CHEMOBRAIN.....In The Fog: INFORMATION OVERLOAD

We are about to be inundated with information. A volcanic eruption of cataclysmic proportions. It will be making it's way to us via San Antonio.

I did a little research on the history of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The very first meeting on November 11, 1978 was a one day event during breast cancer awareness WEEK ..... Yes folks, I said breast cancer awareness WEEK. And it was November. And now? Well, aside from what is glaring and obvious-a week in November has turned our calendar into one with only eleven "real" months but that's really not the point.

In the past 34 years, this has now morphed into:

"a mission to provide state-of-the-art information on breast cancer research. ...... spanning a five-day program attended by a broad international audience of academic and private researchers and physicians from over 90 countries."

This is THE event in the Breast Cancer Arena from the cheap seats (that would be the rafters in which I am presently seated-in my home, ready to watch twitter feeds and podcasts). A word of caution. Statistics are going to be bantered about and I am not in any position to interpret the stats. I just know some of what we hear may be punctuated with an agenda. Remember, that was my gig when I had my guest appearance on Gayle Sulik's Blog. Skewing statistics sucks.

My best suggestion? Just like I do when I am researching medical information, I am going to stick to reliable sources to help me sort through the presentations. I'm not a sheep blindly following some imbecile into a slaughter house and I don't repeat soundbites. I'm tired of rah rah ANYTHING. I want the truth and despite what Jack Nicholson may think, I CAN handle the truth.

I will be paying closest attention to the words of Dr. Susan Love. She will be blogging and I'm sure the links to any new blog entries will be posted on twitter feed. I will watch that twitter hashtag. I'll be happy to share. I think there are over 1300 scheduled presentations. That's a lot of sorting. If something looks good, I'll pass it along. I did tag a few presentations that were of particular interest to me. As usual, can't figure out how to get back to the page with "My List."

Could be because my brain resembles a BRILLIANT sketch by Brian Reid? I just love this and I'm sure it will not do the sketch any justice by copying it here, but he tracked the tweets from the Breast Cancer Social Media group set up by Jody and this is what the communication looked like. The weekly chat takes place on Mondays. Yesterday, we had people participating from every time zone in the "lower 48" and from Europe AND from all the way 'round the globe in New Zealand.

May look like my zig-zagging brain (pretty sure this is going to have to find its way into a reworked blog design!!!), but it's worldwide connections-among people. Real people. In all stages of disease. Look at all of those people-all with LOTS to say. We have lots of questions. Hopefully, we will begin to get some answers from the folks at the podiums in San Antonio!