Numbers

Do you ever think about all of the numbers you have to keep track of?  DeLayne and I didn't until the day I was admitted to the MDA Cancer Clinic.  They needed to know home and business addresses, home and business phone numbers, cell phone numbers, emergency contact phone numbers, social security number, insurance policy number and date of birth.  Just to name a few.

Once you are admitted, the numbers only get worse.  Now you have to remember your patient ID number, appointment times, building numbers and shuttle schedules.  At every appointment you can look forward to having your weight, height, temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and oxygen level measured.  And do not even get me started on what they do to you when you go in to have a test or procedure done.

In honor of all of these important numbers as well as the critical numbers we keep track of on the weekend like football scores, baseball scores and the Ranger's magic number, here are a few more numbers that have entered my life in the last year and what they mean.

53 miles - this is the furthest I have ever ridden  on my bike.  About a week before my 50th birthday I got the idea that I should ride at least 50 miles before I turned 50.  Okay, admittedly, not the best idea I ever had.

45 miles - just how many of those 53 miles I enjoyed.  The last eight was a serious prayer time.

274 miles - how far it is from our driveway to MDA.


5 - how many siblings I have; three sisters and two brothers.  Four of which are older than me.

28,000,000 - if you saw any coverage of the final stage of the Tour de France, you probably know this.  Team Radio Shack and Lance Armstrong reminded us that this is how many people in the world today there are living with cancer.  I did not know it at the time, but I was one of them.

28,000 - the number of new patients admitted to MDA in a year.

1,200 - the number of people that will participate in the lung cancer study I volunteered for.  There will be 600 with and 600 without cancer in the study.

April 2010 - this is when my lung cancer symptoms first appeared.

April 16, 2010 - the day that the FDA issued their findings that Tarceva was approved as a first-line treatment for lung cancer.  Anyone want to argue God's timing?

Saturn III - the clinical trial that established Tarceva as a first-line lung cancer treatment.

9 - the floor that my thoracic oncologist is located on.

30 - how many Tarceva were prescribed for the first round of treatment.

22 - how many Tarceva were sitting at the Tom Thumb pharmacy less than a half mile from our house.  Anyone want to argue God knowing our EVERY need?

7 - the floor that the brain surgeon is located on.

4 - the number of screws that will hold the halo in place for the Gamma Knife procedure.

192 - the number of individual radiation beams that will be focused on my brain tumor Thursday.

20 minutes - the approximate time they expect the Gamma Knife procedure to take. 

15% - this is the percentage of people diagnosed with lung cancer that survive longer than five years.  I plan to be one of them.

100% - the percentage of people who will die.  Unless the Lord comes before then.

100% - the percentage of people who have an eternal life.  I once heard a minister put it this way:  "The question is not whether you have eternal life, the question is, where will you spend it?"

I am confident where I will spend my eternal life.  If you are not sure where you will spend yours, please e-mail me.

Thanks once again to all of the people who are praying for me and the family.  I think I now have a prayer chain that stretches from California to Maine.

Love you all!