[ Mantle Cell Lymphoma ]

What about mantle cell lymphoma?


The immune cells are a wild type.

Type B lymphocytes have mutated, refused cell death, gone to fission,
and now resist poisoning.

They flourish in expanded lymph nodes, in the spleen, in the marrow.
The immune system is sabotaged.
The major organs will not escape harm.

Maybe there's worse news, for somebody, somewhere.
It's just hard to think of what it could be.

[ In your Lymph Node ]

Immune cells keep germs from living in us.
These are the most sophisticated and subtle chemical factories we find.
Such sensitive sniffers can recognize the scent of a germ,
not smelled for decades.

The healthy B cells send kill signals, in traces of odor.
When they get sick and go wild, there is big trouble.

Mantle cell lymphoma is made of wild immune cells, which use the sneaky
chemical defenses of B cells to protect their mutation.
They can't be smarter than the human mind.
But just for right now, they have us defeated.
They duck every cancer treatment we have, laugh and come back at us.
We patients are fairly upset over how things are going.
It's an existential distress.
"How annoying", we think constantly.

Nobody gets over it.
Nobody gets well.
Nobody lives through it.
Zero is an easy number to remember.

So how did I take it?

Those familiar with my approach to problems,
will not be surprised to learn I decided to restructure medicine.
Got this idle time on my hands, might as well.

Here is my project proposal for growing cell lines,
for mantle cell lymphoma patients.
Hopefully it may prove a model for all cancer,
unless you come up with a better idea.
Link to Cell Culture Group,
by patients and caregivers.
[ Click to be conveyed ]
Mantle Cell Lymphoma UCSD Site
Up to my MCL page
MCL Bulletin Board
Up to my heavyLight Books web