When I was first diagnosed with a brain tumour five years ago, I (for a short while) became obsessed with statistics. This happens easily , as the minute you type "brain tumour" into google, you are bombarded with page after page of facts and figures. These range fronm useful sights- BT buddies and Cancer research- I salute you!, to the less than helpful work of scare-mongerers, which offer no support at all! It was around this internet searching that I came across the most honest quotattion "When it comes to cancer, you are a statistic of one"(hence the title of this blog!)Over the last five years (and probably more now thanever) this quote has held incresing relevance for me. The more I have learned about my condition, the more I've realised that no two cancerss are exactly the same. For starters the amount of different cancers is huge. There are about 120 different types of brain tumour alone - that's not even considering the various cancers of other points of the body. Even when two people have the same type, they can react differently; one person can feel severely ill, another (like me- luckily) has all the symptoms, but no nausia or pain to speak of. THe danger of relying on statistics, is that it can be up setting. ultimally, for someone like me, who has had a high grade glioma, the statistics aren't good; I have a higher risk of short life expectancy, and (clearly) a higher risk of recurrance. Maybe in part, because I like living in a self-denial bubble, I avoid reading statistics now, as unless it happens to me, I don't need to know. Besides it's always worth remembering, that statistics work on a system of averages; there href=are always people outside the margins, we are forever reading in the press about people who beat the odds, or baffle scientists by doing better than expected, it tends to be these stories which I take more notice in.
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