April 1, 2016
Sorry, it's April Fool's Day - but this is a real post.
I have not been on line for a while. This is really the first day in a while that I have felt like getting on line.
I will say - chemotherapy is different for everyone - I hope my chemotherapy is making my cancer suffer more than it is making me suffer. I'm not complaining (well, yes I am a little) but I'd rather have the chemotherapy than not have it.
Good news though - so far I still have a beautiful head of hair.
I have one three week cycle under my belt. After two more cycles they will repeat my PET scan to see if we are making progress or not.
On the topic of mathematics - I am beginning to learn a bit about medical statistics in general and cancer statistics in more detail. As with most statistics (1) firm answers are never given, and (2) even the partial answers you get are laced with the seeds of misunderstanding. You really have to pay attention to what is said, and also what is not said.
In my last job, before I retired for the second time, I always had a frustrating time trying to show management how to use statistics to find out things that are truly meaningful, and not misleading. It is very hard to explain the significance of a standard deviation to people who barely understand what an average is. And when you can't provide firm answers they tend not to believe what you are providing them.
Anyway, I've got about a week before my next chemotherapy treatment - I will try to get some posts done between now and then.
I will say that I have given a lot of examples of Sequence Numbers, but I'm hoping that maybe some others will jump in and discover some more stuff. I mean, if I can do it, well...
David
