I recently did another drawing activity for CureToday.com, this one on how to draw a fun little monster for Halloween. In the article accompanying it I tried to explain that I was just “trying to give those dealing with cancer a little creative break. I know all too well that there is nothing fun and lighthearted about cancer. It is truly evil you-know-what.”
For those outside the cancer community, let me share some of cancer's evilness. A study by Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that cancer has to deactivate immune cell attackers to survive. To do this, cancer cells send out microscopic tentacles that reach inside immune cells and rip out the immune cells' power source, the cells’ mitochondria.
Then there is the ability of cancer stem cells to escape programmed cell death. And the sinister ability to get past the blood-brain barrier when a lot of other things can't, including many chemotherapy drugs. Pretty evil shit if you ask me.
To be very honest, I really wanted to draw something really evil looking then write something where I unloaded every expletive in the book on cancer and all the heartache and destruction it causes. The hell with my professional, mild-mannered children’s book illustrator reputation. But I knew the readers at Cure Today were already acutely aware of the awfulness of cancer and didn’t want to read another rant by me. (I’ve already have done that enough in my other articles there.)
11/1/22
A Monster and Cancer's Evil
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