The Saturday Revisit Of “It’s All Just 50/50”

Originally Posted January 30, 2012

As I approach my fifth year of living with heart failure brought on by sarcoidosis, I think back to the day that I learned that people with cardiac sarcoidosis have a 50% chance of living for five years and a 20% chance of making it to ten years. Then I learned the same statistics hold true for people with pulmonary hypertension.

I have never really been one for statistics, because statistics say with my combination of conditions, I should be dead. And the more and more I think about it, when doctors tell you that you have a 75% chance of surviving this or surviving that, it’s all really just a pile of BS, isn’t it?

When you enter an operating room, you only have a 50/50 chance of that operation being successful. All statistics are really saying is that for every x amount people that had that operation, only y were not successful. But for you, at that given time, that means nothing. Your chances are always going to be 50/50 that the operation will be successful.

And if you really think about it, that applies to everything in life. Everything is a 50/50 chance. Either it will, or it won’t. It’s that simple.

So now when I am given statistics about any of my conditions, either as a means to make me face reality or to make me feel better, I just ignore it, because for me, it’s either I will, or I won’t. It’s just 50/50.