The Pathology of Cancer

My mother had small-cell cancer, and it killed her.  Eventually.  The cancer left her body and went to her brain.  It took away everything she knew.

While she was alive there was a process.  She was never without dignity, but she was always curious.  She had to understand the particulars of the disease.  Down to the last cell, the last protein, the last bit of Latin terminology.

Unlike me, my mother was a nurse.  I have little interest in disease; I only care about what is lost.  But I listened because I thought it was expected of me.  I listened to pathology reports and lab results, and tried to understand what it meant about treatment options, quality of living options, life options.

The pathology was often confusing.  Ambiguous.  Confounding.  I accepted on faith that my mother had small-cell cancer, but when the cancer went to her brain they called it glioblastoma.  I only knew the term glioblastoma, because Ted Kennedy had glioblastoma.  It was in the news, part of the national dialogue.  However, when the opened my mother's brain, doctors realized her tumor was not glioblastoma, it had only looked the part.  There would have to be more tests.  Initially, the pathologist said she had spindle-cell carcinoma.  I was hopeful about this new pathology, this new term, but not for long.   Another doctor said it was, again, small-cell cancer.  Then another doctor said small-cell and spindle-cell were  identical.  Then there were additional diagnoses and names, and then, finally, someone told me she had large-cell cancer.  I knew that one had to be wrong, but it wasn't.  They were all correct.  I realized cancer could be many things, even large and small.   Indeed, that is the very nature of the disease:  cancer is about microscopic cells and large masses.

Life too is large and small.  After my mother died I kept thinking of her life as a whole, what it meant to exist over a span of decades.  Of course, as I considered her life, I was forced to recollect the moments.  Life is  dually comprised of nano-seconds and years, fleeting moments and eras, small tasks and meaningful careers, reactions and contemplations...and then, eventually, only memories.