Anyone who has cancer is conscious of death. Even if it is a cancer that can be cured with a survival rate of over 90%, or a cancer with a survival rate of just over 1%, I think there is no difference in the confusion of the possibility of death that suddenly appeared in front of you due to cancer. Even if the survival rate is 90%, it is 0 or 1 for you. It is impossible to survive with only 90% of the body, so even if you are told that you have a 90% survival rate, the possibility of death that suddenly appeared in front of you, which you had hardly thought about in your life until then, makes you think about what it means to die and what will happen to your family after you die. Some people may be afraid of the fear of death, and some people may not be able to sleep at night because they are worried about the future of their family members.
In my case, I was fortunate that both of my children became adults and met and married wonderful partners, so I was not plagued by anxiety about my children’s future. I also knew that even if I was gone, my wife would be able to live a life without much trouble with the assets and insurance I left behind, so I do not feel any anxiety about the future of my family members.
When I found out I had cancer, I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel any fear. I’ve always loved samurai novels, and I enjoyed reading stories about warriors who lived pure lives while always being aware of death, but I don’t think I was prepared to live like a samurai.
Instead, I was very sad that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t live long. I want to spend more time with my young grandchildren. I want to travel around Japan leisurely with my wife. I want to play soccer with my friends in a national tournament. I was very sad that there was a possibility that my time for these things would be limited.
But I realized quite early on that it was a waste of time to be sad. If the time left is short, it’s a waste to spend that short time sad. I should spend the remaining time as happily as possible. And besides, no one knows whether the time left is short or not. I was able to change my mindset a few days after being diagnosed with cancer, and instead of spending time sad, I should use my time to live as long as possible. In particular, many cancer survivors commented that while facing death head-on, it is important to live each day with a positive attitude and a smile without fearing death in order to survive for a long time, which helped me to change my mindset.
When searching online for survival rates in Japan, the 5-year survival rate for stage 4 pancreatic cancer is often 1.2% to 1.6%, but my wife noticed that this number was from around 2013 to 2014. This data is more than 10 years old, but many sites list survival rates that are not much different from this number. The surgeon who operated on me told me that until a few years ago, when preoperative anticancer drug treatment for pancreatic cancer was not performed, it was common for peritoneal dissemination to be found even after open surgery and the pancreatic cancer could not be removed, but since preoperative anticancer drug treatment began, this has almost never happened. In the first place, survival rates are not like lotteries where there is a set number of first prize winners, but the numbers can change if you change your treatment method or lifestyle. I decided to stop being scared by old numbers.
There is a similar indicator of survival rate called the five-year relative survivor survival rate. It is an indicator of the subsequent survival rate of people (survivors) who are still alive a certain number of years after diagnosis; for example, the five-year survival rate of a one-year survivor is the survival rate six years after diagnosis. In the case of pancreatic cancer, the five-year survival rate for zero-year survivors is just under 6%, but this improves rapidly to around 20% for one-year survivors and around 40% for two-year survivors, and seems to exceed 80% for five-year survivors. If I’m going to look at the numbers, I want to only look at numbers like these that make me feel positive.