“Cancer will give me its best shot, but I’m gonna duck and knockout that monster -POW- right in the kisser!” - B.V.D. (1939 – 2002 | RIP)

Those were the words said by my grandma as she battled lung cancer. As a young scientist, I vowed to cure her, but nothing could be done as her cancer spread to her brain.  All I could do was to let the cancer punch her repeatedly with her guard down. Her only defense was to "duck," and her body could never mount an offensive counterattack. “Duck cancer,” she would say, “Duck it all day long…” One day, she succumbed to her disease. Her suffering was finally over.  

I wanted to face my grandma's nemesis head on so I went to medical school and chose Pathology as my specialty. Pathologists diagnose cancers as part of their job, and I've come across nearly every type. Cancer can be subtle, yet so sinister as it takes out your organs. Cancer can also be beautiful.   

You must be thinking, “How can you say that?” I have spent thousands of hours looking at cancer through the microscope. Images of cancer filled my eyes during the day, and cancer cells danced around in my dreams. In order to fully understand the enemy, you must befriend it to figure out weaknesses. I've moved on from my grandma's passing, but her spirit lives on as I work relentlessly to undermine the mechanisms of cancer.

I continue to believe in my dream of curing cancer and I'm not alone. I have noticed several “F-CK Cancer” campaigns, of which I can sympathize with. I was pleasantly surprised during President Obama's State of the Union address. He announced the establishment of a “Cancer Moonshot” in order to eliminate cancer as we know it.   

Pathology is a pattern-identifying discipline which takes years to master.  To garner wide interest in my photo blog, I will show the original image and then apply an art filter.  With the art filters, you will notice some very neat patterns of cancer. Thank you in advance for your support!

The original image at the top is the cancer type that took away my grandma—squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. Notice the large “keratin pearl” in the left side. These cancers can spread aggressively.