Ben's Brain Tumour Blog

I came by this study by mistake, i certainly haven't been looking for more evidence of a shorter survival for me. it just appears every now and then when i'm online. i was actually studying mTOR pathways at the time. i should be studying for my clinical assessment this month but i've been having really bad headaches so i got drawn back into the whole cancer world again unfortunately. i wanted to be a statistical outlier but my genetics suggest that if i'm going to be an outlier then it would be at the wrong end of the graph. ''Correlation between molecular markers was determined using the mann-whitney U and spearman rank correlation tests. eight of the 26 patients with methylated PTEN died during the study as compared to the 1 of 19 without methylation. There was a trend towards statistical significance with PTEN methylated patients have decreased survival (P=0.128)'' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19705067 basically PTEN suppresses the mTOR pat...

Catch Up After Norway I had a very indulgent Christmas with lots of family. Which was amazing but I let my diet slip quite massively. I remained vegan but ignored protein and calorie restriction. This theme held up for probably 7 weeks into the new year and I ended up putting on over half a stone. Which isn’t the direction I’m supposed to be heading in at all. I usually find when I’ve lost all motivation it’s because I haven’t read the research in a while and my focus turns onto my everyday life and not what I’m eating when really I need to be able to do both. Anyway I delved back into all the research and I’m leaning towards low methionine diets still. Through this I discovered cronometer which I will explain later. Family Gathering I'm back at university again, mostly coursework at the moment until February when i go back to clinical for my final clinical assessment. And people have started to get jobs already so I need to start applying soon which involves making a co...

Ørnes Ålesund Aquarium Had the wrong lens, moving boat, moving lightsource, completely missed the photograph. Dog Sledding Northern Lights in Troms Tromsø Honningsvåg For those who have been following since last october, you will know that i made a post about my bucket list. one of those items was to see the northern lights. The radiology department in abergavenny that I was working at raised a lot of money for me to do this. after a lot of research i decided the best way to see the northern lights was to go to northern norway in winter and decided upon catching a boat up the coast from Bergen and take in all the sights that coastal norway has to offer. My girlfriend and parents also wanted to come, so they bought tickets too. we boarded the MS Polarlys in Bergen which is basically a posh ferry that is used as an important transportation system of goods and people for coastal norway. we travelled from Bergen in ...

So recently i've had some new symptoms. every now and then i have this feeling like i'm in a lift thats falling very fast. it only lasts  a second or two but it nearly knocks me over when it happens. also i've noticed my peripheral vision is completely blurred. while i'm here there is a couple of recent research breaks in the past couple of months for those who have brain tumours and are interested. studies have shown galectin-1 a molecule that surrounds gliomas is what makes them able to hide from the bodies immune system. which is obviously a bad thing. but if they find a drug to target galectin-1 in the future, that would benefit us greatly. also cannabis has been proven to have strong treatment effects on brain tumours! all the conspiracy theorists who have been saying cannabis treats cancer for years and that the pharmaceutical industry have been repressing it were right to some extent. it seems to do quite a good job. obviously its not being particularly repressed...

the residual tumour mass is a large C shape occupying the superior, inferior and lateral borders of the cavity with most of the mass at the superior and inferior poles. no growth to be seen anywhere, slight shrinkage of the inferior mass even! no uptake of contrast on the gadolinium scans so there isn't an abnormal blood flow going to the tumour. the right lateral ventricle that was once squashed to non existence by the tumour is now larger than the left because the shrinkage of the cavity has pulled on it, so their is visual evidence of my brain changing shape which explains the symptoms when i get them. it was a long day travelling from swansea to london and back with rene. but i got to see matt in london and it was good results so it was a good day really. i had a bit of a seizure on wednesday night unfortunately and i took extra keppra to get through the night which has left me zonked today. but its all good. i can concentrate on uni and norway now :)

I'm still currently on placement in carmarthen (west wales). its going well so far and i am enjoying it. it has had some challenges, frequent headaches and lots of fatigue but its been managed okay with pain killers and naps after work. last week didn't go so well because of the stress and worry of the upcoming scans on tuesday i haven't been sleeping so well and because of that, the seizure activity has increased also. the level of anxiety regarding next week is making me feel physically sick. a feeling every one of you who has check-up scans post treatment will know all about. anyway, i hope everyone is doing well, and i'll check in again after tuesday.

just a quick update, I’m back at university for my final year of radiography, which starts in placement exactly a year after being diagnosed. So I’m back in hospital working this time which is much nicer. As expected fatigue is quite high, but its manageable at the moment. Good to be back in a normal life. Only One or two people here know about the tumour so I’m treated normally, so it doesn’t come up in discussion, so I pretty much forget all about it, the supplements and meds have become such a routine now that I don’t really think about why I am taking them so it rarely crosses my mind apart from when I get headaches. All in all, I’m very happy and fortunate to go back to an almost normal life for now. next scan on the 21 st October.