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

Starting Hospice

jakeseliger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 162 posts

Re: Starting Hospice

#151

Post by vinnyvichy »

Bluestein wrote: post #91
causi wrote: post #54

If our civilization survives, we will, one day, through one manner or another, banish death. If that day comes, when it comes, I hope Jake's name is remembered for the monument to all who we lost, all of us who've had to grow and live and find meaning under the specter.

> If our civilization survives, ... that is to - perhaps - say "if we manage to survive the 'collective' death that seems oftentimes inevitable" ... > we will, one day, through one manner or another, banish death. How do I ever wish I had your certainty - I do not mean it as a backhanded criticism. I mean it literally.-

Hi, I found the name of the KIT spinoff, it's called Glassomer.

Unfortunately, they have been undercut in terms of temperature. Some guys in the US claim they can 3d print glass at ~200 deg Celsius..

So Glassomer is probably dead in the water (from the POV of VCs) unless they can find someway to beat the 200 deg C record, or to do it without UV.

Re: Starting Hospice

#152

Post by somenameforme »

joevandyk wrote: post #79

I hope this is an appropriate place to ask. Say I am eating well, exercising consistently, getting enough sleep. For a male in his 40s, what are the best bang-for-the-buck ways to detect cancer before it becomes life-threatening?

The actual stats on the efficacy of early detection are extremely surprising. This [1] is a random study, among many, about breast cancer screening. Breast cancer mortality rates have been trending downward sharply, and this correlated with a sharp rise in screening. People naturally assumed this was causal, but oddly enough the exact same reduction in mortality has also been observed in people who have not participated in early screening at all. So it seems that generally better treatments are the main reason.

The 'paradox' of genuinely higher survival rates with early detection is explained by the fact that the survival rates are measured from the time of diagnosis. If a person with undiagnosed cancer is diagnosed after 7 years with said cancer, and then dies the following year, then he is considered to have had 1 year of survival. By contrast if somebody is diagnosed at year 1 and then dies 7 years later from the cancer, then they are considered to have 7 years of survival. They lived exactly the same length with cancer, but the survival times after diagnoses are markedly different.

This applies for most cancers. In my prior readings on this topic, the one screening that had a statistically significant effect on life expectancy was a certain type of colonoscopy, but even in that case the effect was quite small, something like 3 months IIRC. I think the overall take away is that outside of healthy living, do what makes you feel most comfortable. Even if they may not be highly effective, screenings would provide some people significant mental comfort. If you're one of them, more power to you. If you're fine without, then that's also great.

[1] - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180912133536.h...

Re: Starting Hospice

#153

Post by raoulj »

Goodbye, Jake. Thank you for your generosity in sharing your struggles, even now as it comes to its end. As a 20-something young man with hopefully many years ahead of me, your posts have encouraged me to live better, love more, and have more appreciation. Take it as some consolation that I and many others will read and reread your writings long after you're gone.

Bess and Athena and all your loved ones are in the intentions of my heart.

Re: Starting Hospice

#154

Post by ericmcer »

dl9999 wrote: post #37
monero-xmr wrote: post #14

Here's a couple mind-bending NDE experience reports from doctors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08 https://youtu.be/gpfriTZDWCY?t=2777 See you on the other side

These are very interesting. I used to be convinced that NDEs were either made up, or the brain rebooting or something like that. I'm not so sure about it anymore. I'm not religious (not anti-religious either), but there are a lot of options between nothingness and a religious expectation of an afterlife. Maybe these NDEs are indicators of something else. I was surprised to see that almost 20% of people that "die" rep…

Sorry for the cynical take.

I really want to believe in something after death, but watching my Grandma die of Alzheimers makes me skeptical. She was completely gone before her body died. She did not remember her name, or any of us. Whatever intangible thing was "her" was long gone. On scans of her brain you could see huge pieces just atrophied away.

How can we have some intangible "me" that transcends my physical form if that thing literally disappears as my physical form degrades. What part of me goes on? 20 year old me? 50 year old me? The broken remnants of when I finally die?

We have accounts of people on strong psychedelics that are similar to these NDE and we know the body produces endogenous psychedelics during crisis. I would postulate many of these life after death type NDE are just strong Psychedelic experiences. Most NDE accounts are just: "I remember right before unconsciousness and then my next memory was waking up".

