The bad news
Headaches I started feeling in October turned out to be caused by a brain tumour that I later found out may have been years in the making.
The really bad news
The tumour was classified as the most aggressive type—grade IV, otherwise known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). One of the first things the doctors always said to me is not to google it; ‘some of the information out there will freak you out’. And if you do google it, ‘DON’T PANIC’!! Of course google it was the first thing I did when we got home.
What kind of information were the doctors referring to? Things like the life expectancy curve: a minority of less fortunate patients survive for just a few months after treatment, the median survives for 14.7 months, and another minority of the fortunate survive into what doctors call the ‘long-term’, 5+ years.
Yeah, DON’T PANIC.
The good news
’Variation is the very essence of nature. In nature, the median is a "law" that the human mind tries to impose on the diverse profusion of individual cases’. These are the words of David Servan-Schreiber, a man who survived a couple of malignant brain tumours over two decades. Like him, my aim is to be in the long tail of the curve.
Fortunately I have a few important things on my side. The molecular structure of my brain should respond well to treatment—for instance, I’ve been complimented on the MGMT methylation of my brain! I have no clue what this means, but I've been told it's a good thing. My 'youth'—he exclaims paradoxically on his birthday—and obsession with veggie-smoothy-fuelled cycling should add another boost.
And then there are my allies. I pray God is with me. And hopefully my oncologist too; who is a bit of a god, in British medical circles at least. And you: knowing this adventure is a team effort gives me the confidence we will do better than the median, and reminds me to DON'T PANIC.
Headaches I started feeling in October turned out to be caused by a brain tumour that I later found out may have been years in the making.
The really bad news
The tumour was classified as the most aggressive type—grade IV, otherwise known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). One of the first things the doctors always said to me is not to google it; ‘some of the information out there will freak you out’. And if you do google it, ‘DON’T PANIC’!! Of course google it was the first thing I did when we got home.
What kind of information were the doctors referring to? Things like the life expectancy curve: a minority of less fortunate patients survive for just a few months after treatment, the median survives for 14.7 months, and another minority of the fortunate survive into what doctors call the ‘long-term’, 5+ years.
Yeah, DON’T PANIC.
The good news
’Variation is the very essence of nature. In nature, the median is a "law" that the human mind tries to impose on the diverse profusion of individual cases’. These are the words of David Servan-Schreiber, a man who survived a couple of malignant brain tumours over two decades. Like him, my aim is to be in the long tail of the curve.
Fortunately I have a few important things on my side. The molecular structure of my brain should respond well to treatment—for instance, I’ve been complimented on the MGMT methylation of my brain! I have no clue what this means, but I've been told it's a good thing. My 'youth'—he exclaims paradoxically on his birthday—and obsession with veggie-smoothy-fuelled cycling should add another boost.
And then there are my allies. I pray God is with me. And hopefully my oncologist too; who is a bit of a god, in British medical circles at least. And you: knowing this adventure is a team effort gives me the confidence we will do better than the median, and reminds me to DON'T PANIC.
