Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Old Genes

When my father was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma just over a year ago, I worked with a professor who said something along the lines of "if it's any consolation, remember that your father's genes are very old and they've survived for generations." It wasn't really a consolation, because at the time I had a bad feeling about my father's diagnosis, and about how far along the cancer actually was; it was aggressive and surgery revealed substantial tumor growth in his head and neck. As it turns out, my bad feelings were right, and now I am mourning his loss.

I recount this sentiment because a little over a year later I am facing a cancer diagnosis of my own. Mine isn't skin cancer, rather it's invasive ductal carcinoma, one of the most common and most treatable forms of breast cancer. I had a terrible feeling about the lump (which is why I went to the doctor) and about the biopsy. Once again, my intuition served me well, because I got the diagnosis I did not want, but was expecting. This time, those same words that professor thought may console me actually do bring me some comfort. They have me thinking about genes (cancerous ones in particular) and the fragility of life. And unlike the bad feelings I had about my father's diagnosis and my own, I do not have bad feelings about my outcome. That may be naive, but sometimes--especially in times like these--optimism is all you've got. My genes, in various forms, have been around for centuries, and even longer. Early versions existed eons and have been passed down through entire eras. Why shouldn't they serve me well?

Life is amazing when you think about it. We start out as a hollow ball of cells called a blastulae, and if somehow we make it through that simple, silly little stage without trouble and begin to differentiate, then hey, it's nothing short of a miracle. Next, as embryos, we traverse the dangerous terrain of development, where our growth and gene expression is finely tuned, thanks to millions of years of trial and error. And if we develop as planned by our DNA, our problems aren't over yet. So many things can go wrong during these stages, and if we are lucky enough to develop as specified in the DNA blueprints, we have to go out into the real world after birth, and that isn't easy either.

We get out into the world and are bombarded by chemicals and sunlight and hormones in our food. We dodge viruses and bacteria and microbes. During all of this it is business as usual at the cellular level. Signals tell the cells when to grow, how to grow and when to divide, when to die off. If you delve deeper, into the DNA, it becomes even more detailed.

The DNA double helix unwinds, the mRNA comes in to make a copy. It copies each base, or nucleotide, of the DNA one by one, and in the correct order. There are even checkpoints, like spell check or proofreading, to avoid errors. This is all built in to our bodies. The sequence of DNA nucleotides, the As, Ts, Gs and Cs, is what makes the cells what they are. The mRNA is then shuttled out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm of the cell. Once there, it is translated into the proteins which make up, well, everything in our bodies. This process is elegant, intricate, and stunning. Life goes on. But sometimes the chemicals, sunlight and viruses can cause changes in our DNA, called mutations. In the case of many cancers, it may be one slight change, as little as one nucleotide of DNA, and it is all different. A ball of cells will begin to form. They replicate themselves and grow and don't die when they should, and they stick close together like cliques in a high school cafeteria. They make a tumor. This ball of cells gone awry is what I'm planning to bring down. Beat. Survive.

Individually my cells are fragile. So very many things can go wrong and become the squeaky wheel in the well-oiled machine that is the human body. Conversely, so many things continue to go right, too, and life, in all it's fragile beauty, goes on as it should. I have faith that my body will continue on as it should, my DNA will copy and translate as it is supposed to, it will make the right protein at the right time, as these genes have been doing for eons. And I will survive.

Originally journaled 15 May 2010

1 comment:

Andi Wolfe said...

Kate - my thoughts are with you. You have my sincere condolences on the loss of your dad.

I hope your treatment goes well.