1 June 2006
Thursday, 11:20 PM
High-Level Journal Summary: Quantifying the number of people who are interested in brain tumors -- all by looking at statistics gathered on the back end of this website.
In the end, there are now over 5,000 unique visitors to this website each month, spanning a total of over 30 countries, from Lithuania to Costa Rica to Ghana to China.
Countdowns:
1.) Day 18 of 28 in my 8th 5/23 Temodar chemotherapy cycle. I am now on the physical upswing of this chemo cycle. Amen. It feels better.
2.) Two notable medical meetings coming next week:
- Bi-monthly MRI at NIH is on 6/7/06. This will determine if my brain tumor is larger, smaller, or the same size.
- My Perfusion MRI with Spectroscopy will be redone at NYU on 6/9/06.
Seizure Activity:
1.) Last Grand Mal Seizure was on 6/30/05. I am coming up on the 1-year mark.
2.) Last Simple Partial Seizure, or SPS, was 14 days ago. A good pattern is emerging and being sustained.
3.) I have now had 23 SPS's in the past 161 days (since 12/22/05). This is an average of 1 every 7.0 days, exactly.
Actual Journal: My 5/5/05 brain surgery was primarily in my left temporal lobe, which is where a lot of thinking happens. I like using the phrase that "musicians are the only people in their right mind," simply because those musical skills are dominant in the right side of the brain whereas math skills (for example) are dominant in the left side of the brain.
Well, I like using both sides of the brain -- left and right. I majored in engineering and minored in music at Virginia Tech; both sides were reasonably satisfied. But for tonight, I am skipping broader themes that require right brain dominance and I am going straight to some number-crunching. My left brain will be so happy.
Blue Water Media created this website. They created a great back end, so I am able to get all sorts of data about visits to the website. I particularly watch two reports each month:
- How many unique, individual visitors come to 38 Lemon each month.
- What country or source each visitor comes from.
In this journal entry, here is some of this pretty incredible information, which is always completely anonymous. (Don't worry -- no governmental information collection going on at any time.)
Report 1: Number of unique website visitors by month
1.) January 2005: 87 unique website visitors.
- Launch of www.davidcraigwelch.com by Blue Water Media
2.) February 2005: 1,827 unique website visitors.
3.) March 2005: 2,008 unique website visitors.
4.) April 2005: 1,947 unique website visitors.
5.) May 2005: 4,247 unique website visitors.
- Month of brain surgery graciously led to a sharp increase in website visitors. Even complete strangers were expressing support. Amazing. Just amazing.
6.) June 2005: 2,671 unique website visitors.
7.) July 2005: 2,934 unique website visitors.
8.) August 2005: 2,841 unique website visitors.
9.) September 2005: 2,234 unique website visitors.
10.) October 2005: 752 unique website visitors.
- Relaunch of www.davidcraigwelch.com by Blue Water Media. Counts are not accurate from this month, as a result.
11.) November 2005: 3,165 unique website visitors.
12.) December 2005: 1,211 unique website visitors.
- The holiday season correlates with these numbers very well.
13.) January 2006: 3,692 unique website visitors.
14.) February 2006: 3,853 unique website visitors.
15.) March 2006: 4,316 unique website visitors.
- Number of visitors reached an all-time high. This is without the optimization of my website (for Google searches on brain tumors) by Blue Water Media. This says that there is interest in the topic of brain tumors.
16.) April 2006: 4,489 unique website visitors.
17.) May 2006: 5,124 unique website visitors.
- Traffic just keeps increasing each month. What is this saying about brain tumor awareness?
Report 2: Where are all these visitors coming from?
1.) 3178 unique visitors from US Commercial locations.
2.) 999 unique visitors from "Network" locations.
- Not sure what this means.
3.) 578 unique visitors from "Unresolved" locations.
- Could not trace back to a specific location in this analysis, apparently.
4.) 82 unique visitors from US Educational locations.
5.) 40 unique visitors from US Government locations.
6.) 36 unique visitors from Canada locations.
7.) 34 unique visitors from Germany locations.
8.) 25 unique visitors from Italy locations.
9.) 20 unique visitors from China locations.
10.) 16 unique visitors from US Military locations.
11.) 14 unique visitors from Non-Profit Organization locations.
12.) 13 unique visitors from Saudi Arabia locations.
13.) 10 unique visitors from United States locations.
14.) 9 unique visitors from Australia locations.
15.) 8 unique visitors from United Kingdom locations.
16.) 7 unique visitors from Netherlands locations.
17.) 2 countries tied with 4 unique website visitors each:
- Seychelles
- Spain
18.) 4 countries tied with 3 unique website visitors each:
- Belgium
- France
- New Zealand (Aotearoa)
- Romania
19.) 8 countries tied with 2 unique website visitors each:
- India
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Poland
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Thailand
20.) 20 countries tied with 1 unique website visitor each:
- Albania
- Argentina
- Benin
- Brazil
- Chile
- Costa Rica
- Denmark
- Dominican Republic
- Finland
- Ghana
- Greece
- Israel
- Lithuania
- Old style Arpanet
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Singapore
- Sweden
- Russian Federation
What do I make of all this?
I am sure that some of this data is erroneous. Google searches can lead to erroneous website hits where people are looking for something that is not provided on 38 Lemon. That said, two things leap out at me.
First, the number of people reading about brain tumors from a patient's perspective is rising each month. I am hopeful that this means there is much more awareness as a result.
Second, the number of people reading about brain tumors from a patient's perspective is global. It surprises me in one sense, just because it is the first time I have literally seen this data. However, it makes sense in that brain tumors are not just something that people in the United States experience. This is something that can happen to all people in all countries at any time. Brain tumors are democratic in the sickest sense of the word.
Powerful information to ponder, even though that means kicking over from left brain thinking to right brain thinking.
