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I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

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Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#221

Post by philliphaydon »

Retric wrote: post #163
philliphaydon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

People have been dying for 1000s of years for things we are still dying from now. But heart disease was not a leading cause of death.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#222

Post by donjigweed »

justrudd wrote: post #210

This year, during a routine physical, my general practitioner felt some “lumps” in my throat. He wasn’t worried but wanted me to get a second opinion on them. two rounds of chemo and two five week five day a week rounds of radiation later, I no longer have the tumors in my throat. I was lucky. They got detected early and hadn’t metastasized. But holy hell was radiation treatment terrible. When I had my first round of…

five week, five days a week radiation? was this "proton" radiation treatment?

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#223

Post by qwerpy »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
CamelRocketFish wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How haven’t you been kind to your body?

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,…

Was really helpful for me to read this comment. I'm entering my 40s, have young children, and am still relatively healthy but I start to notice old age stubbornly pushing for a foothold. The aches and pains take longer to go away and some of them never quite do. I'm terrified of an irreversible "drop off a cliff" as you mentioned.

The most important thing for me now is to preserve my health for the next 30 years so I can see my kids grow up and hopefully have their own children. Seems exercise, diet, and sleep are things I need to prioritize.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#224

Post by oneoff786 »

robocat wrote: post #208
throwaway6734 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but there's no way we can afford the level of care you're demanding for every person close to end of life You are referencing a pernicious myth - a classic selection bias. For the majority of illnesses we don’t know whether someone is near the end of their life or not. We all “know” that people tend to have expensive care just before they die, but the selection bias occurs because we ignore the counterfactual where…

I feel you’re wrong on two directions. Sure, most people who die weren’t obviously on end of life. But those people tend not to be the ones with high end of life costs. The high cost is due to their circumstances, not the label. Second, the folks we are identifying as end of life tend to have a pretty good true positive : false positive rate. So if you’re in that bucket, you probably ought to be there.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#225

Post by justrudd »

donjigweed wrote: post #222
justrudd wrote: post #210

This year, during a routine physical, my general practitioner felt some “lumps” in my throat. He wasn’t worried but wanted me to get a second opinion on them. two rounds of chemo and two five week five day a week rounds of radiation later, I no longer have the tumors in my throat. I was lucky. They got detected early and hadn’t metastasized. But holy hell was radiation treatment terrible. When I had my first round of…

five week, five days a week radiation? was this "proton" radiation treatment?

No. The first treatment was electron since the tumors were in my throat and close to the surface. But my oncologist didn’t like the progress. So my second treatment was just standard photon. Both done with conformal.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#226

Post by oneoff786 »

bckr wrote: post #123
beebeepka wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious about your last paragraph. What does it mean?

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…

I find it really irritating when people imply that a lack of belief in spiritual nonsense demands that they must think of things, like death, in a particular way.

You die, you’re gone, and that’s fine. It does not need to be spectacular. Implying otherwise is just about as inflammatory as calling the other camp’s beliefs nonsense imo.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#227

Post by Retric »

philliphaydon wrote: post #221
Retric wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People have been dying for 1000s of years for things we are still dying from now. But heart disease was not a leading cause of death.

It was a leading cause of death for the same age range it’s a leading cause of death now.

Saying it was or wasn’t a leading cause of death overall is quite arbitrary, though it was at a minimum a common cause of death back then.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#228

Post by TheBrokenRail »

bane wrote: post #104

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 hospic…

I feel like I'm missing something, what did the medical system actually do wrong? I feel like I'm missing an intermediary paragraph talking about high fees or uncompassionate doctors or something similar.

Re: I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left

#229

Post by bamboozled »

umvi wrote: post #186
Sirened wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Maybe, my grandmother was like this at 80, she had a great life but she’d seen enough, eaten enough cakes, hugged enough grandchildren, she wasn’t depressed just felt satisfied.

She was very peaceful, she died at 86.

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