The Everlasting Why

The five stages of grief are well-known, but the emotional stages of serious illness are not as well-defined. For me, shock was the first, and then activity - quickly mobilizing to take action to fight my cancer in as many ways as possible - was the second. But now that the shock has passed and there is nothing else to be done until my next treatment, I am entering a new stage - asking why. I don't mean "Why me?", maudlin self-pity. But on an intellectual level, I want to know why this happened.

Certain genes control when our cells grow, divide into new cells, and die. Genes that speed up cell division are called oncogenes, while others that slow down cell division, or cause cells to die at the right time, are called tumor suppressor genes. Mutations in DNA that turn on oncogenes or turn off tumor suppressor genes can cause a normal breast cell to become cancerous. That cell divides and becomes two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, and so on until millions of cancerous cells exist. And then you feel a lump, or something irregular shows up on a mammogram, or you feel unwell and go to the doctor. And then you are diagnosed with breast cancer. But this is how, not why.

We know the risk factors - increasing age, alcohol consumption, smoking, obesity, genetic predisposition. But I am 35 years old, young in the realm of adult cancers. I don't drink at all, ever. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. I've always been active and had a healthy diet, and I've never been overweight. My genetic test was negative. So why? Simply put, science doesn't know what caused my breast cancer. 

Like our miscarriages before Ike. Science can provide a likely explanation for miscarriages like ours: a microscopic thread of DNA uncoils and drifts away from its mate - it clings to another pair and the body recognizes that something is amiss - and so a tiny heartbeat slows, then stops. But what kind of a reason is that? Understanding the mechanics of something like that offers no more comfort than understanding the mechanics of an umbrella keeps you dry in a storm. 

I've always had an unshakable faith in science, and I've never had much of a relationship with God, but these things start to make me feel that there are more things in heaven and earth than I have dreamt of in my philosophy. Although I have great hope that modern medicine will cure my cancer, I've quickly reached the end of the answers it can give me about why it happened in the first place. The abnormal cells multiplying in my breast, the strands of fetal DNA that came unraveled - these are tragedies in my life, but of no more import to the universe than an anthill crushed by a careless foot. Science does not care about my losses or the ants'. Science may never be able to explain the whys. 

But as E. M. Forster writes, "At the side of the everlasting why, there is a yes, and a yes, and a yes." To me this means that when we meet questions that have no apparent answers, we must try to become open to further possibilities that were previously unimaginable. I feel in my heart that there is a reason that these things have happened, and if human comprehension is too limited to ever understand that reason, then I have to believe that there is something, someone greater who does.