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What Happened to Lee

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Re: What Happened to Lee

#141

Post by wigl »

gonehome wrote: post #110
wigl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Dementia and schizophrenia are present in my family as well and caring for those in the later stages has been really hard. I found myself torn by the same question of whether to test for genetic predisposition. After reading The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, whose author is in a similar position, I have found some comfort in deciding not to test for now. As he says in an NPR interview: > T…

Schizophrenia seems like a tricky one given that its triggers are less well understood and trauma seems to be part of it (so maybe knowing would lead to increased anxiety/stress which could make onset more likely?). Otherwise it seems like whether or not you test the reality is set independent of your knowledge of it. I'd like to think that I'd want to test given that, but I suppose it's hard to know how I'd act with…

My experience was similar to the author's in that I grew up around family members who were in advanced stages. The possibility of inheritance stares you in the face whenever they're around.

If there was a conclusive test, I would definitely take it for the sake of future offspring. Otherwise, it would likely give me more anxiety than useful information.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#142

Post by woah »

jgrahamc wrote: post #132

I posted this hours ago and then stepped away. The story captures so much about the Lee I knew so well. I'll add one piece of praise for Lee's early architecture of Cloudflare. Everything was controlled by a single Postgres database that made very heavy use of stored procedures, that called other procedures, that called others. It was one giant program inside the database. It took me a while to comprehend what he'd d…

I’m sure he did a great job, but I’ve seen those things be a huge nightmare for anyone other than the irreplaceable genius code wizard who created them.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#143

Post by s5300 »

atmanthedog wrote: post #134
rubicon33 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How DOES one get diagnosed for this? Is there a test?

I had a CSF leak repaired by Dr. Schievink at Cedars-Sinai. My diagnosis happened after I had an acute attack of intracranial hypotension shortly following a long and bumpy session of riding mowing. This attack involved a 'worst headache of my life' that was somewhat relieved by being horizontal. Getting to the hospital seemed too painful, so I stuck it out at home and the headache went away. A couple days later I de…

If you don't mind answering, how old were you at the time and what was your proximity to Cedars-Sinai?

I have slight regret with not double booking an appointment with Schievink when he personally called me. For some likely completely unreasonable reason, I feel like Dr. Carroll is a bit better of a choice having had a child with a leak. Had an appt with Carroll a small ways out - was in San Diego for strange reasons at the time - was going to be gone by the date of the appt and have to fly in. Schievink very much thought I had a leak from history and others diagnosis (EDS & POTS) - but thought I may be in better hands with Stanford as I already had an appointment - the main reason I went after Schievink was because I was hoping to be seen before I left SD. For some reason, I made the choice to agree with him and stick with only Carroll.

Anyways... A ton of unfortunate things fell thru with some misscheduling at Stanford, and I'm still on a list to be seen by Carroll :(

While both doctors think it's likely that I have one, which is something they've both said they typically don't say over the phone, either way - I see Dr. Carroll as an absolute hero in these strange times we seem to be living in. As selfish as it sounds, I can only hope that man pioneers research into this for the rest of his life. Being on the receiving end of at least one (possibly two with CSF) medical diagnosis in which there's less quality researchers/surgeons in the Western World than can be counted on one hand, you grow to have very strange ideals as to what's truly important in life.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#144

Post by icedchai »

mynameishere wrote: post #140
jgrahamc wrote: post #132

I posted this hours ago and then stepped away. The story captures so much about the Lee I knew so well. I'll add one piece of praise for Lee's early architecture of Cloudflare. Everything was controlled by a single Postgres database that made very heavy use of stored procedures, that called other procedures, that called others. It was one giant program inside the database. It took me a while to comprehend what he'd d…

Working with stored procedures is just the pits. I wonder why you would describe that as "great". Maybe it's optimized, but so would be a giant executable written in assembly.

Last time I worked with stored procs with an Oracle 8 database, over 20 years ago. PL/SQL was awful.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#145

Post by switchbak »

GCSAQCMIYI wrote: post #138
tilolebo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's looking for health care, actually.

Yes, and he's looking for it to be financed by other people while giving them nothing in return for it.

