[Chat] The Big Conundrum

[Datameister]

*original content removed*

I didn't intend to offend or upset anyone with this thread. The original post still survives in quoted form below, however, at least at the time of this writing. If you've lost a loved one to cancer, you may or may not want to continue reading.

[Ride Warrior]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Cancer is a curious thing. Left untreated, it kills. But it's not that it wants to kill. It doesn't want anything, not even its own survival. It's just a perfectly natural mathematical solution to the complex equation of life, in which growth relies on the individual cells doing their job and making more cells. Somewhere along the line, the process goes wrong from time to time, and a cell or two develops misconceptions about how it's supposed to do its job. Sometimes that amounts to nothing, but sometimes it can create very serious problems for the organism. See, the cancerous cells by their very nature reproduce at an accelerated rate, spreading into surrounding tissues, replacing and displacing normally functioning cells.

Now, up till a certain point, fixing the problem is comparatively simple. You go in and you cut out the tumor, and perhaps use some other treatments to seal the deal. Not pleasant, not convenient, and the cancerous cells certainly don't benefit from the process, but the body as a whole can now survive. The real problems happen if the tumor is allowed to metastasize, to start leaking the cancer into the bloodstream or lymph system. Then the cancer can take root in countless areas of the body. It ceases to have a single source. It is everywhere. Naturally, there are still plenty of cells that continue to function flawlessly, but the cancer is nonetheless too widespread, and if nothing is done, massive systemic failure can result. The body dies.

How do you kill a cancer that is everywhere and nowhere? How do you eradicate a grim genetic failure that occasionally arises as a natural consequence of the genes doing exactly what they need to do? How do you completely excise the disease without excising everything that still works, when the disease can unexpectedly manifest in those tissues that previously seemed benign?

And once you have developed a plan of attack, how do you get that treatment to a patient who cannot be convinced that something is very, very wrong?

The first thought that comes to mind is my desire to know the reason you have asked the question and ied a response? Is it rhetorical?...simple curiosity?...or is there someone you know that is facing this unfortunate counundrum?

Without knowledge as to how the question is connected to your interest, allow me to mention that there are medical cures to more forms of cancer today than ever before. Plus, God sometimes works His magic on forms that their are no known cures for.

[CinderellaStory]

Re: The Big Conundrum



A grim post, but it made me happy. Good luck proving that point without offending people though.

[Bruce Bergman]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Okay, you have described the solution, and a patient that is too close to the problem to where they can't see it even is a problem let alone that it needs to be solved - What's the problem you want to apply the metaphor to?

(I can come up with a dozen, but you started this...)

--<< Bruce >>--

[wesnmegan+4]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Data, is this some sort of metaphor of Disneyland management?

[orbitalpunk]

Re: The Big Conundrum

I am not sure if you are relating cancer to the AP/Crowd problem in Disneyland since you posted it in Disneyland. But if you really do have questions about real cancer, I have some input. Has it entered the Lymph system yet? What Stage are they at. I have plenty of input. I just need to know how far it is?

[Ride Warrior]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Why the metaphor, if it is such? Out with it, please.

[Kasey]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Data...do you watch House?

[Ride Warrior]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Disneyland management is a debilitating cancer that cannot be cured, if this is the analogy you are alluding to.

[Sir Didymus]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Maybe he's conducting some sort of social experiment and we are the lab rats.
Let's see what sort of problem we can come up with to fit such a vague and ominous explanation...............
Hmm, I vote for "churro sales" )

[dland_lover]

Re: The Big Conundrum

I vote for Walt Disney Co. management, especially in relation to Disneyland, as the subject of this metaphor.

[HiddenMickeyBook]

Re: The Big Conundrum

If I can personalize it, my husband spent a year getting sick where we didn't know what exactly was wrong. His brother came down with the same thing first. He went on Chemo for a year with all the debilitating sides. Then he spent a year getting over the treatment. There has been no relapse.

Sometimes it takes a while to find what is wrong and then treat it. Then you have to wait to see if the treatment works. Sometimes it does. work and things can go on. Sometimes it doesn't and a different treatment has to be tried.

Does this fit the analogy?

[CinderellaStory]

Re: The Big Conundrum

If I can personalize it, my husband spent a year getting sick where we didn't know what exactly was wrong. His brother came down with the same thing first. He went on Chemo for a year with all the debilitating sides. Then he spent a year getting over the treatment. There has been no relapse.

Sometimes it takes a while to find what is wrong and then treat it. Then you have to wait to see if the treatment works. Sometimes it does. work and things can go on. Sometimes it doesn't and a different treatment has to be tried.

Does this fit the analogy?

First of all, sorry to hear that people you care about had to go through that. Glad to know they are doing OK now.

And I BELIEVE this fits the analogy very well. Of course, I am only guessing on the meaning of the OP like everyone else here.

[CaliforniaAdventurer]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Careful not to offend Walt's Warriors.

[Ride Warrior]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Careful not to offend Walt's Warriors.

Aye!

[dland_lover]

Re: The Big Conundrum

I just know that Joe wouldn't have posted this in here, if it didn't pertain to Disneyland... somehow.

[Sir Didymus]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Well at least we know one thing.........

[Ride Warrior]

Re: The Big Conundrum

Well at least we know one thing.........

Could be a cancerous form of gastrointeritis.

[Datameister]

Re: The Big Conundrum

The question means whatever you think it means.

Unless you think it means that a person I know is dying of cancer, that is, which thankfully is not currently the case.

Although I do have my own interpretations of the question, I'm really more interested in whatever thought, discussion, and answers it provokes in all of you. I posted it in the Disneyland forum intentionally.

[Sir Didymus]

Re: The Big Conundrum

I knew we were being tested! )

Thanks, Data for the brain workout!