Unusual Vs Impossible

How many times in our lives we really distinguish between unusual and impossible? We assume in good faith that life threatening diseases happen to others ('liver problems? The guy must be living in the swamp of alcohol 24x7!'); AIDS happens to the people who do weird stuff in their bedroom(s), so on and so forth. Middle class upbringing encourages the impression that it is almost impossible to have these diseases. What we tend to forget that it is not unusual to have these diseases for an average young person (even tall, dark, handsome, intelligent, not so average, such as myself.... OK I exaggerate, maybe not that tall).

The theory of life, as such, is built on 'impossibility' premise and not on 'unusual' phenomenon. My wife alludes my liver tumor to Kolkata water. I forgot the name of the philosopher now, he proposed that human minds always like to think 'rationally'. i.e. we always try to fit everything in cause-and-effect box. Thus it is easier to convince people to buy more lottery tickets(?)...er sorry, got in the moment there. Actually this is a popular proposition in Artificial Intelligence systems where computers try to be as rational as possible to pass the Turing Test.

It took me long time to convince her (and internet medical sites helped too) about the time it takes to get a tumor of this size. Kolkata water or not, this was going to happen (to be fair, the Salt Lake water *is* bad, and people do die because of that, but I think that happens instantaneously rather than delayed). In all chaos of asymptomatic diseases, she was trying to find a reason that explains the cancer. Well... on the second thoughts it is just as good that I did not tell her about my drinking binge and cigar smoking or brown sugar addiction, that would have given her some reasons. On the serious note, I was practically in denial at first when I heard I had a cancer. I felt like Peanuts cartoon, 'why me?' (and then the voice from sky said, 'why not you?').

My life was based on 'impossible' premise, thus I never thought about the cancer. The best guess was heart disease (now this one happens to even the best of us). The first oncologist I met kept telling me unusual presentation of my tumor and related cancer. Like my wife, all doctors were also trying to find the cause-and-effect. They needed something to go by. None of them wanted to concede that it is not unusual for young people with no background (and no sufficient social standing) to have cancer. Thanks to the medical education system and what have you, they always thought it is impossible to study non-alcoholic young patients with liver cancer in India. Well, my case should teach them to be prepared at all times. Next time they wouldn't be making second guesses at casual breathlessness. The world of medical diagnosis as we know it, would be fundamentally changed; people with breathlessness and left shoulder pain would be checked for cancer first and cardiac problems later. There would be package advertisements about cancer checks and cardiac diagnosis would be part of routine physical. Hospitals would compete with each other to diagnose liver cancer first. In short, Cancer would no longer be an impossible disease, it would be categorized to mere unusual. I look forward to that day.

Latest biopsy revealed that I have neuroendocrine carcinoma and not HCC so I might live after all. It is unusual but not impossible!