Hello, my name is Ellen, I’m a mutated cancer gene. I’ve been living in my host’s choroid (which is the pigmented vascular layer of the eyeball between the retina and the sclera) for a year now. Eye cancer is the most common type of cancer which occurs at the back of the eye so I am not surprised this happened to me. It arises from the pigmented cells of the choroid of the eye so it is not a tumor that started somewhere else and spread to the eye. It all started when I was a normal gene in one of her cells. One day I slowly began to transform into a weird looking gene. I didn’t know what was happening so I ignored it. Later more of the genes, including my friends, started to change. I asked the muscle cells if they could ask the skin cells if they know anything about this condition, and later I got the message that they don’t know much except for the fact that the outside of my host’s body has a bump right on top of where I am standing which was slowly growing into a huge bump.

0h, I forgot to introduce my host’s name. Her name is Kelly. She is 18 years old and really loves playing soccer and she wants to be a professional soccer player in the future. If you go to the same school with her, you may be able to see her running on the grass field after school on days when it is not raining. She is very healthy and athletic so she might not know that I, a cancer gene, is living in her eye. The cause of her cancer is kind of hereditary but also because she is outside a lot, she might have gotten too must ultraviolet rays.

Including myself, all mutated genes are getting pulled away from each other right now to spread apart and I cannot control myself. She can probably see tiny dots that look like bugs and dust in her eye because of this mutation. Right now, she has trouble with sight because of us, but also fatigue, and that isn’t the only symptom she has. She sometimes sees dazzling light that blocks her vision so she has difficulty scoring points during soccer games. She recognizes the seriousness of the situation and finally decides to see a doctor. The doctor told her that I must get removed through surgery, which is a treatment that involves either a laser, radiation, or an implant of radioactive material that may preserve vision and save her eye. I love my host and I don’t want to leave her, but I am dangerous and can kill her so I am willing to do this for her. The surgery would not be successful if the tumor turns out to be too large, but I know it is not too big because my friends and I are not too far away from each other. I hope the surgery will be successful so she can see clearly again and become the best soccer player in the world.

part 2)

1) What questions did you need to research in order to create your cancer story?

What is eye cancer?

How does eye cancer form?

What are the symptoms of eye cancer?

What are the types of treatment?

How many people die of eye cancer?

Is eye cancer deadly?

What causes eye cancer?

How does the inside of the eye look like?

Which section of the eye starts the tumour formation?

 

2) What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project?

The familiar tools I used were Wikipedia and Korean websites like Naver.com.

A new digital tool I used were YouTube videos because I wanted to see diagrams and images instead of just words.

3) What was the process you used to investigate the topic?

I started with research to learn about Eye cancer. I took notes on important information and with the notes, I made an outline of the story and created the characters. I wrote my rough copy, asked my cousin to read it, and finally, I wrote my good copy.

4) How did you verify and cite the information you found?

I checked that the information was correct by going on multiple websites to check that the information was all the same.

5) How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?

It was a fun challenge. I never had to write anything like this before, but I think it was a good way because I learned a lot about this type of cancer and mutation. I would have liked to spend more time on research because I want to know exactly how the gene gets mutated and also spend more time on making the story more interesting.