A child with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1 just had a birthday where she exceeded the 2-year average life expectancy.
I thought it would be nice if there was a specific term for it since it is such a huge milestone for parents in the SMA community.
Is there a word for that?
If not, maybe we can coin a term.
A lot of the Facebook posts mention the “special” or “magical” birthday.
I don’t have or even know anyone suffering from such a dreadful condition, so I feel squicky even attempting to post, serious or otherwise.
With that said, how about “Limit Break Day”? OK… pretty nerdy FF reference.
Ummm… how about “HopeDay”? As in, Happy HopeDay? As in, you hope they exceed the average or longer.
Do you have a personal connection to this issue?
Bearflag70: I don’t have a *good *suggestion for you. But here’s some thoughts …
Expectancy is an average. As such, half the subjects should exceed it. And it’s a moving target. e.g. amongst normal humans, 70 is the life expectancy at birth. Among 68 year-olds it’s more like 75. And amongst 73 year-olds its more like 79. These are made up ballpark numbers but you get the idea.
My point is that once somebody gets past the original birth expectancy age, they have a new expectancy age which is still out in the future. That fact brings up concepts like “hope day” or “more where that came from day”. Although those are bad sugestions themselves, the idea may inspire someone more lyrical than I.
As a tongue in cheek suggestion how about “Lake Wobegone birthday” from the idea of it being a place where everyone is above average. Because every baby who makes it to 2 is in fact above average compared to their birth cohort.
An inside joke could be “the SDMB birthday” because many folks here feel & act like every Doper is also above average.
The word “bonus” comes to mind.
Does the insurance industry have a term for someone going past expectancy? I think it’s something like the “oh shit day.” 
Don’t feel squicky if you can help it. I’m just trying to come up with a term that celebrates and honors a significant milestone.
Maybe “milestone birthday”?
That doesn’t quite fit. Last year my sister’s household celebrated two birthdays in the space of a week, 18 and 50. Those are what I’d call milestones.
The “suck it actuaries!” birthday?
I like that.
Many parents on the 2nd birthday essentially tell their pediatric neurologist to suck it. Many of the doctors upon giving a diagnosis of SMA tell the parents there is “nothing you can do but take your child home and love them.”
Then these parents discover through others that there are many things they can do to manage the condition, provide a reasonable quality of life, and spend more time enjoying their lives together as a family.
So there’s a lot of folks telling docs to “suck it” on that day.
I’ve never heard a term for this birthday. Nor has any of the actuaries in the office whom I consulted. As LSLGuy noted, one’s expectation of life is a moving target. It’s always in the future.
Hardly. For most life insurance policies, the longer the insured lives, the better for the insurer. The insurer gets more premium income and has a longer period, with more investment earnings, until the payment of the death benefit. Even for annuities, where a longer than expected lifespan may cost the insurer money, that will only be the case if the whole cohort of lives experiences improved mortality. Otherwise the cost of payments to the longer-living lives will be offset by the savings made on those dying earlier.
I like it too :).
Off-topic but related to the “suck it” clause… when Dweezil was not quite 3 and had just been diagnosed with autism, we were referred to a neurologist. The fellow was an ass, though highly thought-of locally. I asked him “Will my son graduate high school” and he basically said “only about a third of these kids do that”.
In about 15 months I’m going to mail him a copy of my son’s diploma with a big fat “HAH!!!”.
OK, maybe I won’t bother (we never saw the man again)… but you get the sentiment.
The “insurance company” he was talking about is the health insurance company that’s paying thousands of dollars a week to keep his child alive. They can hardly wait for the poor thing to expire so their costs drop to zero.
It’s amazing the things you just don’t have to think about when you live in a civilized country with a proper universal medical system. Unlike us poor schlubs in the USA.
It’s not quite the same, but after my son was born prematurely, the doctors spent most of my recent pregnancy warning me my daughter would arrive early too.
I was smug when we hit 40 weeks, and might have smirked at them a lot when she arrived at 41 weeks plus 4 days (and even that was 3 days after they started inducing me to try and coax her out!).
Back to the original topic, I like “bonus birthdays” for once you’ve outlived your predicted years!
I was under the impression that life expectancy is a mean, not a median. (And that the distribution is not necessarily symmetrical, so these aren’t the same thing.) Am I wrong?
I think “bonus” birthdays isn’t good because the bonus doesn’t kick in until the third birthday. The one that needs to be specially recognized is the second birthday.
I’m sure the guy was a jerk, but I doubt he would be bothered by your son’s diploma. If 1/3 of autistic kids graduate from high school, then that means your son is in that 1/3. Congratulations. How does this make what the doctor said in any way inaccurate? 
You asked him a question and he gave you the answer. I doubt even the best doctor in the world can predict whether any specific kid, no matter what developmental issues they had, will or will not graduate from high school.