Risk Vs. Worry

You get cancer, get treated, and they say 'here, go on with your life'. (That last part is so helpful! NOT.) Somewhere in the middle of all that treatment crap, they give you all the numbers about statistics - which,as the patient, we interpret wrong. If they say you have a 99% chance of living five years, all us patients put ourselves into the 1% who are not going to make it. (And we ignore the fact that the entire 99% could be hit by a bus at any time.)

Over at 'The Big C and Me', I read today's post by Renn about 'Five Years and Counting' and she included the American Cancer Society's statistic about survival rates for stage II breast cancer. Then I read this post about cancer people mis-interpreting risk and worrying too much - When Does Worry Outweigh Risk. The article starts with:

"For patients with breast cancer — even after treatment — worries about risk are common. Patients wonder, could the cancer come back? Will it spread throughout the body?"

Obviously whoever wrote this has never had breast cancer. Of course we worry, its cancer. Anyway, some research was done and they found after talking to 1000 women with breast cancer diagnoses behind them and found:

"They found 36 percent of the DCIS patients and 25 percent of the low-risk patients substantially overestimated their risk of distant recurrence.

Women who overestimated their risk were three times more likely to report worry about recurrence. They had higher distress scores and lower mental health."

This surprises them? Anyway, go read the whole thing here. They go on to talk about how patients need to understand the differences in risk - when is it low and when it is higher and the difference between local (won't kill you) and distant (the bad kind) recurrences. How patients need to talk to  their doctors more about this and learn about all this so they don't end up with 'higher distress and lower mental health'. 

(These people clearly do not have breast cancer. They don't understand us.) We had cancer and we are going to worry. We just need to learn to manage the risk 

I have had cancer twice now and I do worry about the risk. I had cancer once and my worst fears came to pass when I got it again. So now I am not supposed to worry about getting it again? How's that going to happen?

I'm going to work on worrying that risk thing again still so I don't have 'higher distress scores and lower mental health'. I have a therapist and one of my supposed diagnoses is 'post cancer depression'. When I get past the depression for the first cancer, I'll work on the depression for the second cancer. But I will work on it.

I'm too busy worrying about this year to worry about next year yet

Apparently. now we need to start worrying about next year. The health care reform law has been passed (in case you have been sleeping in a cave and didn't hear about it) and now changes are due to start taking effect next year. So we are supposed to start thinking about that now. What if we have enough going on in our lives and can't worry about more change yet? I would prefer to wait until next year to worry about next year. So I will. I mean I know health insurance will cost more next year - it always does. So why worry?

Yesterday I forgot I was meeting a friend for lunch but then fortunately Outlook gave me a little reminder so I remembered in time to change my schedule a time. We actually had an awesome (and affordable) lunch at Nordstrom's restaurant. I highly recommend it. They do small plates, like tapas, for sharing. We had seared scallops with lemon risotto, crispy polenta with arugula salad, and crab cakes with remoulade. Yummy. We will go back.

I did get a manicure pedicure. I was considering yellow polish for sunny summer days for my toes but she didn't have yellow. I ended up with coppery brown instead. (Call me what you will but I would prefer to worry about and talk about manicures and pedicures than cancer and all sorts of medical ailments. My back hurts but my toes look good.)

Actually yesterday's big news was that finally my new lymphedema sleeves arrived. This means I now have four so I can wash three of them in the middle of the week and throw them all in the wash on the weekend instead of washing one EVERY DAY - which got old on the first day.

Today I am meeting a friend for breakfast and then another friend for a walk. I think I will make my great pasta attempt this afternoon. I have a recipe and a pasta machine. What else do I need? Oh, a plan - tossed with some fresh shaved asiago and Parmesan for dinner.