Friday, October 24, 2008

The one percenters

Percentages are strange animals. They are an attempt to scientifically assess the odds of an occurrence but seem to take mythical meaning sometimes. My brother was having a third child in which the chance of a Down's baby was 0.5% based on his wife's age. This was also the odds of losing the baby due to the amnio. (they recommend amnio when the risk of Down's is equal or more than the amnio risk even though the numbers don't mean the same thing-I have 2 cars and 2 legs but ..so).But the chances of his wife having identical twins was 0.5% also and this had already happened giving the 0.5% extra power to him. The baby-now 19-is fine and there is just one of her. People kept assuming all the babies would be doubles because it happened before. One of my blog circle was told repeatedly the chances of a certain side effect happening was only 1%. This had happened several times giving her a feeling of trepidation every time the number 1% was thrown around instead of the comfort it is supposed to provide.
Only 1% of the population gets Graves's Disease and then I have it (BTW, the deal was this was supposed to my ONLY life-threatening disease) and only 1% break their waters prematurely and NOT go into labor. So my mind is fighting my gut feelings about statistically remote possibilities actually occurring. Still this 76% chance of survival-24% chance of dying is hard to find very comforting though advances are being made all the time theoretically improving that 76%. 3% is the chance I will die of something else with the majority of that risk being from a heart attack though my gut feels the combo of semi+ice+expressway is a greater chance.

So thank-you for your support, my breast-blog friends and my old friends. I do feel better today. I went for a longer run without worrying about breast bounce. If being tugged on and squished repeated yesterday didn't open the sutures, running wouldn't. I've run close to 31,000 miles without breast bounce doing permanent damage nor do I especially sag because of it (or from the 3 breast fed babies) but I shouldn't get too attached to them (the breasts-not the babies)I suppose. Sadly my running days are coming to a close with the new surgery and then chemo though I know of a man, Norm, who did triathlons while doing chemo but ultimately lost his battle.
s

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