Psychodynamics of four women with delayed cancer diagnosis.
Four young women from 28 to 35 years old were referred for psychiatric evaluation because of anxiety, depression, and rage following diagnosis and treatment (radical hysterectomy in all plus radiation therapy in two) of carcinoma of the cervix. Negligence and dishonesty on the part of the laboratory that reported their Pap smears as normal when actually they had been either carelessly examined or not read at all intensified their emotional reactions of shock, panic, and fury. Feelings of injustice and victimization and fantasies about the laboratory technicians, who were women in their age group, complicated the clinical picture. The depressions that ensued in all of the women were prolonged and the working-through processes were impaired despite the fact that three haveIntroduction {#Sec1}
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Ephemeral comes from Greek "ephémeros", which means transitory and quickly fading, lasting only one day. In botany, an ephemeral plant is a short-lived plant that has one or more generations per year, growing only during favourable periods (e.g., when adequate water is available), and surviving the unfavourable periods in the form of seeds^[@CR1]^. In China, ephemeral plants are mainly distributed in the desert environments of the Junggar Basin and the Yili River valley in northern Xinjiang, with the eastern margin of the Junggar Basin as the boundary. Ephemeral plants sprout in mid-March or early April each year, making use of rain and snow water melt from Tianshan Mountain, and complete their life-cycle within approximately two months by mid-June, a period with the strongest wind force in the