As you may, or may not, know my astrological sign is Cancer the Crab. I don't find anything too offensive in being a hard exoskeleton having crustacean with pincers. I do however resent the fact that my Zodiacal namesake has also been paired to one of the most deadly and dreaded diseases that one may contract; cancer. Apparently it is all the fault of the early Greek physician Claudius Galenus who thought that the swollen veins surrounding a tumor resembled a crabs limbs.
Now, I grant that that particular cancer cell bears some minute resemblance to a crab, especially when colored red like that, though I say that it more closely resembles a sea urchin. Why couldn't the bad news you hope not to hear at the doctor's office be: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but... you have Urchin." A quick google of "cancer cells" find many more images that do not resemble a crab, in fact many are in pairs and remind me more of testicles or 'gonads.' "I'm afraid you have Gonads of the prostate.." Alas, no, instead the poor shelled crustacean of the Zodiac gets his good name dragged through the mud and is forever associated in people's minds with the diagnosis equivalent of a death sentence.
I even found THIS awesome representation of the zodiac symbol
in an article about Farrah Fawcett's battle with, and succumbing to, cancer.
I guess I just wanted to write this blog to vent (and gripe a little) about being the only member of the Zodiac to be tied to such a distasteful and unpopular ailment. It peeves me off a little. Thanks a lot Doctor Galenus! Why couldn't you have seen a spider-looking cancer tumor, or the gonadal pictures that are all over the internet nowadays? Ah well.. I guess I could be all dark and morbid and relish in the fact that my signs name is the only one so dreaded in hospital corridors. Watch out for Cancer's.. they have a most deadly condition named after them...
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