[HN Gopher] I've been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only...
___________________________________________________________________
I've been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few
days left
Author : donsupreme
Score : 291 points
Date : 2022-12-18 15:33 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| brendabug wrote:
| I pray for you and your family and that the diagnosis is not
| true. Praying your work continues and that there will be
| breakthroughs from your work. Pray your passage brings you into
| the arms of long lost loved ones to comfort you.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| Once upon a time, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor that would
| kill me within a year. Eight years later and it hasn't yet. I'm
| sorry you had this happen- I hope your pain is gone soon,
| brother.
|
| Fuck cancer.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are so lucky. I know quite a few cases where it was the
| opposite. "Oh, you've got years left". And then a funeral three
| months or so later. Cancer _really_ sucks.
| chriscappuccio wrote:
| GBM? Standard of care?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| There are two types of cancer. One that you will die with,
| the other you will die from. Unfortunately you never know
| which is which until it is too late. I hope that some immune
| treatments will be approved soon. Seem to be promising
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yes! New treatments at the UofIowa are sending patients
| home cured. Not in remission. Only very specific cancers,
| and at great cost. But there may be light at the end of the
| tunnel.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That is incredibly good news, let's hope they manage to
| expand this kind of treatment.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| There currently is no "cure" for cancer. Patients can get
| to the NED (no evidence of disease) stage, but cancer
| comes back unless resected early enough.
|
| This may be referring to immunology, which is promising,
| but only keeps it at bay and needs continuing therapy. It
| becomes a chronic disease, which is preferable to a
| uncontrollable disease.
| [deleted]
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There isn't just one kind of cancer. So even if a good
| fix is found for one kind it is highly likely not very
| transferable to another kind.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| > There are two types of cancer. One that you will die
| with, the other you will die from. Unfortunately you never
| know which is which until it is too late.
|
| Spot on.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| No joke :/. My cousin recently passed from Hodgkin's
| Lymphoma- they told her that the vast majority of patients
| have at least five years, many of whom have at least ten.
| That was a little over two years ago.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Gah that sucks. The randomness of it all is maddening.
|
| I buried an uncle a few months ago, he had a very nasty
| case of cancer and was in so much pain that we were all so
| grateful that at least here in NL there was the option to
| throw in the towel. He was a super nice man and I regret
| not having more contact with him in my life (my family is
| rather fragmented). But so much suffering is just too much
| to inflict on anybody. I can't seem to get through six
| months right now without a funeral and given the age of my
| extended family members that trend is likely not going to
| change for a long time to come.
| bane wrote:
| I'm really sorry to hear it. :(
|
| The past few years seem to have been really hard on
| people, even those without COVID. It seems the number of
| deaths in my circle too has accelerated -- especially
| among the "old but still should have some life left in
| 'em" cohort.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm sort of mentally bracing myself for the next couple
| of years. In my family I'm give or take a week the oldest
| in my generation and pretty soon everybody above me will
| be gone. It will be a strange phase in my life, one where
| there is no more living tie to the past.
| vogt wrote:
| Randomness is definitely true. My cousin was diagnosed
| with an inoperable brain tumor at two years old. Two! The
| prognosis was that at absolute best, she would live to 16
| years of age.
|
| However! Happily, she is alive, well, and living every
| day like it's her last at ~31 now. Been in remission for
| at least 10-15 years or something, I'm not sure the exact
| specifics.
|
| But what a horrible, arbitrary curse to put on a 2 year
| old child. Her family lived with ours for a number of
| years and I vividly remember her beautiful curly red hair
| falling out repeatedly. I also remember the "fuse import"
| (no clue if that's the actual name) buried in her chest.
| And all of this happening while she's learning to walk,
| talk, and progress through elementary school.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A friend of mine works in the cancer ward of a childrens
| hospital in Amsterdam (Emma Kinderziekenhuis), she's the
| strongest person that I know. I couldn't face that kind
| of hardship in others.
| abraae wrote:
| My brother in law died slowly and painfully from motor
| neurone disease. The worst way to go.
|
| He was a real fighter, and had several goals - to see his
| son turn 21, to get to some big rowing champs, etc.
|
| He achieved some of those goals, and missed out on
| others. But as his disease wore on, he became so disabled
| and in so much pain that life was a true misery. Not just
| for him but for his loved ones, who were also his carers.
|
| His last few months were not good for anyone and both my
| wife and I decided we would rather shuffle off than
| extend our lives in a similar situation.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are some other stories playing out in my family
| right now that are very close analogies to yours and I
| hope that you managed to eventually heal and deal with
| the stress. I can see all kinds of stress fractures
| running through my family because of the enormous
| pressure exerted by caring for people in the final days
| of their lives. It's very painful to see people cause all
| kinds of damage to each other and themselves with the
| best of intentions.
| abraae wrote:
| Good luck to you and your family. Time heals all wounds,
| as it did for us, though scars of course remain.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you. Likewise!
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Yep. The randomness. And the helplessness of others
| (speaking as the relative of the cancer patient). Its
| just a terrible feeling all around.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, the helplessness is terrible. It's one of the things
| I've really had to face up close recently and there is no
| really good way to deal with it.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| If it helps you feel better, I have no idea either : )
|
| Cancer sucks.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| Dang I'm sorry, that's awful :'(. I know that a common
| theme in literature is that everyone dies alone, but I'm
| glad that your uncle wasn't alone when he was finally
| freed from pain. You're right, that's too much suffering
| to inflict on anybody, and the randomness... It feels
| almost cruel sometimes. To me, that is.
| greenthrow wrote:
| I recently had a cancer scare (turned out to be benign) and have
| a friend currently battling. I don't know Mark but I know cancer
| sucks.
| [deleted]
| rektide wrote:
| braingenious wrote:
| This is the funniest post.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I have a relative who joined Facebook in the early days, and
| then passed away shortly after.
|
| Her account is still up, and FB talks about her like she's
| alive.
|
| There's no way for me to inform FB that the inevitable has
| become actual.
|
| FB has a "memorial archive" feature, but distant relatives have
| to way of initiating it. The people closest to her don't have a
| Facebook recognized connection.
|
| She's been gone over a decade.
| trhr wrote:
| Pretty sure all you need is a death certificate, which should
| be on file at her local courthouse.
| tintor wrote:
| And to prove that person on the certificate is the owner of
| FB account.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yahoo! did the same with Geocities when they couldn't make a
| buck on it. Still mad about that one.
| martindbp wrote:
| The important thing is we make this about Musk.
| rektide wrote:
| I'd try more like, the important thing is what we leave
| behind, what comes in our wake.
