More Hope for Cancer Patients
Jul 10th 2010PostmasterCoping & Survivorship
I met a lady today while I was walking my dogs. She is a 4 year breast cancer survivor but has been dealing with cancer for 40 years, losing both her parents, one when she was 15. It got me thinking again about surviving and about hope.
I’ve noticed with myself, that my degree of hope changes over time. On any given day, I sum up my hope as, “the longer I can hang on, the better chance I have of being around when they find a cure.” But I also hope for other things, such as quality of life and as many years as I can have with my family. But hope seems to turn to panic when my PSA is rising or my tumour is getting bigger. These are tangible things that need action. Once I take action, such as my recent surgery which removed the bulk of my sacral tumour, the panic seems to go away, and I’m back to hoping that it won’t pop up anywhere else for a while and that I will have more time than the stats say.
A good friend of mine, who is a poster child for fighting serious crones disease, a staunch crusader for improvements in the health care system, and a statistician by training, reminded me that there are always outliers and exceptions at both ends of the curve. So if you think about outcomes, survival rates, efficacy of treatments, etc. as a curve which is fat in the middle and tapers out at both ends, you realize that you personally can be on any part of that curve. Clearly, the vast majority are somewhere in the bulking middle, but you or I could be on one of those tails. In my case, I have always seemed to be on the “bad” tail, an exception to the rules, but always bad. I had about a 0.005% chance of getting prostate cancer at 49. I had only a 3% chance of recurrence after my “successful” prostate surgery, but my cancer recurred. I have been told constantly, that my adverse reactions to pain meds (which I need badly), to hormone treatments (which are the only thing that can slow my cancer down) are unusual exceptions. The fact that my metastasis is primarily in one spot rather than multiple sites is unusual but, in this case, it worked out better for me because I have had it removed and there are no other visible sites for now. So I bought myself some time… maybe some years. I’m not in the 25% of men who die within a year or two after prostate cancer metastases, so maybe I will be in the 10% of men that live beyond 5 years. Or maybe even one of those rare, unusual people who live much longer. I don’t always have to be in the “bad” tail of the curve and, seeing as I have been so many times, then why shouldn’t it balance out for me to be in the “good” tail for what really counts – survival. Irwin Barker beat the odds. Patrick Swayze beat the odds. Both of them lived longer than the time they were given. And there are stories we hear all the time of people whose cancer has gone into remission and not come back for years and years.
So no matter what you are told about the progression of your disease or the number of months or years you have left, you can always hope that you are one of the “unusual” ones, the exception, who will beat the statistics and live for many years. Someone has to be that exception so why can’t it be you. There is hope for each of us even in the worst of cold statistics. You can stand tall and tell yourself that you are different and that you are not going to be lumped in with all of the others. There is always that hope, for Dave, for me, for anyone else looking at the statistics with fear and uncertainty. If you believe it, and fight the disease, and maintain a good quality of life then, no matter what happens, you will be better for it.
Every survivor gives us hope. And sometimes, that is the only real weapon we have.
Posted by Doug
When we are stricken with cancer, depending on which cancer, its stage, etc., we are faced with many choices. Choices of doctor, choices of treatment, choices to get second (or third or fourth) opinions. They are all terribly important choices that we have to make at a time when our lives have been turned upside down, and each of us will approach these choices in a way that is uniquely us. Many people are very analytical and will vacuum up as much information as possible in order to make the “right” choice. Others feel much more comfortable putting their faith in their doctor(s) because they don’t feel qualified to make some of these choices on their own. I think others may just get dragged along, hoping for the best.