51–60 of 196 posts
I didn't really know Alex from his work at Automattic, I knew him as the guy who ran the fan website for "Top Gear". I don't have any numbers how many people he helped to get access to the episodes, but I'm absolutely certain the show would have never gotten as popular without his contribution.
Thanks and sorry.
As a human it makes me so sad to read this post. I hope the rest of his life is meaningful, comfortable and pain-free. As a doctor it makes me so mad. We talk about winning and losing against cancer like its some game or some foe personified. Just because there aren't any more chemo therapy options doesn't mean there aren't treatment options. Just because he'll be home and not in the hospital doesn't mean his doctors…
There's a terrific book called "Tell them who I am." It was written, I think, in the last year of the life of a man dying of cancer. He wanted to spend his final days doing something meaningful. It's about the lives and identities of homeless women at shelters where he volunteered. I am sympathetic to your rage. I wish I knew how to help such people. But I don't. Death comes for us all, sooner or later, one way or an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a terrific book called "Tell them who I am." It was written, I think, in the last year of the life of a man dying of cancer. He wanted to spend his final days doing something meaningful. It's about the lives and identities of homeless women at shelters where he volunteered. I am sympathetic to your rage. I wish I knew how to help such people. But I don't. Death comes for us all, sooner or later, one way or an…
> Death comes for us all, sooner or later, one way or another. That's one of the few truisms in life. I'm genuinely making an effort to understand how this is relevant to someone with a cancer diagnosis. Sure, dead comes sooner or later, and that's the whole point of why one would feel it sucks and that we're losing, because often cancer means for you, dead came way too early. I have not known anyone with cancer, but…
Not having faced such yet, I can't say for sure. But I've noticed among a few friends I've lost to illnesses that some felt 'singled out' while others didn't. Passing seemed generally harder on the former.
Perhaps the 'it's gonna happen to us all' perspective mitigates feelings of being unfairly 'chosen' to some degree.
As a human it makes me so sad to read this post. I hope the rest of his life is meaningful, comfortable and pain-free. As a doctor it makes me so mad. We talk about winning and losing against cancer like its some game or some foe personified. Just because there aren't any more chemo therapy options doesn't mean there aren't treatment options. Just because he'll be home and not in the hospital doesn't mean his doctors…
I've always disliked the "winning/losing" paradigm, and also terms like "struggle" and "battle". To me, they all imply that there was or is something that I personally could have done to change the outcome. If I hadn't been fortunate enough to respond well the treatment, that I'd "lost" or "didn't fight hard enough."
I'm grateful to the physicians and scientists who devised my treatments, and to the doctors and nurses who cared for me. I myself played no part in any of this, though. A freak genetic accident caused an affliction, and I followed the prescribed script. I never once felt that I was battling something, or that I had to try harder. I don't feel like I've won anything. If it returns, I won't feel that I've lost anything or that I have to try harder. If it returns and I die, it won't be because I've given up or didn't fight enough. It will be because the currently available solutions to this problem are insufficient for the particular conditions of my body.
My condolences to Alex and his loved ones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Death comes for us all, sooner or later, one way or another. That's one of the few truisms in life. I'm genuinely making an effort to understand how this is relevant to someone with a cancer diagnosis. Sure, dead comes sooner or later, and that's the whole point of why one would feel it sucks and that we're losing, because often cancer means for you, dead came way too early. I have not known anyone with cancer, but…
>I'm genuinely making an effort to understand how this is relevant to someone with a cancer diagnosis. Not having faced such yet, I can't say for sure. But I've noticed among a few friends I've lost to illnesses that some felt 'singled out' while others didn't. Passing seemed generally harder on the former. Perhaps the 'it's gonna happen to us all' perspective mitigates feelings of being unfairly 'chosen' to some deg…
I spent a year at death's door. When I stopped hallucinating conversations with the grim reaper, I knew I would live.
I've made my peace with my mortality.
And that's a private matter and we all get there -- or not -- in our own way. But total strangers who haven't made their peace with this will have big feels about our mortality in ways that can be problematic for the person who has accepted their death (in the face of a terrible illness).
As a human it makes me so sad to read this post. I hope the rest of his life is meaningful, comfortable and pain-free. As a doctor it makes me so mad. We talk about winning and losing against cancer like its some game or some foe personified. Just because there aren't any more chemo therapy options doesn't mean there aren't treatment options. Just because he'll be home and not in the hospital doesn't mean his doctors…
I was diagnosed with lymphoma about 8 years ago. It's been undetectable since six months later, and I haven't had any treatment since the three years of chemo ended, but that's not to say it won't return. I've always disliked the "winning/losing" paradigm, and also terms like "struggle" and "battle". To me, they all imply that there was or is something that I personally could have done to change the outcome. If I had…
Jeeeesus. I'm incapable of understanding the mindset the man is in - total awareness of impending death. It must take tremendous courage - I think I would have been reduced to a quaking pile of jelly faced with the fact of mortality. What a person, what a reality.
My mom once told me that the only thing she knew of that was worse than having cancer, was being the long-term caregiver for someone who had cancer. She was taking care of her sister at the time, who had stomach cancer. Then my mom passed away a few years later, due to lung cancer -- caused in part by her sister who was allowed to smoke like a chimney, even in the hospital, because she was at stage 4. My dad was the…
In my mind, this was always just a disease to manage. Being diagnosed at 33 with no family history or no genetic markers the only thing I could point to was some random mutation that reprogrammed my cells. Modern medicine as this point is serving it's purpose -> buying me more time. I personally don't have any illusions of grandeur that I'll be "cured" but I'm thankful the extra time that I've been blessed with and just try to make the most of it everyday. That's all you can really do with or without cancer.