THE FACTS

• Every year 200,000 people worldwide develop a primary malignant brain tumour and many more develop metastatic brain tumours, also known as "secondaries"

• Malignant brain tumours are likely to grow rapidly and crowd or invade the surrounding healthy brain tissue.

• The most common age of someone with a brain tumor is the group from 55-65, but all age groups are affected from tiny babies to the elderly

• Brain tumours cannot be prevented because their cause is unknown. No changes in lifestyle have been shown to reduce the risk

• The impact of both benign and malignant brain tumours can be profound affecting thought, emotion and physical function

• At the present time there is still no cure for the majority of brain tumours

STORIES OF HOPE

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone

You'll Never Walk Alone - by Rogers and Hammerstein

"With communication comes understanding and clarity; with understanding, fear diminishes; in the absence of fear, HOPE emerges; and in the presence of hope, anything is possible." - Ellen Stovall

"At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or absence of one single element in the soul - HOPE" - Henri Frederic Amiel

'Although there is no uniform definition of hope, I found one that seemed to capture what my parents had taught me. Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see - in the mind's eye - a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope has no room for delusion. Clear-eyed, hope gives us the courage to confront our circumstances and the capacity to surmount them.' - The Anatomy of Hope by Dr Jerome Groopman, Dina and Raphael Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School

"Beware how you take away hope from another human being." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th Century physician, poet and essayist

"Some see a hopeless end, while others see an endless hope." - Author Unknown

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." - Author Unknown

"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you." - Maori saying

"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." - Old Proverb

"If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all." - Martin Luther King, jr.

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller

"To succeed, we must first believe that we can." - Michael Korda

"I do not ask to walk smooth paths nor bear an easy load. I pray for strength and fortitude to climb the rock strewn road. Give me such courage and I can scale the hardest peaks alone, And transform every stumbling block into a stepping stone." - Gale Brook Burket

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

"Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment." - Napoleon I

"True hope dwells on the possible, even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome. True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an active effort" - Walter Anderson