I know I sound crazy, with my change of diet and increased workouts, but I have to hit this brain tumor head-on (no pun intended).
So far, I've shared my medically diagnosed life expectancy to a few friends, but until now had yet to put it on the blog. Here's the story. At the University of Washington, my neurosurgeons, and my radiologist will not put a date on my death because they believe each case is individual. However, according to the John Hopkins Comprehensive Brain Tumor Center (which is the #1 neurology & neurosurgery center in the country) an adult with a stage II astrocytoma will live approximately 6-8 years from diagnosis. According to research at UCLA with stage II astrocytomas, they give me (since I'm in the 25-35 range) approximately 2563 days to live. The University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Research Center gives me about 7 years. The worst outlook I've found is from the World Health Organization which says that I have a median survival time of 4 years. Yikes.
Now that I know my life expectancy is short, my job is to try to prolong it. And that is why I eat a billion vegetables a day, why juicing is my new hobby, why I have to get to the gym 5-6 times a week, and why I chose to make the best of this situation (because if I give up, I'll probably die sooner).
