But before we go there, let’s check in on a recently-reported archaeological finding. 3,000 years ago what is now Sudan northeast Africa was part of the Egyptian empire. At that time, human beings lived under considerable environmental stress. Water was polluted by human and animal waste, and may have been saline during dry seasons as evaporation left minerals on the irrigated soils. Almost all social interaction took place around smoky open-hearth fires. Parasites and diseases were chronic, universal, and endemic. Nutrition was sketchy. Ingested food and water came with baggage of solids and filth. So it’s not a surprise that a 30 year old guy entombed with his family and some grave goods had cancer. What IS surprising is that his cancer wreaked so much havoc on his physiology that his skeleton is riddled with obvious tumors [1].
If you take a moment to check out the photos at [3], you’ll be amazed. By the time this guy died, his entire skeleton was riddled with invasive tumors. I’m having a little trouble projecting from my own experience of 3 tumor sites, which were seriously painful enough, to this guy, who seems to have basically been a dead tumor walking for what must have been years.
Ouch. But the lesson for us is clear. Cancer has been part of the human condition for pretty much as long as humans have been human. Which makes it all the more remarkable that science in our time is closing in on a full understanding of the origins, mechanisms, outcomes, and treatments for cancer. We will soon have the ability to chisel cancer away from our bodies. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to sculpt human beings into physiologically robust specimens and leave cancers on the studio floor with the marble dust.
Anyway. My own physiology at this point is an odd amalgam of outcomes, sort of a weighted-average of the effects of disease and its treatment. And it is not a stable, finished product. My body continues to change, with the processes of response to cancer and cancer treatment overlaid on the more mundane aging processes of a 61 year old person.
In general, the daily production of mucous in my beat-up mouth and throat seems to be declining. Which I take as a very good thing. It is discomfiting for me to undertake something as simple as a trip to the grocery store to fill out a shopping list. I have to find corners to hide in periodically as the need to mop up body fluids pouring from various orifices is too disgusting to subject my fellow shoppers to.
However, while the decline in production of goo is most welcome, for some reason this week I started to hack up considerable quantities of fresh blood. This is scary enough on its own to me, and takes that social interaction in the “Cookies, Crackers, Snacks and Soft Drinks” aisle at the supermarket to a whole new level.
Anyway. I need spring to get here so I can get my butt out of the recliner and into the woods. I know more minute and repetitive details about mysteriously lost airplanes and the uncomfortable condition the people of the Ukraine find themselves in than is healthy.
And health, after all, is the key objective. With a little luck, by the end of this week I’ll be able to take my shiny new 50X optical zoom lens out to the riparian ecosystems of the Patuxent River to document this year’s return of the environment from its (unusually cold and snowy) winter shut-down. Expect quirky photographs of birds, salamanders, and other wildlife to begin appearing with this weblog. And, as always, make sure you Rock the Hell On (copyright, trademark). Live ‘em while you got ‘em is the bottom line lesson of cancer. And spring is the perfect time to crank up the volume on the processes of life!
Notes
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/3000-year-old-skeleton-found-riddled-with-cancer/
[2] http://www.livescience.com/44269-oldest-metastatic-cancer-skeleton.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29
[3] http://www.livescience.com/44261-photos-ancient-egyptian-skeleton-cancer.html
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