{"id":6326,"date":"2010-06-27T20:18:30","date_gmt":"2010-06-28T01:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pmedicine.org\/epatients\/?p=6326"},"modified":"2010-07-07T11:07:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T16:07:48","slug":"you%e2%80%99re-100-alive-or-100-dead-at-any-given-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/participatorymedicine.org\/epatients\/2010\/06\/you%e2%80%99re-100-alive-or-100-dead-at-any-given-moment.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;You\u2019re 100% alive or 100% dead at any given moment&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recurring training topic on this blog, originally for e-patients but also for clinicians and policy people, is understanding statistics. (See posts in <a href=\"https:\/\/participatorymedicine.org\/epatients\/archives\/category\/understanding-statistics\" target=\"_blank\">that category<\/a>.)\u00a0 Not only are statistics often misinterpreted; even when they&#8217;re correctly understood, patients too often interpret a slim chance as no chance.<\/p>\n<p>During my illness I heard from a long-ago co-worker. A cancer patient herself now, she recently wrote that while sitting in the chair getting chemo, she found this splendid and empowering tidbit :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What I think I learned is, you\u2019re either 100 percent alive or 100 percent dead at any given moment,\u201d says Meg Gaines, whom doctors gave a 5 percent chance of surviving [ovarian cancer].  \u201cWhat statistics tell you is whether you\u2019re in a great big fight, a medium-sized fight, or a little fight. People win and lose all three, so it just tells you what your fighting mind-set is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt tells you what level of risk you&#8217;ll take in treatment.  It informs things.  But I don&#8217;t think it\u2019s very helpful on the ultimate question: Will I stay or will I go?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Excerpted in <em>Utne<\/em> magazine, March-April 2010, pp. 71-73, from <em>On   Wisconsin<\/em> (Winter 2009), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uwalumni.com\/onwisconsin\">www.uwalumni.com\/onwisconsin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recurring training topic on this blog, originally for e-patients but also for clinicians and policy people, is understanding statistics. 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