| tomrod wrote:
| Fuck cancer.
|
| Be at peace, Mark.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.neuroscience.ox.ac.uk/research-directory/mark-
| st...
| tomrod wrote:
| 10 Simple Rules for a Supportive Lab Environment:
| https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/35/1/44/113591/10-Simple...
|
| > These rules were written and voted on collaboratively, by the
| students and mentees of Professor Mark Stokes, who inspired
| this piece.
| tomrod wrote:
| These are rules that are good for any team, not just for
| academic labs.
|
| 1. Encourage Critique But Not Competition
|
| 2. Model "Failure" and Celebrate Honesty
|
| 3. Be Approachable
|
| 4. Facilitate Communication and Ensure There Are Minimal
| Barriers to Asking Questions
|
| 5. A Supportive Lab Is a Social Lab
|
| 6. Give Timely (and Constructive) Feedback
|
| 7. Respect Others' Time and Expertise
|
| 8. Have Career Conversations That Cover Both Academic and
| Nonacademic Paths, Prioritizing Individuals' Career Goals and
| Aspirations
|
| 9. Keep Track of, Suggest, and Create (Tailored)
| Opportunities for Trainees
|
| 10. Be An Advocate
| bane wrote:
| There's a lot of wonderful empathy encoded here.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| This will live on forever.
|
| I'll be doing my part.
| terran57 wrote:
| Two very personal experiences to relate. --- My father died 7
| weeks after he was diagnosed with liver cancer - 11 days past his
| 62nd birthday. Prior to the diagnosis, he was going to take early
| retirement at 62 and travel with my mother. He had lots of other
| plans for post-retirement that he never got to realize. --- A
| close friend of mine died of heart cancer (well, technically, he
| died from complications of having an artificial heart - but
| cancer ruined his natural heart). He had thought he'd beaten
| cancer before (in the leg) and after repeated clean-bills of
| health, he finally thought it was safe to marry his fiance and
| have a couple of children. But instead, cancer re-emerged and
| claimed his life. He left behind his fiance', grieving parents,
| sisters and left a large hole in the community.
|
| So yeah - fuck cancer.
| ethics13 wrote:
| Did your dad drink? I ask because my dad died of the same
| (although they never did find the origin other than liver) and
| he was not a drinker.
| mythhouse wrote:
| I think > 30% of fatty liver disease comes from insulin
| resistance
| endorphine wrote:
| Anyone else feeling anxious over their own mortality after
| reading this?
| didgetmaster wrote:
| When I was in my 30s and had two small children, my appendix
| burst. It turned into a fairly routine procedure to remove it
| and get me back on my feet; but I realized that if I had lived
| even 100 years ago it probably would have been fatal.
|
| Near death experiences can change your whole perspective. When
| I was young and single, I did all kinds of crazy things that
| could easily have ended me. Once I got married and had
| children, I definitely became much more conservative in the
| personal risks I was willing to take because it wasn't just
| about me anymore.
|
| Tomorrow is promised to no one, but each of us can do things to
| minimize risk.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >When I was in my 30s and had two small children, my appendix
| burst. It turned into a fairly routine procedure to remove it
| and get me back on my feet; but I realized that if I had
| lived even 100 years ago it probably would have been fatal.*
|
| I've lost count of how many "ordinary" infections I've lived
| through thanks to antibiotics. One would have for sure killed
| me. A puncture wound on the bottom of my foot in a dirty
| river in the south.
|
| We're not even 100 years into having antibiotics. A species
| just getting started tbh. I wonder what will come next that
| is similarly "magical" to antibiotics.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Most people older than 40 are living on borrowed time given
| the medical progress of the last 100 years. I would have been
| dead twice without now.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Vos qui transitis nostri memores rogo sitis Quod sumus hoc
| eritis Fuimus aliquando quod estis
|
| Heu quantus est noster dolor
| jacquesm wrote:
| My high school Latin has faded to the point that I resorted
| to Google translate, here is what it says:
|
| "You who remember our passing, I beg you to be what we are,
| you will be. We were once what you are
|
| Alas, how great is our grief"
| zuno wrote:
| "The origin of the saying of the dead, which emphasises the
| nothingness of earthly life, is attributed to Arabic
| poetry. Thus the Arab poet 'Adi b. Zayd, as he rode past
| graves with the king of Hira (c. 580 CE), has the dead
| exclaim to the king:
|
| "We were what you are; But the time will come, And it will
| come to you swiftly, when ye shall be what we are."
|
| Like the dance of death and the triumph of death, the motif
| is emblematic of the medieval admonition memento mori.
| Simultaneous depiction of the topoi is common, for example
| in Francesco Traini's mid-fourteenth-century fresco Triumph
| of Death, which depicts the three living and the three
| dead. The legend was also integrated in the Dance of Death
| by Kientzheim.
|
| A fresco from the Isefjord workshop in the church of Tuse
| (Denmark) from the 15th century shows three mounted kings
| on the hunt, who are met by three dead kings from whom
| maggots and worms escape. Each of them is assigned a
| banner. On the first dead man's banner is written: "Vos qui
| transitis n(os)t(r)i me(m)ores rogo sitis" (You who are
| passing by, I beg you: Remember us), on the second: "Quod
| sumus hoc eritis" (What we are now, you shall become one
| day) and on the third: "Fuimus aliquando quod estis" (We
| were once what you are now). Above their heads one reads:
| "Heu qua(n)tus est noster dolor" (Oh, how great is our
| pain)."
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/latin/comments/n8dzuo/quod_sumus_h
| o...
| Beaver117 wrote:
| "Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death
| is, then I am not." - Epicurious
| damontal wrote:
| I was in the hospital with a blood clot and was told by the
| ER doctor that I could die at any moment.
|
| Quotes like the above, ideas, feelings about meaning,
| thoughts about my wife and kids all were completely absent. I
| just felt blank and completely alone. No words or concepts or
| language could penetrate that feeling.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's 'Epicurus' (auto correct strikes again?), and for all of
| his wisdom I think the detachment is not one that I subscribe
| to because fear of death can well come from the fear of no
| longer being there to support those that are dependent on
| you. If you limit your universe to yourself then it obviously
| gets a lot easier.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| I always live and love like I'm dying so not really. My
| girlfriend recently asked me what I dream about and I replied
| honestly saying "I don't dream, I live my dreams."
|
| Then again, I am in the line of work best described as
| willingly agreeing to put an airplane together as I fall out of
| the sky. Not a whole lot of downtime in my days.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Accurate terminology.
