Emotion
by Jeff
Image text: Fortunately, the internet has a virtually inexhaustible supply of code that doesn't work and people who are wrong, which bodes well for a return to normalcy. [Note: Click to read context for the cancer comics. She's doing well.]
Here's the link referenced in the image text, which is a blog post from 2011 regarding his fiancee's breast cancer.
As you can read at that link, that is what he's referring too.
The only other reference in this comic is Joss Whedon, who (per Wikipedia so I didn't miss anything) is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002) and Dollhouse (2009–2010).
The 2006-2007 timeline does not mesh with any of the airdates of the above shows. It is possible Randall caught up with Firefly or Buffy at a later date, like most of us.
T-Cells
by Jeff
Image text: 'We're not sure how to wipe out the chimeral T-cells after they've destroyed the cancer. Though I do have this vial of smallpox ...'
This is another cancer and leukemia related comic, in this comic, two characters are having a discussion about a new trial treatment. A trial is a treatment that is not yet passed all of the hurdles to become an official drug or treatment, but it available to a certain set of patients based on the pharma company's set of criteria.
In this case, the two characters are talking about a trial in which the doctors take cells out of the patients body and treat it with specific code to attack the cancer. However, to make the cell replicate fast enough to match the replication of the cancer cells, they have treated the cells with HIV. HIV is Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which is the precursor to AIDS.
Basically, this treatment seems to replace one terrible disease with another terrible disease. As the image text says, they don't know how to get rid of the HIV cells after they remove the cancer. And the last part of the image text is a joke, in which the doctor suggests yet another disease to inject into the patients body.
Tattoo
by Jeff
Image text: I calculate that the electrons in radiation therapy hit you at 99.8% of the speed of light, and the beam used in a 90-second gamma ray therapy session could, if fired with less precision, kill a horse (they did not let me test this).
So, an Oncologist is a cancer doctor. This comic is certainly related to the breast cancer issue that Randall is going through with his fiancee. So, pardon my very simple explanation, but Megan in this comic has a tattoo for aligning the laser for surgery to remove or treat the cancerous tumor inside her. I'm not sure if it is a real tattoo (because it says it was done by her Oncologist) or if it some sort of scarring from the procedure. I am not an expert on this, can some subject matter expert weigh in below? I know you are out there.
In the last frame, Cueball mentions that he has a barbed wire bicep tattoo, which is a stereotypically in the US, a tattoo that people get when they want to seem tough, even if they aren't tough already.
Anyway, the joke in the comic is that Cueball got this barbed wired tattoo to look tough, but it pales in comparison to the tattoo from (or for) the cancer removal or treatment. This is ironic because people who get barbed wired tattoos believe themselves to be tough. It is kind of funny because Cueball has his whole shirt off just to show a bicep tattoo.