CIS

The following is my satire on trying to understand medical terminology. It is in no way intended to make light of, or offend those with serious medical conditions, especially cancer.


You have the opportunity to learn new things every day. Here is my expression of my experience attempting to understand CIS, or Carcinoma in Situ.

I will lump myself along with most people’s basic understanding of the term carcinoma – bad. Carcinoma generally means cancer. While not all cancer is terminal, there is a pretty scary overall connotation of the word. I mean, nothing good generally comes from it, right?

I listen to Kids Place Live, a children’s radio station. Recently one of their hosts, Absolutely Mindy, expressed that she had finished up a round of chemo, and as always, tried to explain the idea of cancer in a friendly accessible and not-so-scary way to her listeners. She said cancer is when the cells in your body go all bonker-balls and form gangs and attack the other cells in your body. Sounds like a good basic description. Let’s build off that.

The first thing they try to tell you when you get test results is that CIS is not really cancer; it is benign. Ok, that sounds better, but how exactly does this work?

I conducted several web searches for the meaning of “in situ.” The jist I got was that it’s something that has remained in its place of origin. That does contradict Cancer.org’s definition that “Cancer is a disease in which some of the body’s cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body.“ Ok, good, it’s something odd, but it’s not out of control. That should help us feel a bit better. Maybe? From numerous other searches, what I gleaned is it’s cells that look like cancer, but don’t act like cancer. Still sounds a bit apprehensive, but ok. Something looks a bit wonky, but it’s not bonker-balls out of control yet.

With my various trepidtations and ups and downs with this news, along with my twisted sense of humor, I cam up with this anaology. Carcinoma in situ: cancer at home.

Instead of forming gangs and attackinig the neighborhood, it’s just haning out at home, maybe reading a good book by the fireplace and taking it easy. It looks like cancer, but so far it’s keeping the peace, staying put, and not causing problems. Something to keep an eye on, for sure, but that’s probably where the analogy should end. Otherwise we start talking about privacy invation and stereotypes just because someone looks like they shouldn’t be in the neighborhood and I’m pretty sure we should go there.

The sucky thing is that in the meantime, searching carcinoma in situ (as recommended by the health provider) you get results anywhere from saying it's stage 0 cancer and should be treated immediately while it is still curable, to eh, don't do anything but wait and watch. These are only websites that are supposed to be fairly reputable. WebMD, Mayo Clinic, various hospitals and cancer intitute. Whatever. Wait. Check back in a few months. Try not to worry (yeah right).