|
| The main reason I've been servicing airplane engines in
| flight for my employer is because on my own I already had "to
| put an airplane together as I fall out of the sky."
| no_wizard wrote:
| If this is inappropriate I apologize
|
| Whet line of work are you in exactly, if you don't mind
| sharing?
| weberer wrote:
| Not really. It was inevitable before, and its still inevitable
| now.
| brookst wrote:
| Yep. All that changes is information about the shape of the
| probability curve for how many days are left.
| sh4rks wrote:
| That's why you meditate on your death everyday
| leetrout wrote:
| Bingo. Memento mori.
|
| https://dailystoic.com/memento-mori/
|
| And other "bad things" with negative visualization.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_visualization
| CRWW wrote:
| I've been looking for a meaningful challenge-coin like
| something to keep on my person, and coincidentally been
| wanting to look into stoicism more. Thanks for the link.
| drowsspa wrote:
| I actually envy people who have such a drive to live to the
| point of battling cancer for so long. If I got diagnosed I
| definitely would just give up.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| same ... chemo with all its uncertainties and pain. can't see
| myself go through that. but you only really know when you're
| there. survival instinct can just kick in when death is
| around the corner.
| qorrect wrote:
| Agreed on all points. Thinking about developing a crippling
| disease is the only time I've been thankful that you can
| buy a pistol in any walmart.
| paulcole wrote:
| Same. I'm 40 w/ a chronic illness already. I'd _really_ have
| to be talked into chemotherapy if it came to that -- and I'm
| pretty sure I'd still decline.
| zetazzed wrote:
| Just as one datapoint, I had stage 4 cancer in my 40s. They
| described the chemo as one of the most intense courses they
| can give. Took seven months or so. It sucked but was very
| doable - you just get up, show up, feel sick, then do it
| again. Don't think too hard about it. Obviously ymmv, but I
| would not advise thinking of heavy chemo as a guaranteed
| torture chamber.
| altdataseller wrote:
| How old are you now and how long have you had stage 4?
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| Contemplation of one's own mortality and limited time on earth
| is a daily practice in most traditional religions for a long
| time.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Once you have kids (my apologies assuming you don't if you do,
| but perhaps other readers should be aware), you start to feel
| that every day - not only worrying how they'll be cared for
| materially, but also how they'd cope with the loss
| developmentally.
| tartoran wrote:
| Yes, having children complicates things quite a bit. I
| personally don't care much about my own demise but the
| thought of leaving my child without support is giving me
| great anxiety. My biggest hope in life is surviving until my
| child is a young adult.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Spot on. This is pretty much the driving force in my life
| right now. I haven't been particularly kind to this body and
| the damage is starting to add up to the point that I wonder
| how much longer it will work and posts like these ram that
| home in ways that are impossible to ignore.
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| How haven't you been kind to your body?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Bike accident (utterly self inflicted), 1000's of all-
| nighters, too little exercise (which I guess you can
| always point at, I bike a lot but that's not balanced
| exercise), diet, overstressed joints/muscles by doing too
| much physical work beyond my ability (usually when
| remodeling houses or constructing stuff). Coupled with a
| nice assortment of genetic heritage and some regular
| diseases (COVID, kidneys, gall bladder, bad lung) and it
| starts to really add up, the comparison between when I
| turned 50 and today is really harsh, it's not so much a
| gradual descent as it is a drop off a cliff.
| wayeq wrote:
| I'm similar. You might try swimming if it is practical
| for you, it has made a world of difference for me. It is
| close to a perfectly balanced exercise, involving nearly
| all muscles, low impact, cardio and breath control, and
| above all it is fun (at least for me and a significant
| percentage of people).
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm a super bad swimmer and my skin is hypersensitive to
| chlorine but this sounds like it is worth investigating
| anyway, thank you!
| bitwidget wrote:
| See if there are any saltwater pools next to you, they
| still need chlorine, but it looks like the chlorine
| effect is gentler.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you very much, that might be just the thing for me.
| I really need a way to balance all this out and it has to
| be something that I can do on a schedule and indoors so
| it isn't weather dependent. The best so far was a trainer
| bike on a stand.
|
| Of course I will need to become a better swimmer.
| subharmonicon wrote:
| For me 47 to 52 has been like a steep drop as well. I
| have neither been great or awful in taking care of
| myself, but it has clearly added up.
|
| Now facing open-heart surgery with all its risks and
| complications sometime soon. I knew that was always a
| possibility due to a congenital heart defect but five
| years ago it seemed unlikely and suddenly in the last 18
| months it became a clear eventuality.
|
| Trying to reframe that in the most positive way possible
| in my mind and also stop blaming myself for not taking
| better care of myself. It's hard.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wow, here's to hoping that that surgery works out and
| that there are no complications. Makes my stuff look like
| a mere nuisance. Best of luck there!
| ronyeh wrote:
| Sorry to hear.... I'm a fan of your work and your
| writing. Hope you can put as much focus into improving
| your health (sleep, diet, mobility) as you do your work.
| (I have had the same tendencies so I know...)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Trying...
| imdsm wrote:
| I couldn't say this any better. Once you have kids,
| everything changes. The impact of getting ill is no longer
| how it affects you, if you've done enough with your time, but
| how it will affect them. It's like a dark cloud that follows,
| in the back of your mind every day. Ultimately, it helps you
| realise what really matters, and what doesn't.
| mrits wrote:
| I doubt you actually mean this is the case for everyone.
| Obviously there are a lot of parents that don't feel this
| way. I have a recent example where a few years ago my
| friends dad (friend is ~35,dad is ~75) wanted the son to
| give up a kidney even though he had other health concerns
| and most likely wouldn't last a few more years regardless.
| That doesn't sound like love as I wouldn't even ask that of
| a good friend.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are of course always exceptions. It's funny, I'm on
| the reverse of that, I'm the dad, have pretty bad kidneys
| (30 years of kidney stones will do a lot of damage) but
| there isn't a hair on my head that would think of
| accepting a kidney from one of my children so that I can
| live longer.
| xedrac wrote:
| I consider this one of life's greatest privileges. The
| responsibility of it all can be overwhelming, but I have
| perspective in droves!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed, nothing to help focus the mind like having kids.
| Until I held my firstborn life was all fun and games.
| tasuki wrote:
| Is it a bad thing for life to be fun and games?
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, absolutely not. But it is somewhat incompatible with
| having the responsibility for one or more children. I'm
| sure it can be done but most people that I know that have
| children see them as their first responsibility.
| martinko wrote:
| Ive just had my first child, shes 7 months old. Tbh the
| responsibility (coupled with the fact that im a bit of a
| hypochondriac) can sometimes feel overwhelming. Im blessed
| that i have her, but damn.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Those first few months are extra hard but cherish them
| anyway, soon enough she'll be asking you for the car
| keys. Time flies. And congratulations!
