Hi. I’m Kate. Turn ons include IV drips, PETscans, and organic fig newtons. Turn offs include whining, hospital gowns, and artificial sugar.
Let’s see how much life I can squeeze in between work, chemo, sleep, and scans.
Blissful Ignorance
Lloyd: Just give it to me straight. I’ve come a long way just to see you, Mary, the least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean not good, like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one out of a million.
Lloyd: So you’re telling me there’s a chance? YEAH!!!
As they say, ignorance is bliss and no one characterizes this better than Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber.
What are my chances? It’s the first thing you want to ask and the last thing you want to hear. Odds, chances, prognosis. A percentage has never held so much importance. I was too chicken to ask the question and I’m sure Dr. Smith was relieved that he didn’t have to answer it. He simply said ‘Our goal is remission.’ His voice was full confidence as if there was no doubt in his mind (and the Oscar goes to…).
I’ve done my homework since then, but in that waiting room, I knew I couldn’t handle hearing the answer, and so I didn’t ask the question. In the weeks that followed, I was asked the question many times and felt foolish because I didn’t have an answer. Why didn’t people understand that I didn’t want to know the answer? And, more importantly, why were they asking me instead of Google?
Please give me a chance. For days, that’s all I could say. In fact, I woke up one night sobbing those words, pleading for a chance. I don’t know who I was asking, but I got my small sliver of a chance. Not even that. I got a sliver of a sliver of a chance and I’ve held onto that sliver of a sliver of a chance for ten months now.
What are my chances?
People, I implore you, please stop asking this question. Whether the answer is 99% or less than 2%, it’s just a number. It’s a statistic that’s filled with a zillion different variables. I’m not a male in his 60s, so how can the survival rate for pc possibly apply to me? Sure, I have moments when the reality of my chances becomes almost unbearable, but it’s at those moments when I try to focus on how strong I am, both mentally and physically. And, really, isn’t that more important that a statistic?
Bad haircut aside, Lloyd Christmas is my hero. I think we should all be more like Lloyd and build a lifetime around our one in a million chance.
Kate,
Amen! One of the least favorite phrases through Mom’s PC has been that one about the chance of getting hit by a bus. Like there’s a herd somewhere just waiting to strike.
Take a chance on a movie, take a chance on love, take a chance, any chance. But keep statistics out of it!! Those numbers are just that - numbers. They are not the lives that people are living. LIVING!
Keep being strong Kate. Keep taking chances.
Take care - Jennifer
Appropriate quote for the day today heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition as I was heading out this morning:
“Every breakthrough is driven by optimism”
The interviewee said that during some sort of science story.
Kate, if you haven’t already, you should read “The Median is Not the Message” It is really good. As for time, my favorite quote comes from the book “There’s No Place Like Hope” by Vicki Girard:
“Time limits–what is their point? Would we not die if they didn’t tell us when to do so? If that is the case, maybe we have just cured cancer!”
Hope. Believe. Dream.
Sheryl
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