When I was first meeting the doctors that would determine the course of my days over the following year, several threw out the statistic that I had an 80% to 85% chance of surviving 5 years. While this information was given, I believe, in the spirit of encouragement, I found it terrifying and unacceptable.
Each time a doctor told me this statistic, I would burst into tears, saying that I had a two year old! I wasn’t willing to talk about 5 years. I needed to be talking about 20 years. While 80%- 85% sounds pretty high, so does the 15%-20% that do not survive the five years. At some point I had to decide that this statistic was just that, a number and that it didn’t have to have any bearing on me or my attitude. |