVID vaccination rate, 100% of invitees accepted. It is unanimous––we are all ecstatic to shower her with support.
True to the colleague's nature, she compiled a nonconformist gift wish list. The list is a window into her extraordinary nature. She asked for homecooked meals, dog walking support, and worn baby clothes with no preference for colors because "babies don't care and neither do we.". She even stated, "We know that we are entering parenthood in a financially stable and very privileged position and would be just as happy to have our friends and family direct their generosity to other new families who are less fortunate. Please consider donating to local organizations." She provided links to organizations in need. The friend's approach is refreshing and straightforward in a time of lavish gender-reveal parties and themed decorations.
I bookmarked her ask for hand-me-down baby books and directed group efforts to build her a starter baby library. Yesterday, as I drove rather mindlessly to the north end of town, I daydreamed and wondered, what book shall I gift her?
I instantly knew: The Complete Adventures of Curious George. As I pictured the bright yellow book's cover in my mind's eye, I burst into tears. This precious treasury of stories was of my youngest child's favorite collection. For many years, but especially in the early months of his cancer diagnosis, Ewan loved Curious George's naïve propensity for falling into problems and the triumph of innocence that consistently elevated Curious George out of his dilemmas. I cried as I drove, and I thought of passing on stewardship of my dead child's cherished treasury. But I knew the book
had its tender new home. The book would be loved, scribbles and dog-eared pages, and all. Every object of my child's has become an irreplaceable connection to him since he died. I pictured the colleague sitting cross-legged with her own child in her lap as she read Ewan's book. That irreplaceable connection can be stretched and continued, rather than staying static in time, fixed on a bookshelf in a dark and quiet room.
Suddenly, I snapped out of my daydreamy, watery-eyed state. I had veered off course and driven onto an HOV entrance ramp. This route takes me into a tunnel that merges onto the large highway. I'd just made a big, irreversible mistake! There was no turning back from my wrong turn, and it would take me at least 20 minutes to get back on course. This unintentional act is my undesigned legacy. I repeat the same motions in a perpetual loop, never knowing when what or where I might be triggered. But the circle is the same: I am constantly heading back to Children's to try to save my child. Even as if he is still in the back seat.
There are apparent "designed legacies" in my life. One glaring example is that I now work in a pediatric cancer research lab to study the subtype of leukemia that results in the death of my eight-year-old. I have a leukemia cell line growing in an incubator right now. The cancerous cells came from a 10-year-old male with biphenotypic B-myelomonocytic leukemia. They have a t(4;11) fusion gene. This may not mean something to most people, but it is a big deal to me. Ewan's cancer had similar swapping of genetic material––on chromosomes 9 and 11, very similar to the MV4;11 cells I am culturing now. Both types of fusion gene mutations lead to cancers that are resistant to drug therapy. Since chemotherapy is ineffective against such cancers, I spend my days looking for different treatments. I focus on T-cells to target and kill the cancerous cells. Working in a pediatric cancer research lab is relaxing, like fishing.
Except when it isn't. When pressed against deadlines for data to present in meetings, I feel stressed. I see the academic knives falling on the heads of faculty. Careers and grants are riding on this research. These are important points, but I value caring for antagonists to cancer cells most. I've already driven down the darkest tunnel possible in my personal life. Driving across impossibly challenging terrain, I've learned that most of my efforts will fail. Despite modern medicine's best efforts, enemies will outwit us. Our understanding of science still fails us. Therefore, we need to lift and support the brave, brilliant pioneers like my physician-scientist colleague, the one who is having a baby. We depend on her for a better understanding of life and her patients' medical problems. We rely on her for future hope and better outcomes.
Ironically, I must care for cancer cells to kill cancer cells. Because of this paradox, I make us put down our pipettes and gather for going-away parties and baby showers, any excuse to celebrate. These are our eureka moments––to remember why we do what we do. For each other. I understand something scientists may not readily have a window into––we must care for each other to kill our enemies. It's the elegant innocence that elevates us out of our dilemmas. Celebrating life's moments is what carries us forward.