When someone is diagnosed with a rare disease and it looks like their days could be numbered, it can often be difficult to cope. Many people simply don’t want to think about it.
Paul Curry, a programmer from the UK, was facing this situation after he was diagnosed with mycosis fungoides, a type of non-Hodgkins cutaneous T-cell lymphoma that affects the skin. Symptoms can include skin lesions, tumors, rashes, and itchy skin. The five year survival rate is sixty-nine percent. It tends to affect men at a higher rate than women. To learn more about this disease, click here.
After his diagnosis, Curry got a fully body CT scan. Afterwards, he asked the hospital to give him the imaging data. To his surprise, they were perfectly willing to oblige. He then created multiple copies of his own skeleton using a three dimensional printer. Although the copies were only ten percent of life size, Curry’s counselor was just a little creeped out.
Although printing his own skeleton may come across as bizarre behavior, for Curry, the skeletons are mostly serving as a way to distract himself from the news of having to face his new affliction. He even took to twitter to post images of the skeleton copies. Curry said that printing the skeletons was just one in a series of steps he took in an attempt to process the news of his cancer.
At the end of the day, this story just demonstrates that there are many ways that people cope with the stress and anguish that comes with receiving a scary diagnosis. After all, it is far better to find ways to bear the stress than to allow it to harm you; mental illness and depression are common experiences after a new diagnosis. Regardless of how strange it may seem to others, printing your own skeleton multiple times sounds like a swell idea if it means staving off further anxiety or failing to handle the news altogether. Perhaps, in a round about sort of way, printing off the skeletons is helping Curry come to terms with his mortality. Read more about this story in the International Business Times.
