Circle theory and kvetching

In early 2015 I had a fantastic conversation with my favorite psychologist at Barnes about something she called circle theory. (Somebody recently posted a link on fb about the idea and it reminded me of that conversation.) My psychologist drew some circles inside of each other, explaining that I was the most inner circle, the next circle was Hector, then my closest family and friends, then other family and friends, and so on. I could try to explain it but this article does a pretty good job.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407



I didn't catch cancer like you catch a cold. It's me, my own cells, that for some reason have decided to grow abnormally. To form the tumor that I had in my colon, it likely started with a mutation during cell growth some 5-10 years before I was diagnosed. YEARS.

Cells divide and have mutations every single day. But what causes particular mutated cells to then continue to multiply?

Since my colon tumor grew all the way through the wall of my colon, the mutated cells traveled within my body cavity to my ovaries, to my omentum, to my diaphragm... and who knows where else. The mutated cells got in my blood stream and traveled to my liver... and who knows where else. And the mutated cells entered my lymphatic system and traveled to lymph nodes in my abdomen... and who knows where else. So sure, surgery has removed the original tumor but those tiny mutated cells are now part of me. My scans might not have shown any evidence of disease for awhile but that's because individual cells are minuscule. When the liver tumors appeared on my CT scan in December, they were being measured at 4 to 6 millimeters each, and that's millions of cells. The mutated cells were there all along, just too small to be seen. Chemo has destroyed many cells and hopefully slowed their growth. And it has hopefully slowed the progression of my disease, but I haven't done something wrong and I haven't missed doing something. The cancer was there and IS there. It will adapt to the chemotherapy and there's nothing that I can do about it.

That is the story inside my circle.