Undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, she finds her moods turning gloomy. From reading the classics, she discovered that the Chinese character for cancer (癌) has no particular etymology of meaning but rather is just a frightening pictograph. "The character itself terrifies people. Its center is composed of a 品 standing on the top of a mountain (山).
得了癌症接受化學治療以及放射治療，她心情轉壞，再加上遍讀世界名著，發現中文的癌字，沒有特別意思，卻是可怕的象形文字：「癌字本身令人畏懼，字心是『品』，聳立在一座『山』上… … 使人想到山崗上令人心寒的纍纍白骨」。