the docs base everything on stats .. i for one never listened to them, the stats in the beginning were very nice .. but once the cancer came around the second time, the stats were junk .. and as the treatments went on the stats kept getting worse ...

i didnt let it get to me,, but i think about those stats quite a bit.... i would ignore it all and keep supporting ur wife with all u got

Hi Herson,

Glad to see you back out here. Hope all is well.

Joy

Tom, I am now 9 months post tx and my TEAM never gave me any numbers as none of them (all six) belive in them! First and foremost is that both of you follow the Doctor's orders to a "T", both need a positive attitude as this is going to be a hard fight for you both, the sacrifices will be well worth the effert when this is completed! I attacked my Cancer as if I was back in a WAR, I fought this enemy on a day to day basis and would have had a harder time without my caregiver having the same mentallity. Make sure she gets plenty of calories and drinks plenty of fluids to maintane her weight. The members of this site will help you both thru this ordeal, they are the best!Semper-Fi Bob

The numbers don't help. Nothing is set in stone and there are too many variables for any of us to be thrown into one percentage or the other. You have smokers, chawers, drinkers, viruses, cheek biters, tongue chewers, dentures, rough teeth, gum diseases, chemicals...multiple causes...too much to mention, the list goes on. Sure, the obvious may give one an idea...but why go there? The most important thing is to know what is bad and what is good for your situation and live accordingly, i.e., if you smoke...STOP. Sometimes it's better just to listen do the best you can and pray for a healthy outcome.

We were getting ready to go out and my buddy says, "I'm starving to death..." His father looks at him and says, "If that was true you'd be A LOT THINNER!" Twenty years later he's still on the heavy side.

I wouldn't fret the numbers...The only one that matters is the one we're doing now...breathing.

Tom,
One of the first lessons in any course on statisics is the "Gambler's Fallacy." Every penny toss has a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails. This does not mean that if you toss a penny 100 times it will fall 50 heads and 50 tails. It means that every time you toss that penny it has a 50/50 chance of being one or the other. The only statistic that is 100% accurate is that if you are born there is a 100% chance that you will die some day. Any other statistic is based on the premiss that all relevant factors have been considered and they will not change.

When I finished my radiation treatments, my ENT told me that I had roughly a 60% five-year non-recurrence prediction. A year later, having had a clean CT/PET scan, he said the number was now in the 90's, but a year and a half after than I had a bad biopsy, meaning my number was now ZERO...

Now that I've had my free flap done and more cancer removed, I don't know what my new numbers are and I don't much care because they don't mean much.

I heard a horrifying stat for me anyway....I was told that if only one spouse tries to quit smoking that they might as well not bother cause the spouse quitting is doomed to fail...odds are nill for success sure made my day

That sounds like something someone who really doesn't want to quit would say -- Indeed, it is more difficult to quit if others around you are smoking, but it's not impossible.

That's bull. If you want to quit, you will quit, PERIOD!! It's an addiction, a powerful one, but you can do it with or without ANYONE'S SUPPORT.

this was actually what my nurse told me she was trying to encourage my husband to quit with me and told me that the chances of me being successful decrease or are almost nill because of the spouse not quitting...and I have I just was passing on what someone had told me...