For Joyce Hsu

Joyce Hsu is the daughter of the former Chinese Nationalist ambassador to the US, Sheng Jianhong. She is a very good lady and is smart also, with a masters degree in chemistry from Cal Tech. She had breast cancer 9 years ago. In June of this year, cancer recurred again. After chemotherapy, today, October 9, she is coming out to give a speech in Santa Clara at the Annual meeting of the American Cancer Society Northern California Chinese Unit. I wanted to say hello to her and to encourage her. But, I was just unable to face a hall of cancer patients because so many of my family members have had cancer. My mother died of bile duct cancer because of diabetes, my uncle had pancreatic cancer along with diabetes, my grandfather, prostate cancer, and my great aunt still living after suffering a bout of cervical cancer and an after a hysterectomy operation, she is still living. Without female vital organ, I can’t imagine what it is like for her. Dr. Nuland wrote a book about “How We Live”, it has the entire connections of our physiology; it may give me some clues about great aunt in a clinical way. I want to do some work, mainly to speak and to help out with the old nationalists in their struggles. After some marvelous works, I can say farewell to this world. I adopted America’s life 30 years ago when I came here as an immigrant. I don’t know if that changes any biological genes or behavior. -- Written by Catherine Chuang