HELEN KOENTGES

by Chris Koentges
Illustrations by Julie McLaughlin

The key term in Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is multi-forme. (Please bear with me through the science of this.) Multiforme means that there are multiple forms of cancerous cells, glioblastoma means that these forms are exceedingly malignant. Consequently, GBM always evolves towards:

(a) its most malignant form—which is also:
(b) the form that makes it most difficult to destroy.

And so you already see the paradox: by treating GBM—if you choose to treat it—you are, by definition, creating a stronger, more resistant mutation with each attempt. Craniotomies. Radiation. Temodol beyond the bounds of the clinic’s established protocol. Experimental virus therapy. Green tea, fresh dandelion, a poisonous cocktail of intravenous Carboplatin mixed with the maximum dose of Tamoxifen—the shock-and-awe that almost wipes GBM out one day only creates an increasingly awesome mutation of it the next. On and on until you’re left with something indestructible growing inside your brain, until one day, there is no space left inside your brain for it to grow.

The alternative? Well, researchers have witnessed the mass of an untreated GBM tumour double in a week, then double again, and again and again until—well, GBM very seldom fails. And there’s something to be said on GBM’s behalf for that. It is efficient. We are a culture that respects efficiency above all else. Such is the calibre of GBM’s efficiency, in fact, that it is scientifically quantified by the prognosis: “six months (give or take).”
Cancer can receive no higher compliment than “six months give or take.” And that will be the last it gets from us today.

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