They left home as boys 8 decades ago to go out and save the world. Last night they sat at the WWII Memorial together and celebrated their country's 250th. Still heroic.
To find a hidden tumour, they inject you with radioactive sugar and photograph where it goes.
It works, reliably, because the cancer drinks that glucose so greedily it flares up on the scan like a bonfire while the healthy tissue around it sits dark. The entire technology rests on one fact nobody says out loud in the room: the tumour runs on sugar, and it will outbid the rest of your body for every last gram of it.
We have known about this appetite for the better part of a century. We built a vast imaging industry on the back of it. We use it today, in every major hospital, to hunt the disease down.
Then, having located the cancer by following the sugar, they bring round the lunch trolley. White toast. Tinned fruit in syrup. A carton of juice, a biscuit, and a leaflet recommending plenty of wholesome carbohydrates to keep your strength up.
We spend a fortune using sugar to find the thing.
Then we sit the patient down and feed it.
Read that twice.