Tarred with the Same Brush

Please forgive me if the theme I am following at the moment seems a little morbid.  This sort of thing is not just what I am hearing about, it is what I am seeing.
 
We bought a Rav 4 car.  Suddenly we were seeing Rav 4’s everywhere.  When people get married suddenly weddings seem to be happening that a person never took in before.  When I have an interest, suddenly I seem to come across lots of people with the same interest.
 
At the moment something not good has happened to someone we know.  Something not good happened to me a while back (please do not tell Merril that.  I call it “recent,” but it really does not seem to do me any good).
 
The thing was, a little while later, something with the same title happened to someone I am close to.  What has been highlighted to me is that something with the same title can be very different.  Mine was a stroke.  I have lost some capacity but I am not too bad.  Someone else with a stroke may lose control and many abilities.  Others need to be fed through a tube.  They are all called “stroke” but each is different in its severity.
 
I was taking to someone recently and they knew someone who had been diagnosed with a similar problem to what they were dealing with.  The person was taking tablets and getting on with things.  My concern is that people may know some one with say a “stroke” and tar everyone with the same brush.  If my experience of “stroke” was someone in a worst-case scenario, then I would be inclined to think of “stroke” as being only that.  The thing is “stroke” has many different levels.  Just because one person is one way, does not mean every person with that is the same way.
 
I guess different degrees of something is why in the para Olympics they have different classes of competition for different classes of disability.  Someone with an amputated foot, should have an advantage over someone who had had one whole leg and an arm on the same side amputated.  I think, without an aid, the best that person could hope for in the swimming pool would be to swim around in circles.
 
When I present to the doctor with a “cold” it is more often than not put down as “virus” and I am given anti-biotics and sent home to let the thing run its course.  There are many forms of “virus” though.  Some are mild and clear up in a very short time.  Others can be severe and take months to disappear.  Whatever the case, one word is used to describe what can have a multitude of different levels of severity.  The same can be said of “cancer” or “stroke” or “heart attack.”
 
Seeing one does not describe all.  Although a thing is under a certain banner does not mean all are the same.  Each needs to be taken on its own merits and a course of action determined from that.