Hesitantly offering a link to stories of pancan survivors

Posted by jk77 @jk77, Nov 1, 2023

I'm Eeyore, not Pollyanna, so although I respect the upbeat attitude that many people on this board have, it's not natural to me.

That said, I've noticed that many people here have written, more or less, something I've been saying since the shock of my diagnosis: "Some people obviously beat the grim stats, and there's no reason why I shouldn't be one of them."

I know that longevity under these circs requires far more than a good attitude -- that luck of the draw is a huge factor (for ex., do we have great drs. and great insurance?). Nonetheless, I want this for all of us -- so in case these stories can help, here they are. (Most of you probably know this site already, but just in case.)
https://letswinpc.org/category/survivor-stories/
https://www.youtube.com/@letswinpc/featured

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Pancreatic Cancer Support Group.

markymarkfl | @markymarkfl | Nov 4, 2023

@jk77 , I'm glad you posted that. There are some encouraging stories there, and links or inferences to other topics worth researching.

In general, bad data can be worse than no data at all. Good data is usually better than no data, but you never truly know when you have "enough" data -- at some point actionable decisions have to be made based on the data you have.

One chemo infusion center where I received treatment does not do a "ring the bell" ceremony upon conclusion of treatment because they believe it offers too much false hope.

Dr. Google and this forum both suffer somewhat on the side of negativity because the posts are all from people in the worst throes of the disease. Unfortunately, many of those cured have moved on with their lives and are no longer involved in posting here. My sincere thanks go out daily to @stageivsurvivor for being one of those continuing beacons of hope and inspiration.

I'm reminded of a lesson I learned long ago: Nothing is _completely_ useless -- if nothing else, it can at least serve as an example of what _not_ to do. 😉

Later in life, I read a story that eventually fell under the category of "survivorship bias." It involved WWII aircraft returning to base full of bullet holes. Maintenance was recommended to add armor where they were hit most often, because there was too much weight penalty to reinforce every spot.

The fallacy eventually realized was that if the aircraft could be hit so often and still return to base, they really didn't need armor in those places after all. Those were survivable hits already. They needed to infer where aircraft that didn't return to base were hit, and try to reinforce those locations instead.

That and some other interesting stories of survivorship bias are discussed here:
https://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/survivorship-bias