Statistics and Stage III

crg123

%@&* Statistics!
From one Cheryl to another...
&*%@ those statistics!!! Look at the "other" statistics...How many people who have beaten the "unbeatable" Beast. For a good read, try "Love, Medicine, and Miracles", by Bernie Siegel. Makes you look at the power of positive thinking.

PGLGreg

rrob said:

Statistics
When my doctor first told me average life expectancy for stage iv dx was 2 1/2 years, I was devastated. I found this article on Randy Pausch's blog. It is by Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard professor, diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 1982, with an average life expectancy of 8 months after diagnosis. He wrote "The Median Isn't the Message" which talks about statistics. He lived another 20 years, dying of an unrelated cancer. The link is http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/medianNotMessage.html. This message confirmed my belief that numbers are not people. I'm not average and I refuse to conform to an average. I plan on being an outlier and living another 30 or 40 years! Good luck and ignore those numbers--you are a survivor, not a number!

Rebecca

Gould, "The Median Isn't the Message"
I couldn't get the link you gave to work, so here's an alternative, for anyone having the same difficulty: http://www.phoenix5.org/articles/GouldMessage.html . Gould discussed the meaning of the median (not average) survival time of 8 months that was given for his cancer, mesothelioma, and in effect, argued that the average survival time would give a longer time than the median. He did not dispute the applicability of the numbers to a particular human case. How could he? He was a scientist. The fact that he survived longer than 8 months proves nothing about the statistics -- it just shows he was lucky.
-Greg

msccolon

crg123 said:

%@&* Statistics!
From one Cheryl to another...
&*%@ those statistics!!! Look at the "other" statistics...How many people who have beaten the "unbeatable" Beast. For a good read, try "Love, Medicine, and Miracles", by Bernie Siegel. Makes you look at the power of positive thinking.

I love Bernie Siegel
He is awesome! And he recommends you hug your onc, to force him/her to see you as a person, not another file! My onc loves my hugs!
mary

KathiM

crg123 said:

%@&* Statistics!
From one Cheryl to another...
&*%@ those statistics!!! Look at the "other" statistics...How many people who have beaten the "unbeatable" Beast. For a good read, try "Love, Medicine, and Miracles", by Bernie Siegel. Makes you look at the power of positive thinking.

I had 37% survival, now NED
If you look at my history on my page...it was pretty dismal...stage III rectal cancer...seemed to have invaded the abdominal wall. I always considered myself to be part of the 'winning' statistics...never even considered I could die from this...lol!

The subsequent breast cancer just made me mad....how DARE a 97% survival rate cancer threaten me!!!! It was in an 11 year old lump in my breast (mammo'ed every year,never changed). REALLY lends support to the theories about a compromised immune system allowing other stuff to happen...

If you read my latest post, not only am I still alive and kickin', but am being extended on all of my tests...before long, the 5-year watermark will come and go, and I will still be around irritating people!!!

"Anyone who says winning isn't everything has never had cancer"

BIG hugs,

Kathi

CherylHutch

KathiM said:

I had 37% survival, now NED
If you look at my history on my page...it was pretty dismal...stage III rectal cancer...seemed to have invaded the abdominal wall. I always considered myself to be part of the 'winning' statistics...never even considered I could die from this...lol!

The subsequent breast cancer just made me mad....how DARE a 97% survival rate cancer threaten me!!!! It was in an 11 year old lump in my breast (mammo'ed every year,never changed). REALLY lends support to the theories about a compromised immune system allowing other stuff to happen...

If you read my latest post, not only am I still alive and kickin', but am being extended on all of my tests...before long, the 5-year watermark will come and go, and I will still be around irritating people!!!

"Anyone who says winning isn't everything has never had cancer"

BIG hugs,

Kathi

Old lumps becoming cancerous
Kathi,

I really found that interesting when you said you had an 11 year old lump in your breast that was monitored every year and it never changed. There obviously was no reason to suspect this lump was anything but a benign growth.

I had the same thing with my right adrenal gland. There was a rather large growth on it, but it had been there for 7+ years. It showed up in a CAT scan when I had the hysterectomy in 2001, but at the time, no one mentioned it to me (grrrrrr!). So when it showed up in a CAT scan in 2007, my surgeon went back in my history of scans at that hospital and he was the one who found it on the old 2001 scan. It had not changed in 6 years so they were pretty confident it was a benign growth. Well, last March, I had my first PET scan and the darn right adrenal gland lit up the scan! And it was shown to have grown slightly since the 2007 scan.

Sure enough, a needle biopsy showed that it was cancerous... and after removing it surgically, it was found to be a spread of the colon cancer. How long had it been there? We don't know, but obviously had spread fairly recently.

So, I am glad you mentioned the theories that say a compromised immune system allows other stuff to happen. Other than the cancer, I am one heck of a healthy female. But I'm sure, even though I got through the chemo with relatively few side affects, my immune system must have taken a hit... and I think the cancer traveled while I was going through my chemo treatments. I have no idea if that is correct, but I strongly feel that is what had happened.

Huggggggggs,

Cheryl

sylviaw

kimby said:

I create my own reality. I did it before cancer and I'm not gonna stop now!

Love all of it
Love your pic and your attitude!!