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| that even generalizes to having "adopted" rescue animals, i
| confess and know innumerable others would too: one adopts
| them because they're good earthlings too, and while not
| genetic offspring, adopters feel they join a family which you
| don't want to have disrupted by horrid illness.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I've been anxious about my mortality since Covid hit. Not
| because I was necessarily afraid of dying, I was afraid of
| dying with regret and not living life to the fullest.
|
| So my wife and I decided to just be "hybrid digital nomads"
| flying across the US with a few weeks in Mexico and Canada so
| we could be in US time zones. We will be living in Florida from
| September through mid March and traveling the other six months
| while our place is professionally managed by a property
| manager.
|
| We sold our cars, threw almost everything we owned away that
| wouldn't fit in three suitcases and rented our house out. We
| will sell it mid 2024.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wow, that's pretty brave! Congratulations for actually acting
| on it. I have a similar impulse but I'm completely tied down
| by responsibilities and family so no way to act on it.
| Especially having kids is an enormous factor in things like
| this and dealing with their future and how to best prepare
| them for it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| My younger (step)son is 20. I wanted to ease him into
| taking responsibility. We rented the house to him and two
| of his best friends who we have known forever and we know
| their parents at a discount. Their rent just covers
| interest and taxes and the three non fixed utility bills.
| We still cover the internet, yard, HOA, pest, trash, etc.
|
| We were going to do that at least two years. But, I was
| using my stock vests to offset the costs and well you know
| how stock is doing these days.
|
| Next year we will add a set fee to partially offset some of
| those expenses like a real apartment does.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I sincerely hope that you can make it work for the future
| as well, it sounds like a dream life to me.
| no_time wrote:
| I just feel that in general. Lying in bed on most nights I can
| "feel" my body disintegrating. Forever, irreversibly as I drift
| into cold nothingness.
|
| To end on a positive note, I still find it less terrifying than
| the alternative, which is living forever.
| umvi wrote:
| > To end on a positive note
|
| As a religious person this is actually like the most negative
| note imaginable for me. I mean, sure, I'll grant you life
| after death is "terrifying" in a "fear of the unknown" sense,
| but I would definitely prefer seeing deceased loved ones
| again and continuing to learn and progress after death vs.
| ceasing to exist.
| Sirened wrote:
| I don't know, I've heard so many stories of people that,
| after 90+ years, are just bored of life. It's unimaginable
| to me now but I've only been an adult for a small fraction
| of the time they've been and so maybe you can really just
| run out of things to do.
| umvi wrote:
| > I don't know, I've heard so many stories of people
| that, after 90+ years, are just bored of life.
|
| Would they still feel that way if they had youthful
| energy and a more elastic mind, I wonder? Hard to tell. I
| myself hope I'm more like Donald Knuth in my old age -
| still curious and learning and progressing.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Ever since I lost my parents to cancer and sarcoidosis, I'm
| more aware of life. However, as I'm currently struggling
| financially, I'm afraid of every day I spent thinking about my
| finances and not my life.
|
| I think it takes a lot of courage to face your last tweet...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Drop me a line please, can't find your email address.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| I dropped a christmas line to the email address I found on
| your about page. :)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ty!
| grrandalf wrote:
| Yes. But I think I would be more anxious if I had not read
| these two books.
|
| * book "Staring into the Sun" * book "How we Die"
|
| Eliding my 2c on these books -- it's _your_ 2c that matters.
|
| LLAP
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I had seriously contemplated suicide multiple times in my life
| (about 6 so far), and every time I managed to escape the
| intrusive thoughts. I have a heart condition and I may just
| drop dead, thus living alone means that there is nobody to
| regurgitate me.
|
| The way I have reconciled this is through accepting that I have
| already died, thus every day is a gift.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's probably the most powerful 'life hack' that I've ever
| heard of.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Oops.
|
| This was supposed to write resuscitate.
| solardev wrote:
| I can only hope to be lucky enough to know when I'm going to
| for. Having a few days or months to say goodbye etc. would be
| great.
| robofanatic wrote:
| But that just elongates the pain for everyone involved
| (apologies for my English) I prefer to go in a snap.
| solardev wrote:
| That's a good point though.
| bane wrote:
| Almost exactly 18 months ago, my then 87 year old father, after
| feeling unwell and having some fluid problems with his lungs was
| diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. He turned down treatment and
| died at home a couple days before Christmas last year.
|
| I've come away from the experience very unhappy with the medical
| system. There's a long list, things that in any other industry
| would be prosecuted. The medical and hospice systems are as near
| to worthless as any amount of money can buy -- at most times an
| absolute farce.
|
| These _were_ people who went out of their way to make things a
| little less worse, but they all worked on the periphery of the
| system: drivers, suppliers, and so on.
|
| Fuck cancer, but also fuck the American medical system, and
| anybody who's gotten in the way of making it more sane and
| compassionate.
|
| I miss my Dad.
| mythhouse wrote:
| > Fuck cancer, but also fuck the American medical system, and
| anybody who's gotten in the way of making it more sane and
| compassionate.
|
| We are about enter this system for my dad for end stage
| Prostate cancer. Wondering whats in store for us :|, curious to
| hear any specific we should watch out for.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I went through this with my then 94-year-old grandfather a
| couple of years ago.
|
| I ultimately came away from the situation realizing that things
| only got done when you actively threaten people and force them
| take action.
|
| Doctor doesn't want to properly follow up on a stage-iv foot
| ulcer and home wound care misses scheduled appointments? Ok,
| we're going to the ER and telling them that the doctor doesn't
| respond to his service and home care didn't show up. Had to do
| that several times but eventually doctors and home care got
| tired of getting yelled at (by me and by whomever at the
| hospital system they reported too, because, ER staff was
| unhappy) that home care and doctors visits were much more
| regular.
|
| Sadly 94 with a foot ulcer only ends one way and in the
| hospital post-amputation doctors were deflecting responsibility
| for his ongoing care and basically leaving him on a post-op
| ward with minimal PT/OT and extremely limited interaction due
| to COVID restrictions. A JACO complaint resulted in a meeting
| at the hospital with about 16 doctors in attendance. I started
| the conversation by telling them "Your inaction is killing my
| grandfather and before we leave here today we will find a
| solution because I will not allow you to murder him". My aunt
| (who was there) described me as "a bit much" but within 24
| hours he was moved home with appropriate support, multiple
| PT/OT daily, 24-hour home care, nursing visits, etc.
