Todd Samuel's Blog #2: Brain Cancer
Brain tumors are one of every one out of one hundred cancers diagnosed in just the United States every year. These being the most deadly tumors because there is no room for it to go inside of your skull. Which in turn causes the cancer to spread which is the most fatal part to having this kind of cancer. The person in which I had initially done this blog on has since passed it is going on almost a month now since the passing of my friend’s dad. It was most painful to watch someone die so slow over the course of a year. It was probably even more painful for him knowing that he was also going away and he watched his family and friends try to do anything to save him. In fact there was nothing anyone could do at all. The chances of him even surviving this illness were slim to none already.
Most of what I am writing is based off of opinion since I witnessed first hand what it was like to see someone going through such a painful illness. The entire time he expressed that he just wanted to live which was horrible to hear because he was in fact begging for something that no one could aside from make him comfortable and wait around until that one day where everything shuts down because your body is so sick of fighting. I recall him asking for constant pain medication and something to make this headache go away. Later, the cancer had officially spread through his entire body which made everyone give up hope. I was unaware at exactly how fatal this form of cancer was and why once it had spread they let him come home. I was numb to the fact that this deadly strain of cancer which most people do not survive was killing him and once someone is gone you can not get them back.
I tend to take a more opinionated stance on this subject because it directly affected me. I look at the facts and understand them but at the same time I feel like for all cancer it is really a matter of luck whether you survive or not because it is so rough on the body it really takes a toll on the whatever organs it decides to spread to next leaving the body weak; so weak that you cannot even perform surgery on it to directly go after where the cancer is. The entire idea of cancer is tricky, especially brain cancer. This is scary because he was perfectly healthy the cancer essentially came out of no where. One out of twelve people in my survey knew/know someone who has had cancer.
Types of cancer brought up in the survey were brain, breast, and lung; along with other cancers which were listed under “other”. 80% of people who did know someone with a form of cancer did not not survive. Eight out of twelve people said they would be open to donating money to cures for cancer of all sorts. Eight out of twelve people have also never donated to cures for cancer, but would be open to doing it. Finally one out of twelve people said that cancer has had an impact on their life.
