What do statistics tell me?
You have some idea of what you are facing. You know that you are going to have difficult times battling this cancer. You know that you need to think about the future of your loved ones, and even what you want to do with the time you have. Some people with seek out the most aggressive treatment and try and grab onto any more time they can. A lot of people do that, in fact, but there comes a time when the fight is too difficult.
You don’t know when that is going to happen to you. You are not a statistic. In a hundred patients, if there were 50 who lived one year, and 50 who lived 9 years, the average length of survival would be 5 years. No one can know who will be the patient who lives 1 year, or the patient who lives 9 years.
If possible, the best thing to do is balance optimism and realism.
Again, your own doctor or doctors are the best people to give you an idea of what will happen in your case. No two people are exactly alike.