Brain Tumors in the News — my anxious mind

With news of Sen. Kennedy being diagnosed with a brain tumor my mind instantly went into overdrive. Now I must make a decision, do I let this take me down, take away all the good feelings I’ve had the past week or do I learn from it and let it go.

Well, my initial reaction was to think to myself, yep this confirms it, I must have a brain tumor too however with the news came more information about brain tumors and my analytical mind kicked into gear. Instead of focusing in the grim statistics regarding recovery, I saw that for this type of tumor, the most common in adults, approximately 9,000 Americans are diagnosed a year, that is 0.003% of the population. And brain tumors in general are most common in children under 8 and adults over 65, however they can occur at any age but again you have to look at the odds.

So, it seems to me that I have a better chance of:

Being Murdered - 0.005%
Having Identity Stolen - 0.5%
Injured While Shaving - 0.01%
Hurt Mowing the Lawn - 0.03%