Thursday, August 22, 2013

It's a # Kind of Day

It's #BrainTumorThursday.  The day when all my fellow survivors flock to twitter to raise awareness.  Last #BTSM (which stands for Brain Tumor Social Media by the way) talked about what a brain tumour is and how they can be Primary or Secondary, Malignant or Benign, any of these are a pain in the brain to say the least.

I get a lot of support from a couple of websites but the one I head to most often is Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada.  It is FULL of all kinds of useful information, support and others just like me.  I rely on their facts because they pertain to whats going on in my neck of the world, Canada.  So here is just a few unbelievable but true facts: (Thanks BTFC for this information)

~Every day 27 Canadians are diagnosed with a brain tumour.  EVERYDAY...think about it!!!
~There are 55,000 Canadians surviving with one in their head this very second
~There are over 120 DIFFERENT kinds of Brain Tumours.  Seriously 120+
~Primary brain tumours (which is what I have, we talked about that last week) occur in about 8 out of 100,000 people (I should buy a lotto ticket!!!)  The number rises to approximately 32 out of 100,000 when the metastatic tumours are included.
~In the first year after diagnoses (Mine will be October 3, which just happens to be Brain tumour awareness month by the way) the average patient will make 52 visits to their health care team (These can include Neurologist, Neurosurgeons, radiation, blood work, physio the list goes on and on)
~Brain tumours are the leading cause in solid cancer death of children under the age of 20.  Now surpassing acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Third leading cause in solid cancer deaths in adults age 20-39
~Because brain tumours are located in the "command centre" of the body, emotions, thought processes, movement and life in general, they can dramatically affect an individuals life.
~Currently the Canadian Medical System does not tract primary brain tumour stats (hmmm What's up with that?)

As I've mentioned before I also frequent and I'm a member of It's Just Benign a site that is there to help those of us who have benign brain tumours, because they suck too!!!  I guess the point of today's post is to get the world out and educate.  Brain tumours are big, bad and scary but with the support network I've built and found through social media sites I'm coping and that's pretty awesome.

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