I live in a country where we gladly finance the health care of other people without looking for anything in return. I really don't understand the lack of compassion that can ground such an ideology.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#146

Post by cyber_zhuangzi »

Igelau wrote: post #126
cyber_zhuangzi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a deep problem with a long history of attempts at answering it, some more satisfying than others. One answer that appeals to many faithful is the idea that all this suffering will be "redeemed", or made to be worth it at the end. Augustine, for example, would take the "NPC" prong of your dilemma by saying that our earthly existence "in time" is not a full experience of reality at all. Indeed, you can find this v…

> earthly suffering is nothing compared to the joy of being in Heaven Now the demiurge is a utility monster. > this is not a foolproof argument Argument? It's an admission.

> Now the demiurge is a utility monster.

How is the demiurge taking utility from humans if humans ending up in heaven is the optimal outcome for both humans and diety?

> Argument?

It’s an argument that a diety can both be omnipotent and benevolent if humans don’t know true pain or pleasure in their earthly lives. After all, both earthly pleasure and pain are temporary, so if you can conceive of eternal happiness it might render earthly suffering negligible in comparison.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#147

Post by asguy »

mynameishere wrote: post #140
jgrahamc wrote: post #132

I posted this hours ago and then stepped away. The story captures so much about the Lee I knew so well. I'll add one piece of praise for Lee's early architecture of Cloudflare. Everything was controlled by a single Postgres database that made very heavy use of stored procedures, that called other procedures, that called others. It was one giant program inside the database. It took me a while to comprehend what he'd d…

Working with stored procedures is just the pits. I wonder why you would describe that as "great". Maybe it's optimized, but so would be a giant executable written in assembly.

It is great: your code runs right near the data it’s working with.

If it’s the pits, you need a better suited development environment. I use emacs and interactively code inside the DB. Python, Lua, JavaScript, PGSQL, whatever.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#148

Post by thephyber »

eastdakota wrote: post #9
kick wrote: post #7

This is horrifying. Conversations soon became impossible. Lee started chattering in repetitive, unceasing loops. He would tell Kristin: “We met at Cloudflare. We got engaged in Rome. We got married in Maui, Hawaii.” He repeated it hundreds of times a day. Then the loops got shorter, more cryptic. He spoke fewer sentences, instead muttering sequences of numbers or letters. At the same time, given the flashes of lucidi…

It was incredibly sad to watch. The last time I saw him while he was still speaking — he is still alive but doesn’t speak or seem to recognize me anymore — he would repeat the same questions from the same conversation in the same order on a 30-minute loop. Over and over. I’ve really struggled to wrap my mind around his condition. I don’t think it’s frustrating for him. He seems to have lost the emotion to be frustrat…

> I do wonder if some of his genius came from his ability to shut down some of the other noise in his life.

Yes. I can think of a few examples of this.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#149

Post by caleb-allen »

thephyber wrote: post #148
eastdakota wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was incredibly sad to watch. The last time I saw him while he was still speaking — he is still alive but doesn’t speak or seem to recognize me anymore — he would repeat the same questions from the same conversation in the same order on a 30-minute loop. Over and over. I’ve really struggled to wrap my mind around his condition. I don’t think it’s frustrating for him. He seems to have lost the emotion to be frustrat…

> I do wonder if some of his genius came from his ability to shut down some of the other noise in his life. Yes. I can think of a few examples of this.

Can you expand?

Re: What Happened to Lee

#150

Post by andmarios »

The behavior described in the article can be seen in all dementia patients.

The article is written like it is a rare and unfortunate story which we watch from the sidelines, but only the age of Lee makes it unique. Many of us will experience exactly the same with a beloved one ( probably a parent, maybe a significant other).

Every single part of the story except the age, all the changes in the behavior —small and large—, how hard it is to live and/or manage someone with dementia, how difficult it is to come to terms with it, etc, happens to an awful lot of people. It's just that it's not a subject people talk easily about.

Last but not least, doctors are often the worst offenders in the progress of this disease. Most doctors only care about the "now", solve the problem at hand, send the patient home and be done with it. Surgery, psychotropic drugs and other forms of treatment can speed-up dementia progress. Alas, there is no incentive to research, document and act on this.

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