There is no 'correct' way to deal with life with a brain tumour, no single passage.

The most important of all rights in dealing with life-threatening illness is your right to choose your path, paint your own forest.

Often people will say “never give up” — urging anyone to continue aggressive treatment. Perhaps, however, the most important thing 'never to give up' is control over your own life.

Because most diagnoses are of high grade malignant glioma, these things become the focus of discussion.

There are other less common adult tumours and there are also children's brain tumours. We will endeavour to expand resources for these... but always, we find, the greatest resource is to find someone else dealing with your situation. We have hundreds of members and meeting someone in your own situation is generally possible when you introduce yourself to our email group.

It is unfortunately the case that malignant glioma is among the most difficult forms of cancer to fight. Doctors do not know the cause. Doctors do not have a cure. Thus what doctors are able to do is severely limited. It is also a sad matter of record that in these diagnoses, involving both cancer and the mind, family relationships are most vulnerable and tested.

We live on a planet where life can be tested like this in many ways. We are generally so protected by the technology and products and entertainment around us. Suddenly with this kind of news, of a brain tumour, these everyday comforts fail us, we suddenly experience violent personal climate change.

How each of us as individuals will deal with this diagnosis is likely to reflect how we deal with everything else in our lives. However, this kind of life-threatening diagnosis often throws a great searchlight on our lives and we may change... for better or worse!

While the person with the brain tumour is of central importance, those around have their lives impacted. We need to make space, shift up the bench, so all, including children, can respond and learn and grow. Decisions on the resources to be thrown at the disease also necessarily take account of the situations of others in the family and of their futures.

One of the papers out there on the web, to which we will refer, has this lovely conclusion, which may be a good rule for life, in any situation:

The goal for all those attempting constructive intervention should be successful maintenance of open, honest, and warm relationships with the patient and among themselves.