Statistics are Lame

As a woman that prides herself on loving education and all things based on facts, I have begun to question how statistics are really determined. I have take courses in statistics at both the undergrad and graduate level, so I feel like I have a good handle on them. Yet for me when looking at statistics and cancer the numbers don’t seem to add up.

With the targeted chemotherapy treatment Herceptin patients need to have their heart monitored for possible heart damage. Up to this point my echo cardiograms have all been okay (hopefully the one today will be no different, fingers crossed). As I sat in the waiting room for the tech to get me staring at me across the way was this sign…

For almost a year I have sat across from it waiting to have my echos, but today I got more and more frustrated as I sat there, it’s statistic mocking me from across the room.

I am so tired of everyone on Earth telling me that I need to eat healthy and be active. I am. Newsflash, I was before cancer decided to have a party in my breast! My being active and eating healthy sure didn’t prevent cancer from turning on inside me. It just makes me wonder if I wasn’t healthy and active before getting cancer would I have got it sooner? Would it have grown faster that it already was?

This week I have had three friends pass away from cancer. Essentially the three had very little in common; they had different types of cancer (also none started at stage IV which freaks me out), they ranged in age from early 50’s to late 70’s, two men and one woman. Yet one thing was true about all three; they ate healthy and exercised. If I am going to be truthful I have yet to meet anyone that is overweight that has cancer.

Susan G. Koman states that only 5% of all breast cancer diagnosis in the United States are women under 40. It is a hard pill to swallow when you start to look at all the data collected and feel like the numbers should add up to you never getting cancer, but then you do. I really just want to understand what caused it. For me it was not eating unhealthy processed foods, lack of exercise, genetic mutations, or old age, but it was something. I hope that one day there will be no need for these stupid statistics. All it proves is that there are deviations to the rule and I am unfortunately one them.