38 THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW and strung-together ligaments. Theoretically, I should want to leave that still, sterile room and see what and who is out there beyond these boring white walls. But it seems to me that I will find an equally boring white hallway inhabited by purposeful nurses and the occasional scurrying doctor. I will stand out as one of their subjects that is passing through, un-belonging and only temporarily tethered to their domain by IV lines in my arm and a pulse ox monitor on my finger and the sickness that is constantly ebbing and flowing within me like the gray January ocean that churns only a couple miles away. I want to see that ocean, not rooms of sick kids surrounded by poisonous drugs and tired families and endless prayers. *** In World War I, chemical warfare agents like mustard gas caused the deaths of over 90,000 people. From the bodies of 75 autopsied soldiers, scientists found a common component in each: a decrease of white blood cells. Their research led Yale University to begin special investigations into chemical warfare agents during World War II. In 1943, U.S. Army doctors recorded a similar decrease of white blood cell counts in their patients from the German air raid on Bari, Italy. These studies led to the development of chlormethine, which became the first chemotherapy drug used to treat cancer. Between cancerous cells and mustard gas, the latter proves the victor, a poison even greater
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