"Take A Number...... Please!"

  I can be one tough and stubborn broad, just ask my husband. Wanna know how to get me to do anything? Just tell me it can't be done. I will walk all the way to Hawaii to prove to you that it can be done. Take statistics...no really, please take them. Just don't quote to me the numbers for survival of a life-threatening disease, or how my kids are going to not make it if I am a single mom, or divorce rates of people married more than once or the percentage of anything at all. What does it all mean? Absolutely squat! And do you know why? Because I am a human being and not a number or a statistic and neither are you.

  Do me and yourself a big favor today and put down or click off any medical or other information that quotes to you how many of anything live or succeed or move on to greater things. This information is of no value to you whatsoever. I like what one of my all time favorite people said, "I do not file things into my brain that I find useless or of little value. I will then have plenty of room for the pertinent and things I find of value to me." 

-Sherlock Holmes

 Why am I going on this tirade? Because I hate how statistics make people feel. How do you feel when you read them? You are fighting the fight of your life and here comes the latest 98% of people like you_____( fill in the blank). Do you feel discouraged, heavy, depressed? All for what? We as humans can barely get the weather right! Do we think some scientist in white lab gear has a better take? Are these "professionals" the same people who can't seem to give my good friend the right diagnosis after several tries while she sits home and waits to see if she has cancer? Why leave my fate to a bunch of numbers? Next week they will have a new take on how Captain Crunch cereal is to blame for some mad biological epidemic outbreak. Not me babe. 

  I want you to know that you are not a statistic. I want you to know that you are an individual, unique, made in the image of God. I want you to know that you are not a number but a person, worthy of great awe, fearfully and wonderfully made. Every person has their own DNA and way that their body works and responds to disease and treatment. How many times have you heard about somebody who was given days or weeks or months to live only to still be living after the time given them. Why would a doctor even guess? What kind of news is that? He really has NO idea. 

  I would like to encourage you with my story. I was a single mom and my kids made it. I went through a divorce and now am married to a wonderful man. I had a life-threatening aggressive type of cancer and am living. I am not a statistic. I am a 46 year old woman and have a name, a family, a life worth fighting for, a future. Don't quote me your numbers. I find them useless and of little value and need room for more important things like the great Holmes. If you do, you will be talking to my backside as I take a little stroll to the Hawaiian islands.