|
| Sadly 94 with an amputation only ends one way and within 6
| months he reached a point where we knew the end was near. We
| enrolled in a home hospice program but the end came quickly.
| Hospice, despite promising 24/7 coverage and promising quick
| response times, failed in the end and despite repeated calls
| over his final day nobody showed up. Eventually, only
| threatening to call 911 (because we were desperate) and saying
| we would tell 911 that hospice care was non-responsive resulted
| in a nursing dispatch, but, it was too late.
|
| The American health care system seems to require one to stand
| up and scream sometimes to get help. Doctors, nurses, etc are
| individually great people but they all have their own myopic
| opinions of the situation which my grandfather was not the
| center of. Getting things done requires reorienting them and
| making them realize you will not settle and that medical
| opinion is both only an opinion but also only one part of a
| large equation. (Yes, perhaps, PT/OT techs in Dr X's experience
| are better in sub-acute rehab facility X, definitely they will
| do 3x daily instead of 2x daily, but being completely isolated
| (no family visits due to COVID) is a completely dominating
| concern and not even a medical one.)
|
| Every regret I have from that year is from not pushing people
| harder, everything I'm proud of is from when I did.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| The problem is cost. You're a good grandson for fighting for
| your grandpa, but there's no way we can afford the level of
| care you're demanding for every person close to end of life.
| It's inherently a futile battle.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Sorry for you. And sadly it's not an uncommon experience. Lots
| of people leave cancer care with a sour taste due to way too
| many mishaps.
|
| And the recent era is not pretty (diminishing healthcare in
| lots of places .. saying that as a French, covid wiping a lot
| of professional out of the field).
|
| We can do a lot better, focus and resources must pour where
| it's important.
| ethics13 wrote:
| My experience of the hospice system is the opposite of yours.
| My dad was 73, passed away from cancer that took him way too
| soon as he was more active than people half his age. He swam,
| ran, worked out everyday. Was one of the most positive people
| in the world.
|
| The hospice people were absolute angels as to how they handled
| him and his last months. Truly the most compassionate people
| work in these places and it was good to have at least that in
| his dying days.
|
| I am sorry for your loss and the experience you've had with
| your dad.
| bane wrote:
| Thanks, I appreciate it, and am happy to hear that your own
| experience was far more positive than our own.
|
| I take comfort that my father's wishes were to spend his
| final few months at home and die there. It took a herculean
| effort on behalf of all of us to pull it off, pulling 24 hour
| bedside shifts for months took a toll. But we all have zero
| regrets about it, and despite the grief, was a very beautiful
| way to honor and support him.
| onphonenow wrote:
| A big issue medical system side are basically absent family who
| only show up for end of life. A lot of folks threatening
| lawsuits etc. Few folks willing to pay much to make anything
| better - lots of asset transfer games. It's usually but not
| always the most absent family members who get the most upset at
| those who are helping toilet someone etc. This has nothing to
| do with OPs point except there is frustration on both sides ,
| and folks living far from family and/or being heavily into the
| rat race may be a contributor as the med system try's
| substituting for large tight knit family and social structures
| that have been diminished
| fdhfdjkfhdkj wrote:
| burritas wrote:
| I'd rather not go into personal detail but I share a similar
| experience. The thing that really drove it home for me was when
| I got back home and was telling my own doctor about my
| experience dealing with family in the medical system and she
| said I was mistaken or there was a misunderstanding because
| that kind of thing doesn't happen. I asked why she was siding
| with a doctor she'd never met before instead of listening to
| her patient, which got her pretty flustered. I don't see her
| anymore.
| inamberclad wrote:
| It's a common theme - doctors just don't listen to their
| patients at all.
| mythhouse wrote:
| Its a problem worldwide. Number of oncologists are nowhere
| near the amount of thoughtful care that is needed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The one thing that every doctor should have happen to them is
| to go through the medical system as well for something non-
| trivial. That usually gives them a lot more perspective on
| the reality of being on the receiving side.
| speakfreely wrote:
| I don't think they can have the same experience as they are
| "insiders" to the system. Doctors and their families don't
| wait for appointments for months, aren't the last ones
| checked by the nurses in the hospitals, and get a variety
| of preferential treatment that makes their experience
| completely removed from the reality that the average person
| experiences.
| david-gpu wrote:
| My father was a doctor. You are correct: as patients they
| get preferential treatment. As often do their immediate
| family members. It's something I'm ashamed about when I
| look back at my own childhood.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Some doctors have a more healthy relationship with death
| than others.
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doctors-death_b_1500871
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/feb/08/how-
| doctors-...
| jacquesm wrote:
| So many stories like yours. They are one of the reasons living
| in the United States never appealed to me.
|
| With Christmas coming up this must be a very hard time for you,
| hang in there.
| mythhouse wrote:
| I've lived in India, UK and USA for atleast 5 years in each.
|
| I would take USA in a heartbeat if I can have good insurance
|
| You are getting cutting edge care in USA. For example, My
| father has prostate cancer and latest NCNN guidelines
| recommend 'triplet therapy' [1] at diagnosis and is the
| standard in USA. But in UK they you only get chemo and ADT
| via NHS. They also have major delays (years) in getting
| latest medical innovations, eg: Daraloutamide isn't available
| via NHS for PC so you are out of luck if you cannot tolerate
| the only available option there ( enzalutamide).
|
| There are also a wide variety of clinical trail options in
| USA compared to UK when you run out of SOC options. I
| personally know family in UK who have Cardio Vascular events
| on Enzalutamide but can't access Darolutamide because it
| isn't available via NHS.
|
| I urge you to do major research your options because its
| literally life and death. Seek out experts who can make this
| decision for you based on available options. Imagine losing
| years of your life because you made a country decision based
| on generic internet comments :/ .
|
| 1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.95
| 59...
| tootie wrote:
| I'm not clear how that relates to the post or what exactly the
| medical people did wrong from your post? I have a had a few
| elderly relatives go through long bouts of treatment and they
| got good diagnoses and care all the way across. The worst was
| my grandmother's chemo was pharmaceutical and the pills were
| $2000 a dose and not covered by Medicare at the time.
| CalChris wrote:
| I won't agree about the American medical system but I'd say
| that our hospice system is pretty much _Soylent Green_.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I get it is bad but isn't Soylent Green where they turn old
| non-sick people into food with a nature documentary in color
| as payment?
| Retric wrote:
| I think it was meant differently, the dying are food for
| the hospice industry.
