IN PRAISE OF ME, Part 2.

1951

2013

 How can this have happened?

There is nothing of any real importance in this blog, but that does not mean you should skip over it.  If you do it will hurt my feelings.

I want to brag and speculate a bit.  This is the 400^th entry in Myrl’sBlog.  Each entry contains on average about 350 words; the 400 thus sum to what you might find in a moderately long book.  I have been at this project since early in 2012 – for 1442 days to be exact.  Doing the arithmetic one finds one blog entry every 3.6 days, or roughly two per week.  All but a few of these blogs are intended to report some new development in cancer research.  In addition I have spewed out innumerable Comments, most of which also are intended to inform.  According to Google, which in this instance I profoundly  mistrust, these blog entries have been viewed just over 26,450 times – about 66 per entry.  Hits have come from 72 countries, ranging from 15,883 from the United States to one each for Moldova, Romania, and Kazakhstan.  Obviously I have not reached 26,000 people: a few relatives and friends certainly account for a greatly disproportionate fraction of hits, while at the same time the 1152 from the Ukraine should count for nothing because they certainly represent the footprints of a trolling algorithm and have nothing to do with real human beings.   The nearly 1800 hits purportedly originating in Russia are similar. Thus I don’t know how many people I have reached – but it’s more than a few.

So, have I done any good?  I think so.  Faithful readers should be familiar with the warning symptoms of ovarian cancer.  They know what kinds of activities and what familial histories predict a higher risk of ovarian (and breast) cancer.  They know what to ask the oncologist if – God forbid – they get a cancer diagnosis.  They know a little about current research trends in the battle against cancer, and they know where to go for more information. They can easily locate appropriate clinical trials.  And not least, all  faithful readers know what to do with that extra money burning holes in their pockets.  Thus, I judge my efforts not entirely feeble and useless – but for Linda’s sake I wish I could have done much more.

So, I will keep on blogging.  When I started this project I set myself the twin goals of curing ovarian cancer and winning the Nobel Prize by the time I was 80.  Now that I am sneaking up on 83 I think I had better reset the finish line.  Maybe 90 will do.  Do you think I will make it?