Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 153 posts

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#131

Post by mathgeek »

wheels wrote: post #49
adamredwoods wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is random, from birth to death. We probably should not live it with fear or hard expectations. I remember reading on Twitter about an entrepreneur that was killed instantly from an avalanche on Mt Everest. Who could predict? Just do the best you can, try to be kind, and use sunscreen.

Not to be callous, but dying climbing Mt. Everest isn't random. Climbing Mt. Everest has a lower survival rate than stage 1 cancer. Chance of death is about 10%.

Wikipedia shows that from 2011-16, there were roughly 2000 folks who tried to climb to the summit of Everest, and about 70 deaths on the mountain (including those not trying to reach the summit).

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#132

Post by mathgeek »

copperx wrote: post #54
aaron-lebo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your odds of being the 0.00001% are very low, but someone has to be it. He's just saying recognize that. Recognize that all your hopes, dreams, fears, assumptions, etc. can literally be gone in an instant and live accordingly. I know it sounds ridiculously cliched, and of course you never think it will happen to you, but let me assure you that life really can be taken from you at any time, so live it with that realit…

About 1 in 3 persons develop cancer in their lives. I don't know where you get the 0.000001 from.

Pick a different small number then. The point really isn't the specific number, but rather that someone ends up being "that one person who lost the genetic lottery" or "chose their lifestyle poorly" or "happened to live next to the toxic fountain factory" or however you prefer to phrase it when someone gets a terminal disease at 35 or younger.

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#133

Post by cpete »

asldfkweiorz wrote: post #129

Good luck with that. Shit happens; my wife was stabbed on the way back home at 29 and has been in a coma and now vegetative state since. If someone has a good way to deal with this crap, please do let me know.

Really sorry to read that. Hope things improve for you. My wife attempted suicide a few times last year. Thankfully things have stabilized since, but I had been contingency planning for life afterwards just to stay sane. I don't think there's a good way to deal with the crap...

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#134

Post by kerbalspacepro »

stordoff wrote: post #55
sp821543 wrote: post #12

Scott, I'm sorry about this. Why isn't the medical community looking for early warnings? relatively cheap tests for hs-crp, IL-6, TNF-alpha could be helpful. Inflammation is the precursor to disease. Do yourselves a favor & ask your doctor for the hs-crp test to measure inflammation.

OTHT, testing without reason will give you a lot of false positives that then have to be dealt with. It's a difficult thing to balance.

I feel like the cost of a false positive in medicine is lower than the cost of a false negative.

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#135

Post by Bjorkbat »

soft_serve wrote: post #24
Mz wrote: post #17

PSA for anyone reading this: Colorectal cancer for younger people seems to be on the rise. They don't seem to know why. My father had colon cancer and was not expected to survive it. I think he was 69 when he was finally diagnosed. He had put off seeing a doctor because he thought it was "just old age" and it was quite advanced by the time he was diagnosed. He did survive it and died, iirc, just short of his 89th or…

Oh we know why! It's just not acceptable to talk about it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311490/ Asking people to take responsibility for this one simple thing is taboo. (I have a Colonoscopy just last week as part of a routine exam at my age. The procedure really isn't that bad. A couple hours on the toilet during the prep, and that's about the worst of it).

To a certain extent.

Truth be told, anytime I read that someone is a marathon runner I associate that with a red flag just as much as I do obesity.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ischemic-colit...

Ischemic Colitis. Also called Runner's Colitis. Basically endurance running can cause the colon to become inflamed to the point of bloody stools, among other symptoms. If there's blood in your stool your colon is clearly in a great deal of distress and you should probably put a halt to whatever's causing it. Indeed, given the known factors that increase colon cancer, you can boil all of them down to one root cause: inflammation.

Oh, I'm not giving our modern diet or lack of exercise a pass mind you. I mostly eat plants nowadays because the research is pretty clear that eating meat all the time elevates your risk and I avoid sugars save for a twice-a-week pastry because sugar is probably even worse. That being said, I'm troubled by the fact that in modern society millions of people feel compelled to take up a sporting event inspired by the heroic feats of an ancient Greek messenger who promptly collapsed and died after running what would become known as the very first marathon. Perhaps it helps them feel better than average, perhaps it's a way to overcompensate for how unhealthy our lives are. In the latter case we're probably only making things worse.

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#136

Post by EADGBE »

sAbakumoff wrote: post #124

why did it bring so much attention? Some guy has been diagnosed with cancer, that happens every day.

I'm not sure you'd understand. The first time you realize your mortality, it can really throw perspective at you. Much more of a slap in the face than whatever hottest trending framework happens to be on Front Page HN.

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#137

Post by evandijk70 »

sp821543 wrote: post #12

Scott, I'm sorry about this. Why isn't the medical community looking for early warnings? relatively cheap tests for hs-crp, IL-6, TNF-alpha could be helpful. Inflammation is the precursor to disease. Do yourselves a favor & ask your doctor for the hs-crp test to measure inflammation.

There is a lot of research done to look for early warnings.

The current status of this research is that a DNA-based test gives marginal improvements over the standard test, which screens for blood.

See for example: https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/screening-fact-sheet

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#138

Post by sAbakumoff »

EADGBE wrote: post #136
sAbakumoff wrote: post #124

why did it bring so much attention? Some guy has been diagnosed with cancer, that happens every day.

I'm not sure you'd understand. The first time you realize your mortality, it can really throw perspective at you. Much more of a slap in the face than whatever hottest trending framework happens to be on Front Page HN.

Well, 1 month ago I hit a car on my bike[0] and was close to meet full consequences of it. Less experienced cyclist would be seriously injured or dead, I believe. Though it was kind of a slap in the face, I don't feel that I need to change anything.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUY7psClcbQ

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#139

Post by jetti »

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #134
stordoff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTHT, testing without reason will give you a lot of false positives that then have to be dealt with. It's a difficult thing to balance.

I feel like the cost of a false positive in medicine is lower than the cost of a false negative.

That entirely depends on the condition being tested and how many other ways there are available to test for that condition.

Re: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

#140

Post by rockit »

It took a case of endocarditis, a 30% chance of survival, two heart valves being replaced, a pacemaker installed, and another brush with death during the 6 month recovery, all at age 24, to wake me up. Ever since then, one thing I've really wanted, with all of my heart, is for people to wake up - see that this is not forever and tomorrow is not guaranteed. Listen to me, listen to the author - please, do what you need to do to enable yourself to pursue the dreams you really have, stop "just getting by".
Post reply on HN