|
| This sets it in conflict with other approaches like dying
| at home or euthanasia.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| The American medical system is an absolute travesty. To be
| fair to you though, this only really becomes obvious when one
| experiences functioning medical systems in other countries.
| orangepurple wrote:
| How else would health insurance executives, hospital
| executives, and doctors afford their third million dollar
| home? The system is working just fine for them.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Except for me; they didn't get any yacht payments from
| me. When we had a medical disaster, I filed for
| bankruptcy once the bills came in, and this is with good
| insurance. It really didn't affect my credit score, and
| we bought a house and car 18 months afterwards.
|
| Sometimes bad things happen to good people, through no
| fault of their own.
|
| I mean, rich fat cats get debt forgiveness when things
| don't work out for them.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I'm guessing your assets were wiped out but you were able
| to qualify for house and car later due to cash flow.
| Anything I'm missing? Thanks for sharing btw
| lofatdairy wrote:
| Health insurance -> definitely a racket
|
| Hospital execs -> a racket, but hospitals are being
| bought up by PE firms rn so I'd say you probably want to
| include portfolio managers
|
| Doctors -> in general probably not. I've met some
| physicians that have made me feel sour about them in
| general, but even with FFS they're not benefiting nearly
| as much as hospital suppliers and insurance companies.
| Specialists definitely receive a boost, but this is like
| saying L7+ at FAANG is representative of SWEs as a whole.
| Factor in med school, residencies, and fellowships
| required to enter specialties, and there are also a lot
| of earning years lost. We should really be encouraging
| more students to go into medicine in spite of this, which
| would improve care by reducing the number of pts each
| physician needs to serve[^1].
|
| [^1]: Additional context.
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/why-
| does-t...
| tobr wrote:
| Just today I learned that Nick Berry of https://datagenetics.com/
| passed away recently. I guess that is slightly off topic but I
| wanted to share, I've been following his excellent blog for many
| years.
| brendabug wrote:
| Pray this diagnosis is not true and by some miracle you can be
| here longer. Pray your work leads to breakthroughs so your name
| is never forgotten. I pray if your passage is inevitable that
| your long lost loved ones will help you with safe and comforting
| passage, like I prayed someone was with my child.
| nick__m wrote:
| My wife has one metastasis on her spine , it was detected 33 day
| ago, I fear that moment where she will be suffering enough that
| she will qualify for medically assisted death. According to the
| paper accompanying her incredibly expensive drugs (5700$/month)
| she has between twelve and eighty-eight months left ... I hope
| that she will cost money to my insurance for a long time!
|
| According to her oncologist we cannot know as the stats are
| always made in the past and they don't reflect recent medical
| advances like the to be scheduled next week xray scalpel surgery.
|
| fuck cancer.
| imdsm wrote:
| Fuck cancer. I wish you the longest possible time.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _(5700$ /month)_
|
| How is this not profiteering?
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Sorry to hear. My mother had cancer in her spine for many years
| (10+) before she passed.
|
| I hate cancer. Instead of building weapons of war, we should be
| building tools to help completely control it, for all cancers,
| for all people, so it is no longer this UNKNOWN thing that
| keeps us up through the night, wondering, worrying when our
| time will be.
| thefounder wrote:
| That's hard to do. We "can't" even agree to ban the stuff
| that brings us most of the cancers (i.e food poisoning, air
| polution etc). We are lab rats.
| tomrod wrote:
| Fuck cancer.
|
| All the best to you and your wife.
| melling wrote:
| I really wish people would stop saying "F cancer"
|
| As a society, we have the option of greatly reducing cancer
| deaths whenever we so choose. Let's do that rather than
| raging against something that feels nothing.
|
| It has been over 15 years since the Last Lecture and we still
| have done little for pancreatic cancer, for example.
|
| https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo
|
| According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to
| eliminate cancer: https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s
|
| No one is saying it's going to be easy but we're going to
| make a lot of progress over the next 25 years. Let's decide
| to do more sooner.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Hopefully TCR therapy will move us forward against these
| types of cancer:
|
| https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/01/novel-genetic-
| experiment...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Fuck cancer" is more than a _scause for a cause._ It
| translates to, "you are not alone."
|
| Certainly, I agree that we can be doing more.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| As someone who lost a sibling to cancer, thanks for the
| translation.
|
| I wish people would use "You are not alone" or "We also
| have suffered due to cancer. It is awful. You have our
| empathy and we offer our condolences." or something else
| instead of the shorthand "Fuck cancer". But I'll accept
| "Fuck cancer" too.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I generally agree. I used to be so angry when someone
| said it. Fuck cancer? Fuck you. What do you know about
| how I'm feeling?
|
| I learned two things over the years : 1. everyone "knows
| something" about cancer. 2. I can't control culture and
| language.
|
| To be honest though, many years later... I still haven't
| found a single phrase anyone can say that doesn't make me
| think, "I wish we could just not be having this
| conversation." I remind myself that there are no words
| but people are still _trying._
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| https://allpoetry.com/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night
| tomrod wrote:
| "Fuck Cancer" is what I feel and what I will share.
|
| When we cure cancer, I'll back down. Until then, in memory
| of the folks I have lost and with empathy to those
| experiencing it or watching loved ones experience it, fuck
| cancer.
| bulbosaur123 wrote:
| Referring to early screening, this seems like the right way
| to go: https://grail.com/
| jghn wrote:
| Sort of.
|
| The issue with current early detection methods is that
| they tend to cause more harm than good at population
| scale. Between getting dosed with radiation in the
| process, false positives causing at best psychological
| trauma if not unnecessary treatment, and it's hard to
| tell if you just detected a cancer you'll die _with_
| instead of dying _of_ - and thus another form of
| unnecessary treatment.
|
| The blood tests remove some, but not all of that. Yes,
| for any arbitrary person it might be lifesaving, just
| like current methods. But at population scale it's not a
| panacea.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| We also have a lot of data on ways to reduce cancer before
| it happens. Reduce obesity. Reduce pollution. Etc.
|
| Yet we really aren't doing an awful lot about those things.
|
| Imagine for example if we had an obesity tax - everyone
| obese must pay 30% of their earnings into a Medicare fund.
| Sure it would be unpopular, but obesity would very quickly
| be solved, and cancer rates would plummet.
| scriptproof wrote:
| You are surely aware of the campaign "Eat Five Servings
| of Fruits & Vegetables Per Day". People just don't care.
| melling wrote:
| Interesting enough, the person on Twitter seems fit and
| not very old.
|
| 15 years ago Randy Pausch was also fit a year before he
| died.