Re: Starting Hospice

#155

Post by bironran »

BessS wrote: post #142
bironran wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgot to add: Journaling helped me a lot. I favored writing this as "letters" / "texts" to my wife. As if she's here, just telling her about my day, feelings, emotions, what our kid did, what happened around us, family and friends. Venting, crying, blaming, being frustrated, being happy, being proud. All goes in there.

I think I will be forwarding funny animal videos to Jake on instagram for all time but the idea of them being delivered to no one is this weird minor detail that is just so hard.

That happened to me too. Then I switched writing in "notes" and eventually switched to https://dayone.me/ which has a webapp as well as mobile app, so it's easy for me to write on any device. It was less disheartening not to see that "delivered, not read" on messages.

Re: Starting Hospice

#156

Post by geephroh »

dthrowaway819 wrote: post #41
jseliger wrote: post #2

Hacker News, thank you for all the links and all the great reading. Now I have to say goodbye. I’m with my wife Bess ( https://bessstillman.substack.com/ ) and my brother Sam, and crying, but it is okay. At the end of Lord of the Rings Gandalf says to the hobbits, "Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” And that is how I feel now. Ending prematurely hurts, but all things must end, a…

Hey this might be kind of a weird thing to say but screw it. I’ve been suicidal recently and seriously considered ending my life. One reason I have decided to hold on and get help is inspiring stories like your own. I look at how much dignity, energy, and love you have espoused even while having a terminal illness and I feel ashamed. Some people out there have been given so little and done amazing things with it, and…

It takes a lot of courage to write what you've put into words out in the world, even if anonymously. You have value and it is possible to find the help, support and love you need. You can do it; you are strong enough. Please reach out: https://988lifeline.org/

Re: Starting Hospice

#158

Post by Bluestein »

dl9999 wrote: post #143
Bluestein wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> options between nothingness and a religious expectation of an afterlife. May I ask what you consider some of those are? Honestly curious.-

This is all speculation based on things I've heard, so take it with a big grain of salt. I used to be on a forum with somebody who posted about having an excellent relationship with his dead wife. He said they interact regularly. He was not religious. Normally I would think he's a crackpot or somebody trying to sell something, but he was not either of those things. He came across as very honest and intelligent and si…

> Consciousness could be fundamental.

Oh, it very definitely is. It's an invariant "information" substrate of the universe.-

PS. I am personally convinced that one of the things that AI and the AGI search will yield is more clarity into - or even the discovery or demonstration - of that fact.-

Re: Starting Hospice

#159

Post by keeptrying »

jseliger wrote: post #96
keeptrying wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your writing - its taught me a lot about a lot of things. One concrete highlight is how important patient agency is in the patient-doctor relationship - which you've written about a few times. I'm truly deeply sorry about this whole situation. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge.

I hope too to accomplish at least two concrete ends: 1. Help and educate other people who are suddenly facing the opaque clinical-trial system: https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/please-be-dying-but-not-... 2. Ultimately, reform and speed FDA approval for fatal diseases like recurrent / metastatic head and neck cancers: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/01/29/the-dead-and-dying-at-the... . A drug like petosemtamab (MCLA-…

Yes the clinical trial system is super opaque and it's not clear what benefit one can get if one doesn't understand the process or even the risk profile of it.

This lack of patient agency applies to all of medicine, really.

I plan to improve patient-doctor relationship in general. Gut tells me that enabling educative access to the basic sciences component of medical school and paring it down to patient specific focus, we can enable much higher patient agency through better patient-doctor communication and a deeper understanding of ones condition.

More importantly a better decision making process and ability to query and understand the doctor.

I've been through this with my wife and it's just so important.

Re: Starting Hospice

#160

Post by _yb2s »

BessS wrote: post #135
_yb2s wrote: post #124

Jake, you don't know me but I want to thank you and Bess for sharing what you've been going through with us on here. It would have been easier not to fight this hard, and not to write all of this, and I appreciate that you did. If you can, and I know maybe you can't, you should write a personal letter to your daughter, to read when she is old enough to understand how much you love her, even though you never met her.…

Congratulations on your wedding, UniverseHacker and I'm deeply touched to be part of your wedding vows. Jake and I have spent this last year trying to leave nothing go unsaid between us and I wish a lifetime of the same for you and your spouse. It's transformative to lay it all on the table, and to learn that the best opinions of yourself lie in the person you love. A good partnership changes everything. I hope you h…

Thank you, I will send you an e-mail after the wedding
Post reply on HN