BACK AT WORK

Another reason that people leave Michigan

 

Linda's Mom is visible through the windshield.

 

I must have taken the picture.  I can assure you, I didn't drive.

 

My vacation is over.  I had a great time in Flagstaff, and even enjoyed the brief snowstorm that nature treated us to – in early October!  Flagstaff is a college town, and it was bit unusual to see all those college girls walking to class through  a wind-driven cloud of big snowflakes – in shorts.  The rest of the time I was there the weather was great; very cold (20s) at night, but into the 70s by mid-day.  We took a short walk or two (very short, in my case) and explored a slice of the Navajo reservation.  On Monday I drove up to Grand Canyon National Park, arriving a few minutes before it was submerged by a tsunami of  Japanese tourists.  They seem to travel in family groups of about a dozen, and at each overlook they take pictures of the whole group, multiple pictures, one for each camera, all crammed up at the rail.  You’ve got to stay ahead of them or you’re sunk.  And this was just the first day the Canyon had been open.  I don’t even want to think about how it is in mid-summer.  If this sounds intolerant, forgive me.  Cultural mores differ.  Mine and theirs are really different.

So, happily, the trip went very well, until I attempted to come home.  Flagstaff is surprisingly hard to navigate, for such a small town (size of Bellingham, about).  I have an iPad (thank you, Dick Ingwall, for assuring me that I could make it work).  So, I simply set “Current Location” for starting point and “Mesa Airport” for destination.  Siri got me out of Flag unerringly and guided me efficiently to – the wrong airport.  It seems I should have "inputted" (is there really such a word?)  “Phoenix Mesa Gateway” airport.  So it wasn’t Siri’s fault, and she took me, once again unerringly, to the right place.  I was worried because I had burned my reserve time, but when I checked in a found that the plane was an hour late (fog in Bellingham).  As it happened it left about two hours late – and then diverted to Las Vegas to pick up -  a TIRE!  I got home after seven.  They didn’t even offer us free drinks!

So, anyway, Dick Ingwall is back on the job.  The NYTimes has printed an article describing the use of a new (?) class of drugs in cancer immunotherapy.   You know the basics.  The body has evolved an immune response that descends on dangerous foreign objects and kills them before (usually) they can do us much harm.  However, our immune system will stand by and watch as cancer runs riot, and do nothing.  I had always thought that this was because our white cells and T cells and all those other guardian molecules didn’t recognize the danger – cancer cells were, after all, part of “us”.  If the immune system went around killing “us”, it might, perhaps, kill brain cells.  In fact, that may be what’s going on in Washington (D.C.) right now; killer T-cells attacking the brains of our elected public servants.  Quick!  Call the CDC!

However, if I get the gist of this article, part of the problem is that at least some cancer cells coat themselves with a protective layer of specialized molecules.  Thus, this type of therapy involves smothering the protective cells, thus permitting the immune-system guardians of our health to do their thing.  Drugs have been developed and tried on seriously ill patients, with encouraging results.  They seem to be particularly effective with melanoma, but also help with several other kinds of cancer.  Ovarian was mentioned, but not elaborated on.  I will give you the URL below.  Big Pharma is waiting in the wings, checkbook in hand.  If BP can hurry us through the trials, and then get an effective drug on the market, they can have their profits and more, sez me..

I am still  perplexed, however.  How did it come about that cancer cells have learned to protect themselves in this way?  They don’t “evolve”, in any sense that I understand.  To evolve requires the "evolver" to have progeny that can benefit from an advantageous mutation.  Cancers don’t have progeny.  Or do they?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/health/breaking-through-cancers-shield.html?_r=0