Snowflakes

I made another chart. This one's for colon cancer:

Oddly, this shows the median survival rate to be eighteen months, not the thirty I was told when I was diagnosed. Lies, damn lies, and statistics, I guess, but I wonder who got tossed out of this pool to take the median figure to thirty months. Then again, it probably doesn't really matter.

And since I'm now in that light blue group somewhere, it's seems somewhat more likely -- okay, it's 54 to 46, but that's not terrible -- that I'll at least make it to December. Unfortunately, while I'd like to say this fills me with confidence, that's not where my brain's currently at (hence the long series of vaguely morbid, and not so vaguely aggravated, posts). 

I thought of all this as I was thinking more about who we hear from when it comes to cancer: it's the snowflakes -- the lucky folks who make it to the upper left corner of the graph and then start extrapolating from their experience, making it seem like they're the rule, rather than the exception. Seven percent of stage IV colon cancer patients make it to five years. Seven percent! That's the kind of number that typically comes with an "only" or a "just" in front of it, not an "as many as." 

I wish there was a way to hear from the purple folks, or the dark blue, to sort of balance out the picture. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to know what some of them thought of cancer, and cancer treatment. 

But they aren't around to tell me, which is the nature of being purple or dark blue.