Judy Clymer Welles
Aug 27, 2017 · 1 min read

What Stephanie said. I was diagnosed (at age 73) with colon cancer last April. At that time, I heard the same 10% statistic that you did. Then a radiation oncologist friend told me “actually, it’s more like 20%.” Then somewhere I heard 20% — 30%. My oncologist told me that although I technically fall into a high risk category (Stage 3), he considers me to have high chances of survival for a long time, because I’m in generally good health and have no co-morbidity symptoms. And my surgeon says he’s pretty sure I don’t have any cancer in my body now; it was all removed with the surgery.

I say this not to call attention to me, but to show you that the opinions about survival rates are all over the place and you probably shouldn’t pay much attention to the gloomy ones. You are your own statistic.

If you would like to be in contact with me during your chemo, just so that you can talk with someone who’s been there, please send me a message on FB and we can make that happen.

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