Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Life expectancy thoughts

You get diagnosed with cancer and saving for retirement gets lower down the list of important things to do. Then you get diagnosed with cancer again and it really becomes less important and sometimes even slips into the category of  'why bother'.

But then you bounce back and start thinking long term again, slower than before, but still making plans seems worth while. Or should I just save my money and have a really huge party for my memorial service propped up in the corner in a casket?

Life expectancy charts are for other people because with a couple of cancer diagnoses and friends dying from cancer around you, your life expectancy is different.

That is the little chain of thoughts in my head.

Then I find out that rheumatoid arthritis no longer affects life expectancy as much as it once did but can put a damper on it.

Then I found an online life expectancy calculator. It does not ask how many times I have had cancer only if first degree relatives have had certain types of cancer. It says I have a 75% chance of making it to 83, a 50% chance of making it to 94 and a 25% chance of making it to 102. But since it does not take into account all my health issues, you may call me skeptical. 

So where does that leave me? I don't really know. I'm still here and I guess I am happy with that.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Caroline. My step dad was diagnosed with small cell Stage 4 Lung Cancer on May 12th. Your blog was the first one I came across when I was searching for Cancer blogs. I'm looking forward to reading your posts. They haven't given him any life expectancy rates yet. I hope they don't. I don't think he can handle that. We are choosing to focus on HOPE.

Stay strong!!,
Lacey

PS I haven't made a blogger account yet.

http://gfwd.at/1n0rcdS

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