CR | Page No. 22 | Summer 2009
been somewhat of a student of
the making of the atomic bomb,”
he says. Suddenly, this woman
appeared in his orbit—beautiful
and brilliant, and sharing his
fascination with radiation. In 1979,
the two wed over the objections of
her father (though two years later,
when her father finally met her
husband, he was won over).
Cox and Komaki remained
in Wisconsin until shortly after
Cox’s oldest daughter—he had
three children from a previous
marriage—died in a car accident at
age 18. Neither of them ever fully
recovered. When the two younger
children moved to the East Coast
for college, Komaki and her
husband transferred to Columbia
Presbyterian Medical Center in
New York City to remain close to
the children. Finally, in 1988, they
were recruited to Houston.
Komaki realized early in her
residency that she would have
difficulty working on pediatric
wards, surrounded by the
suffering of children. She felt too
sorry for them, and too haunted
by the desperate looks asking
why they were sick. “I wanted to
take care of children,” she says,
“but not sick children.” Instead, in
Houston, she has made a career
treating lung cancer.
“Every time you meet a fellow
patient, the first words out of their
mouth are, ‘Don’t you just love her?’ ”
says David Allen of Bristol, Va.,
Komaki’s goal has
always been to use
radiation for
maximum good and
minimum harm
who was diagnosed with lung
cancer in 2004. Komaki has a rare
genuineness about her, he says.
His treatment ended in November
of that year, and he was surprised
on Christmas Eve to get a phone
call from Komaki, simply wishing
him a Merry Christmas. “That just
about blew me away,” he says.
Far from the days when a dead
bird made her weep, years of
treating cancer have left her more
emotionally resilient. Nonetheless,
she still rejoices, or mourns,
with each patient. Above all, she
appreciates the fragility of life.
“It is a miracle to be alive, and
healthy,” she says.
Komaki’s goal has always been
to use radiation for maximum good
and minimum harm. She constantly
searches for ways to reduce side
effects. She understands when
patients are wary of the treatment
that might save their lives. “I know
the bad side of radiation,” she
says. Like fire, whether it helps
or hurts depends on whether it
is controlled. She plans to retire
soon, but not until she can publish
the results of key clinical trials
under way.
Once she leaves patient care,
she expects to devote her life
to gardening, traveling and
grandchildren. It is with her
grandchildren, Cox says, that
Komaki feels truly free. Two
years ago, she and Cox took his
son’s family—four grandchildren,
including an 8-year-old
granddaughter already fluent
in Japanese—for their first trip
to Japan. Seeing the statue
of Sadako through their eyes,
Komaki was proud she helped to
give such lasting meaning to her
friend’s life, and yet saddened
that more than 50 years later, the
world still lives under the specter
of nuclear bombs.
“I truly hope that the leaders of
the world understand the terrible
thing they can do,” she says. Yet
she never loses faith that her
grandchildren may one day know a
world without war. “Without hope,
it is too sad to live in this world,”
she says. She knows hope. It is the
thing with wings.
PODCAST
A Double-Edged Sword
Ritsuko Komaki knows
first-hand that radiation
has the power to hurt
and the power to heal.
Click here to listen
LISTEN NOW!
