You submit to bodily invasions. You agree to the removal of body parts. You agree to be poisoned. You have become a cancer patient. Most of the traits and skills you bring with you from your native life are irrelevant, while strange new attributes suddenly matter.
Beautiful hair is irrelevant.
Prominent veins along the soft skin at the fold of your arm are highly prized. The ability to cook a delicious meal in thirty minutes is irrelevant. The ability to lie completely motionless on a hard platform for half and hour while your bones are scanned for signs of tumor is, conversely, quite useful. These alterations can be inherited, but the vast majority, she argues, are acquired during one's lifetime when originally healthy genes become damaged. These mutations are associated with different kinds of cancer.