Today former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell passed away from symptoms related to Covid-19, aka Covid complications. Although Covid-19 certainly played a role, his underlying condition was a type of blood cancer, joining millions of people affected with cancer. I guess I was naive, ignorant, and foolish about cancer and just brushing past news like General Powell's cancer as just something "old people get," but it's definitely a wake-up call when someone in my family was diagnosed with cancer. Only then did I realize just how many different forms of cancer in our and different types that can be in almost every part of the body, including breast cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer (those are just the most common ones), as well as other types of disease I didn't even realize were forms of cancer like leukemia (cancer in blood-forming tissues), lymphoma, (cancer of the lymphatic system), and melanoma (skin cancer- this is the one I've been the most care-free about and not wearing suntan lotion, but something I need to be cognizant of from now on).
One of the scary things about cancer is the lack of ability to know what causes it, with different studies showing various findings, sometimes even contradictory about what causes cancer, whether eating too much meat causes cancer, drinking too much, smoking cigerates, and the only way really be at peace with the odds of getting is trying to decrease it, like eating more vegetables and limiting harmful carcingen intake into the body, but none of those are like the vaccine against the Covid-19 virus. Early detection is the key to catch the cancer before it spreads to other parts of the body, but cancer isn't something that manifests itself early, which is why people think they're fine and don't go checked out until it's too late. At least with acne, concussions, structural problems it can be seen from the outside; cancer is just growing in one's body, hidden deep within, a silent killer. Cancer's also difficult to diagnose because it can be confused with other diseases, which gives it the nickname "the great imitator."
The prototypical image of the Covid-19 virus is scary: it's a picture of a cell with various needle-like pricks sticking out like trees or cotton swabs, but it's all over the cell and moving around like a fungus growing out of a normally healthy plant. Cancer has that same eerie feeling (at least for me) when shown pictures of it, like a clot stuck in a body part that's blocking off healthy parts and absorbing other cells so that it can move around and expand (metastasis). It's really a horror movie villain, but a grim reality for millions of people around the war. Ever since President Nixon declared "War on Cancer" in 1971 many resources have been devoted to stop cancer, in fact there's lots of pharmaceutical companies that develop anti-cancer drugs every year trying to gain approval for patents, and cancer-speciality hospitals across the U.S. like City of Hope hospital in the L.A. area, where I used to work. I used to walk by there ten years ago marveling at the grandiose nature of the facilities and aesthetically pleasing courtyard and campus life, but now I see it much more as a serious fight against cancer and a refuge for cancer patients who are confined to a hospital bed; the fight against cancer is no picnic.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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