20/2/16
I almost
ended this blog before it started. When I read the URL I saw that it could be
read as Tales-o-Fleuk. Admittedly Fleuk should be spelled fluke, but the
meaning remains. A mistake. So should I continue with a blog that could be
called "Tales of a Mistake"? I came to the decision that I would because
that's what this is all about, a mistake. In science they call it a genetic
mutation, but in the rest of the world it is just a mistake, an error.
Here is
some sciency stuff that might help. Genetic mutations happen all the time. They
are part of normal life. They are responsible for the color of tulips and the
difference between siblings (in fiction they give superheroes powers, but that
a different subject). Sometimes they are helpful, and sometimes like in the
case of leukemia less so. At the end I came to the conclusion that leukemia is
just a mistake, a fluke. It's a fluke that comes with some serious problems,
but a mistake none the less.
Genetically
speaking, it's the result of a typo. Have you ever played Whisper Down the
Line, Chinese Whispers, Telephone, or whatever name you call the game in which
you: whisper a phase in to the ear of the person next to you. Then they pass it
along to their neighbor, and so on, and so on. How often does it finish the
same as it starts? That's a mutation. Our genes do the same thing all the time,
but they play the game a lot better. Thank goodness! Thus cancer is like your
body saying, "The duck waddled wet to the Queen and stepped in poo."
instead of, "The Duke of Marlborough met Queen Anne in 1792.".
And
let's just drop the analogy there. In children's medicine I don't think you can
get anywhere once poo is mentioned, so I'll end this here
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