|
| So, instead of blaming people for poor choices imagine if
| 16 years ago, when the US National Debt was a mere $9
| trillion, if enough people were inspired that on our way
| to $31 trillion in debt, we spent a few trillion of that
| on cancer research.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| That will probably do nothing for obesity rates except
| fleece obese people. I'd be more interested in seeing
| appetite drugs like semaglutide become cheap and easy to
| get, something that helps instead of buying into punitive
| measures for absolutely everything.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Exactly. There needs to be a reward system for healthy
| initiatives, not a punitive approach for unsuccessful
| accomplishments.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I know we want to believe it was somehow a blame or fault
| of someone who develops cancer. The reality is I've seen
| unhealthy people never get cancer and healthy people,
| children even, who get cancer.
|
| No one is to blame for getting cancer.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| Many of those cancers might be caused by pollution... For
| example, UV in sunlight is thought to be the main cause
| of skin cancer. UV is far higher today than 100 years ago
| because we destroyed most of the ozone layer. But we
| don't actually know how thick the ozone layer used to be
| or how much UV used to reach ground level because we
| never measured it before destroying it. So possibly skin
| cancer was very rare 100 years ago.
|
| The same for cancer's from nitrous oxides from car
| exhausts. The same for particulate pollution. Same for
| microplastics. The same for all the kinds of pollution we
| don't yet know about or measure.
| jghn wrote:
| You're conflating trends within aggregated data and
| individual data points. Moving towards a healthier
| population would reduce cancer rates across the total
| population. It would not remove cancer entirely. Likewise
| any arbitrary person might be in complete health & get
| cancer and vice versa as you say. The two are not
| contradictory.
|
| A similar example is with early detection. The data show
| that at population scale a lot of early detection efforts
| cause more harm than good. The problem is that any
| arbitrary person might have their life saved by said
| early detection. It's impossible to know who those
| arbitrary people will be.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That would overwhelmingly be a tax on the poor and low
| income. It would probably not fix obesity anymore than
| taxing cancer patients would fix cancer.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Those approaches -- reducing pollution, etc -- aren't
| popular in part because humans are terrible about not
| knowing how to count the deaths that didn't happen.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Imagine for example if we had an obesity tax -
| everyone obese must pay 30% of their earnings into a
| Medicare fund._ "
|
| Imagine for example if we taxed the shareholders of
| CocaCola instead, they're the ones who got wealthy from
| obesity. And before you say "it was the consumer's
| choice", what was CocaCola's $4b/year advertising spend
| for, then?
| pifm_guy wrote:
| I'd totally be up for fining companies retrospectively
| for harming people's health even before the harm was well
| understood.
|
| That gives the companies an incentive to do the research
| ahead of time to minimize damages.
| cj wrote:
| "Fine company" will just turn into higher costs for
| consumers.
|
| If raising the price of Coke is the goal, I believe there
| are already proposals for a sugar tax in various
| jurisdictions.
|
| Let's tax the hell out of processed foods so they become
| at least on par with the price of healthy food.
|
| It's very tricky since taxes like that will hurt low
| income households the most.
|
| Another option: ban advertising of heavily processed
| food, and while we're at it let's also ban advertising
| prescription drugs (as is the case already in Canada)
| rightbyte wrote:
| > Let's tax the hell out of processed foods so they
| become at least on par with the price of healthy food.
|
| Isn't processed food already more expensive than
| "healthy"? E.g. precut fries vs potatoes. Etc.
|
| What is cheaper to buy processed?
| cj wrote:
| Honestly you may be right.
|
| But walking into a typical US grocery store feels like a
| place where cheap, quick, processed foods are the focus
| with healthy food being secondary (perhaps because
| they're optimizing their store layouts in response to
| consumer demand for sh*t food). Rarely is healthy food
| promoted on isle endcaps.
|
| I do 100% of my day to day shopping at a (very expensive)
| health food store for this sole reason. At the health
| food store, they don't stock soda, chips, etc (or if they
| do it's locally made, organic, etc... "healthy" junk
| food). You can't buy things like Oreos or Coke because
| they simply don't carry it.
|
| For me, removing unhealthy options when grocery shopping
| led to 40+ lbs of weight loss - with no other lifestyle
| changes and no additional exercise over 2 years.
|
| When I make the occasional visit to a normal grocery
| store, I'm always in awe at how much real estate "bad"
| food gets. It's the majority of the store.
|
| All of this is to say, another place to look at are
| grocery stores themselves and the food they decide to
| carry and promote in their stores, including the layout
| of the stores, % real estate given to crap food vs.
| healthy food, etc.
| RazvanS wrote:
| Obesity is caused by lack of access to quality food,
| being too scarce or too expensive. Sugar and fats are
| cheap, so most of the pre-made foods are just that. So
| increase the quality of the food available to the masses
| and do proper education regarding nutrition and healthy
| living, and the obesity rate will decrease.
|
| Most of the obese people are like that not because they
| choose, but because they cannot do better.
| DeWilde wrote:
| In some cases yes, but hardly in all cases.
|
| Anecdotally, I know people with the same wealth as me or
| even wealthier who eat copious amounts of sweets in all
| forms and are also obese. Some people just don't have
| control.
|
| But yes, proper education regarding nutrition is
| something that is sorely needed as most people are
| unaware of the dangers of eating sugar rich and calorie
| rich foods in large amounts.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with fat.
|
| People were cooking with lard for 1000s of years until
| the US decided fat is bad and people started substituting
| fat with sugar because when you remove fat, you remove
| flavour.
| Retric wrote:
| Don't forget people also died much earlier for thousands
| of years.
|
| There is a great deal wrong with very high fat diets, the
| issue is there's also a lot wrong with very high carb
| diets.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| > Don't forget people also died much earlier for
| thousands of years.
|
| Funnily enough not from obesity or heart disease.
|
| They died from violence, starvation, infections, plagues,
| travel, etc.
|
| Fats were not a cause.
| Retric wrote:
| Do some actual research. People regularly got heart
| attacks throughout recorded history even if dying earlier
| from other things was common.
|
| _The history of coronary syndromes and sudden death, and
| apoplexy or stroke, goes back to antiquity and has been
| thoroughly treated by historians and experts from many
| disciplines. By the beginning of the twentieth century, a
| heart attack with myocardial infarction was well known to
| cause death, but comprehension of it as a syndrome that
| one might survive was much delayed.
|
| ...
|
| Part of the historical delay and confusion in recognizing
| heart attacks apparently lay in the Greek word,
| kardialgia, which could mean either abdominal or
| precordial pain. Biblical and Talmudic references abound,
| however, about chest pain of a life-threatening nature,
| and Hippocrates mentions sudden death related to an
| episode of chest distress (Leibowitz 1970).
