A Short Story

Homeless Cancer Researcher/Author Needs Help

            I begrudgingly write this, but somehow think it’s necessary.  Yes I am homeless and have been for seven years.  Even though during four of those seven years I was getting a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts, I was still not in my home, but merely renting a room.  I am a cancer researcher and in my mind have been since I was thirteen years old.  Now I’m sixty and have a long story to tell.  I’ll deposit the short version here and leave the more detailed account in my autobiography, which is basically already written and called, “Terminal Cancer.”  More about that later, but right now I need to explain exactly why I’m writing this.  The title is accurate.  At the moment I do live in a homeless shelter and I do need help because at the end of this month (January, 2014) I’ll have to leave, but will have nowhere to go.  I’m pretty sure I’ll figure out what to do when that time comes; I always do.  The “help” part of the title really has to do with the fact that I need help having people understand me, what I do, and why I’m homeless.

Let’s start at the beginning when I was 13 and after having really understood what a cell is decided to become a cancer researcher.  All of the decisions made from that point on were guided by that desire.  From pre-med in high school to a science major at Villanova University, the goal was the same: do cancer research.  Landed my first cancer research job as a Research Assistant at the prestigious Wistar Institute on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus and from there to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where for 15 years I worked as a Research Associate for this wonderful oncologist who looked after patients with the skin cancer melanoma.  Our laboratory was the first in this country to recreate in the lab the exact cellular immune response to cancerous cells that was seen in patients.  Eventually I received my PhD in Immunology at Penn and the cancer immunity model we designed, which was part of my thesis was used with other data to create a new type of cancer therapy called cancer immunotherapy.  After another 15 years of doing mostly grant-funded research the funds and cancer research positions became scarce just after the war in Iraq started.  So after 30 years of laboratory research I decided to make a decision, which was either to continue to write grants that were accepted, but not funded and keep looking a research positions, or do something else. 

Because of my considerable cancer immunity knowledge I decided to become an author and write books about cancer.  I had suffered from separation anxiety when I changed positions after 15 years in the same lab.  I didn’t want to experience it again so that meant I had to leave my old life behind, which included my home.  The books I’m publishing are both non-fiction and fiction.  The non-fiction books (one published in 2011 and one in 2014) are about immunity to cancer.  The fiction books are narrative fiction novels about people and cancer in the future.  One of each has been published so far and two more books should be published this year.  All of this has to do with the fact that during those 30 years I got to know well over 500 cancer patients and their families.  I had become a cancer interpreter to cancer patients that I not only met in the hospitals where I did research, but also patients that were my family members or those of friends.  Because I had a basic understanding of the types of cancer and the associated treatments, I would often be asked to talk to the patient and or their physician.  Then I would go back to the patient and family members to help them understand in laymen’s terms what was going on. 

It’s hard to explain what I’ve seen and experienced through doing this, but I do know it is a part of this life-long mission I’ve been on.  I don’t think about not having money or a home because of this.  I do want others who don’t understand me and what I do to realize that cancer is what I do regardless of what I have to go through.  It pales in comparison to some of the things I’ve seen in my lifetime as far as cancer is concerned.  My thing is: Don’t worry about me, but worry about either you getting cancer or that patient you know and if researchers can develop even more advanced cancer therapies in order to make it a survivable disease.  This is not really about me, but everyone else because anyone can get this disease and until it’s turned into a livable chronic condition we can live with, the suffering and death will never end.  This is the help I need.  I can take care of the rest it on my own.  The only other thing I have to say is: “Google me.”