run, peter, run!

My sister and I remember a story we heard as teenagers about someone who had cancer and would imagine his/her T cells attacking the cancer cells one by one, I believe with an ax.

My guided imagery? The cancer cells are weeds and I am the gardener. On my knees, bent over, uprooting every little unwanted bit of green out of the immaculate bed I am keeping. Armed with spade and hoe. Round Up and Diligence. Checking my rows again and again for anything that is not meant to be there. Looking over my freshly turned earth at the end of the day with satisfaction. Wiping a bead of sweat under my wide-brimmed hat.

Now that I realize I am going to have to fight this thing using my immune system, the Garden Warrior is obviously weak-sauce. No hard drugs to come in and kill this thing, just some help to get my own system to attack. I have to get it from the inside out. I need a stronger superhero. Someone a bit more intimidating than Mr. McGregor. Hmmm...

I am excited to see what they are going to tell me about the FDA approval of Yervoy. I think it sets up the perfect plan for me. Get the vaccine injections, which are supposed to get the virus into the cancer cells, telling the immune system to attack it and the cancer cell it has invaded. I think I have built a tolerance to melanoma, and my body is no longer recognizing it as foreign. The vaccine should change that. So the body tags all the cancer cells in the body to be killed. I do this for a while, and then get the tumor removed (it will be dead in my case). Then we start the Yervoy, which blocks the cancer's anticancer immune response and all hell breaks loose on anything left inside because those cells are already tagged to die. It never comes back. I am saved forever. The end.