WITH CANCER, WE ALL HAVE A NUMBER   March 27, 2011

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Michael Grant, M.D., a breast surgeon on the medical staff at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, displays his number,   4, 211—the number of breast cancer patients for whom he has cared. Are you a numbers person? If you’re left-brain dominant, you probably are, unlike your right-brain dominant counterparts who favor visuals.

But no matter your brain dominance, we can all agree that numbers can be downright scary, especially for those who have been diagnosed with cancer. To them, numbers mean everything…tumor measurements, red and white blood cell counts, hormone levels and most importantly, the magic number 5. Not until 5 years after treatment are you finally considered in remission.

Cancer, like so many things in life, is a numbers game, as cancer survivor Jon Filbert aptly put it.

But for several years now, we’ve been focusing on some positive numbers: 467,000 square-feet, 140 beds and 3/26/2011.

These numbers make up our newest “home of hope,” the new Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center set to open March 26, 2011. This $350 million facility is dedicated to caring for those whose number—for reasons we can’t comprehend—has been called to face the most challenging battle of their lives.

But thankfully, we’ve got cancer’s number. Watch our “What’s Your Number?” video to see the numbers that we’re focusing on when it comes to cancer. We’ve all been affected by cancer in some way, shape or form. In other words, we all have a cancer number. Whether it’s the number of months you’ve been in remission from lung cancer like Paul Miller….the number of feet you’ve climbed to raise awareness about blood and marrow donations like James Chippendale…or, like Aimee Bartis, the number of miles you’ve walked in cancer fundraisers in memory of your dad, each of us can truly say, “I am a numbers person.”