|
| Leibowitz points out that the great Italian anatomist
| Morgagni failed to tie it all together, but nevertheless
| clearly described in 1761 the late pathology found in
| survivors of myocardial infarction in his well-known
| dictum: "The force of the heart decreases so much more in
| proportion as the greater number of its parts becomes
| tendonous instead of being fleshy" (ibid., 4)._
| http://www.epi.umn.edu/cvdepi/essay/history-of-heart-
| attack-...
| shanebellone wrote:
| This is a ridiculous point. If you halved today's average
| lifespan, you'd see a dramatic reduction in cancer.
| anon291 wrote:
| No they didn't. Death rates from now treatable diseases
| were higher in the past. But if you managed to escape
| those and not die in a tragic physical accident, you
| lived basically as long as anyone else.
| Retric wrote:
| Go back 1,000+ years and people did occasionally live to
| be say 70, the difference was they where also less likely
| to live to be 71. And at 71 they where less likely to
| live to be 72 etc.
|
| Given a large enough population you would still see very
| very rare cases of extreme age but you are something like
| 1,000 times more likely to live to 115 today than you
| where back in 1,000 AD. Combined with a smaller
| population and it's likely nobody live to 115 until quite
| recently.
| mozman wrote:
| What about a tax where you pay 30% of your earnings for
| homeless?
| rafaelero wrote:
| It's crazy how we are still not screening everyone for
| genetic susceptability to diseases and pairing them
| together with good early detection tests. A lot of missed
| opportunities here to decrease so much suffering.
| FpUser wrote:
| Imagine if we had an idiot tax. Suddenly all world
| problems would go away.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I'm so sorry man. Losing my wife is my greatest fear. FUCK
| cancer.
| jacquesm wrote:
| For some background on who this is:
|
| https://www.neuroscience.ox.ac.uk/research-directory/mark-st...
| dusing wrote:
| Really puts "I'm leaving twitter" and 7 day suspensions into
| perspective.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Cancer is just so unfair.
| bulbosaur123 wrote:
| Really hope these breakthrough AI discoveries will dramatically
| accelerate cure for cancer (all types).
| orangepurple wrote:
| They will accelerate cheap screening before treatments
| [deleted]
| kahon65 wrote:
| I feel very sad and Bad. I Hope there will me a miracle for this
| man. If he reads my comment, i want him to know i give him a lot
| of love, to this dad of children and to his children and all of
| his family, and that I want to cry.
|
| Hope a miracle will be, really.
|
| From a French young computer scientist.
| bckr wrote:
| It's natural to feel this way.
|
| Also consider that all creatures before us went away in this
| way as well, and all will. Even if we attain superhuman
| lifespans, one day something will put an end to our lives.
|
| Finally, consider being curious about death itself. There are
| many strange and interesting features of the death of a sapient
| being.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I am curious about your last paragraph. What does it mean?
| bckr wrote:
| Death is something people in my culture try not to think
| about much. It is considered that the dead are totally dead
| and gone, never to be spoken to again and spoken of with
| sadness and distance.
|
| People of other cultures think differently about death.
| Death is welcomed into the day to day life. Consciousness
| of death is invited, even celebrated. The dead are spoken
| to.
|
| This second group of people don't believe in the finality
| of death. They believe and live towards life after death,
| believing in either some sort of continuum of consciousness
| or of their own consciousness as the process of an
| immaterial soul that will live after the body stops.
|
| Stories of death and near-death are full of the unexplained
| and perhaps unexplainable.
|
| From a western materialist perspective alone, death is
| fascinating if you look at it. Where does our consciousness
| arise from? It must be from the brain, right? And it is a
| sort of illusion, since we don't have individual souls. The
| perception of consciousness is a labyrinth of mirrors, self
| references.
|
| Yet, the same machinery for perceiving ourselves is also
| used to perceive others. We are constantly simulating and
| imitating one another. We're even working to modify and
| live up to others' images of us.
|
| So the patterns of the consciousness of any individual are
| actually distributed, holographically, through a community
| of brains.
|
| This being known.... Who or what died when one brain
| dropped off the grid? (For more in this direction, read
| Hofstadter).
|
| Even more simply, what changes take place in a dying
| person? What is the difference between a person who
| embraces death and a person who dies in fear? Is it
| possible to be happy while dying? What would it take to
| live a life that ends happily?
|
| This is what I mean when I say that death is worth being
| curious about.
| jemmyw wrote:
| The processes in your brain and body that are your
| consciousness stop and you cease to be forever. After
| that point nothing that happens or happened matters to
| you because you no longer exist.
|
| Various cultures, religions, spiritual people want to
| deny this. They're probably happier for it, but I can
| only accept the dull explanation that we just stop and
| it's not very interesting.
| t-writescode wrote:
| My mom had a cough that wouldn't go away and covid 3 or 4 times
| during the last 2 years.
|
| Turns out those symptoms were hiding breast cancer, which
| metasticized in 2 years, the chemo symptoms because too bad and
| so she had to stop, and now she's gone.
|
| She was 59.
|
| When I went to her house to tend to her dogs, she had been
| looking at retirement and hospice care for her "live out my last
| days" cancer life basically next door to me (she lives in a
| different state).
|
| Fuck cancer.
| jcims wrote:
| The cough that wouldn't go away was a bellwether to my wife's
| ovarian cancer.
|
| She was incredibly stubborn when it came to medical issues and
| had been experiencing some pain in her side that I had been
| stressing for her to get seen for. She went to urgent care and
| they did nothing, bolstering her opinion that it was worthless
| being seen for it.
|
| The cough was a dry cough that was not very frequent but the
| older women in her periphery were very concerned about it. I
| didn't think much of it, just a dry cough. The women in the
| other hand would say things like 'I really don't like that
| cough' with a concerned face. I don't know if they had an
| internalized correlation or it was just a sense of something
| wrong. It turns out that this is a fairly common symptom.
| bane wrote:
| Argh, too young! I'm so sorry to hear about this. Covid has
| really messed up the system badly.
|
| The medical treatment funnel gets very myopic treating the most
| present thing first, and often misses other problems going on
| at the same time. With my Dad we think the doctors were very
| focused on some other health issues that were complications
| from a knee replacement he had done about 5 years before.
|
| The "you can only come in for a visit for one problem at a
| time" broken insurance system would have had him coming in all
| day, every day for visits, so he just went for what bothered
| him the most. Turns out his lung cancer wasn't his worst
| problem until it was.
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