Any answer that you get to this question has a 50/50 chance of not applying to you. You are a unique biological entity with a unique gene make up and nothing that happens to someone else will happen to you the same way. While our diseases and the different etiologies for them are the same, how it impacts our body is unique. There is no information that statistics are going to give you in my opinion, that will be actionable on your part. You can drive yourself over the end emotionally though, as we all - no matter how many years out from diagnosis we are - live with a sword over our heads. This is the nature of survivorship. I think the question about living to 75 and dying of something else, might be more dependent on other things than your cancer. Your diet and exercise habits, the genes you inherited from your grandparents, your access to quality healthcare in general, and then my favorites, how bad a driver you are, or if you piss off someone's husband ( the way I thought I might go as a young man). Anyone of a myriad of things can take you off the face of the earth, you couldn't count them all. I am astounded that I actually dodged so many of life's bullets BEFORE I had cancer, that when I got it, it was the first time that I seriously considered that I wasn't the chosen one to live in perpetuity.
http://oralcancerfoundation.org/facts/stages_cancer.htmI am rather surprised that someone started treatment on you (surgery) without a full work up and staging. Staging after all determines treatments, and the NCCN guidelines that are the national standard of care re driven by staging. The way you worded it it, certainly seems like without knowing everything, and without a comprehensive treatment plan from a multidisciplinary team, treatment was started. Where were you treated?
