Two newsworthy stories of the last week peaked my interest. I read the first of them on October 4th while doing some prep work for a class coming to the library tomorrow. Dr. Ralph Steinman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in a controversial decision. Why the controversy? He died before he was notified, and the award cannot be given posthumously.
The other story hit the news yesterday. Steve Jobs died. I think everyone knows who Steve Jobs is, but in case you are like one of the students discussing this in the library today, he helped found Apple. His contribution to the company is undeniable, and as I type using an Apple product, I am reminded that he changed our lives with ipods, ipads, and iphones.
Why do these seemingly unrelated and morbid stories peak my interest? Both men fought pancreatic cancer and survived for four years. Both of these stories broke on or around my mom's birthday, and she too, fought pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Steinman became his own guinea pig as he tried some of his own research on himself to prolong his life. In other related ironies, we learned the day my mom died that she had been accepted into a research study and more treatment at Vanderbilt. I received an e-mail the day after her funeral that a vaccine now exists for pancreatic cancer. I believe that Dr. Steinman's research made that vaccine a possibility.
Wouldn't it be incredible if pancreatic cancer could be eradicated? even more if all cancer could be? What would it be like if Moms didn't lose sleep over scans, if hope wasn't followed by despair and then hope again on a roller coaster that starts with a scary diagnosis and truly only ends in death. How long does a cancer survivor live before the worry stops?
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