Meditation

• Tiny, pink slivers of live human tissue suspended in clear liquid, like floating bonito flakes.
• These are the source of my existential dread, the unravelling of my world over the past nine years?
• Not for the first time on this wild ride, managing a stage 4, metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis, I ponder how I got here.
• More specifically, how I’ve ended up on this unlikely date with my nemesis.
• (I think cancer qualifies – so full of itself, so little room for anything else, endlessly taking up space, so oblivious to the suffering of others.)

Fragile rogues

• This skill-set, and a staunch fearlessness to stake her ground in a male-dominated field, led to the formation of this group.
• After reading my memoir of my cancer diagnosis, Patting the Shark, Risbridger invited me aboard this hub of cutting-edge medical research.
• The Monash group has one of the largest collections of live prostate cancer cells in the world.
• Prostate cancer is now Australia’s most common form of cancer, having recently overtaken breast cancer.
• Ironically, these rogue cells, which wreak such havoc and are so difficult to eradicate in the human body, are extraordinarily fragile and challenging to keep alive outside of it.

‘Rigour, reproducibility, accuracy’

• She was at the forefront of the emerging field of stem cell research, and learnt to manipulate stem cells to become prostate cells.
• “Understanding the mechanisms that control normal versus tumour growth from stem cells is crucial,” she says.
• “Hand-eye co-ordination is very critical, and good fine motor skills are needed to handle these delicate cells and tissues.
• The other lucky break was then-US President George W. Bush’s prohibition of the emerging field of stem cell research on ethical grounds.
• Risbridger was funded by the US Department of Defence to work on prostate stem cells for over eight years.

Delicate-loooking intruders

• Wang and I step into an antechamber between the offices and the lab, and don handsome blue smocks, hair nets and latex gloves.
• Surely, I wonder, it must be possible to eradicate these delicate-looking intruders from the human body without making life feel almost unbearable for their unfortunate hosts.
• So far this has proven elusive for prostate cancer because of its tendency to mutate and find ways around existing treatments.
• Identifying which patients might respond to immunotherapy and how it is best delivered remains an ongoing investigation here.

Tempting fate?

• Healthy prostate cells look a little like the inside of a pomegranate, ordered, fairly uniform in shape and size and spacing.
• Prostate cancer cells appear more haphazard, misshapen, clumped together randomly as they mutate and multiply without restraint.
• The degree of chaos in the cells’ appearance reflects the aggressiveness of the cancer and is measured by something called a Gleason Score.
• I wonder if I am tempting fate with this close encounter, giving visual reality to a threat that has lain dormant for several years, giving me an unexpected reprieve.