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From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

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Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#111

Post by kabdib »

I've had a couple friends taken out by cancer over the last 2-3 years. Each time was pretty sudden; one I found out a month after he died, the other I had maybe a day of warning. Both of these people were great engineers that I looked up to, and it's still hard to believe they are gone.

Harlan Ellison has a rant, written when he was my current age, about how many of his friends were dying and that it sucked. (I wish I could find what he wrote but my books are all boxed up at the moment). He had eloquent and angry and, well, Harlan-esque words for the experience.

I remember my friends when I can, and write about them from time to time so that others can share my memories of how cool and great and human they were. That's the best I can do.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#112

Post by nkw »

dkbrk wrote: post #14
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #9

How long until a daily brain scan and body scan is a part of everyone's routine, the same way brushing your teeth is? Problems like these are untreatable if left for too long, but if caught early, there's sometimes hope. The solution seems to be to develop as many types of passive scanners as possible. The problem is false positives. But wasting a month needlessly visiting the doctor doesn't seem that bad.

False positives aren't inherently a problem. If you have accurate understanding of the sensitivity and specificity of a test, then you can take action to maximise the utility of the expected outcome. This means, for example, not necessarily performing a biopsy just because something is there (but it's probably benign). The cost of invasive procedures such as biopsies, and risk-increasing tests such as CT scans has to…

> Until the legal system starts to account for rational choices based on statistical information, this problem is going to persist.

The legal system does account for this. To succeed in a malpractice action, a plaintiff must prove a defendant failed to meet the required standard of care, which means the defendant failed to exercise that degree of skill and learning ordinarily exercised under the same or similar circumstances by members of the defendant's profession.

If these "rational choices based on statistical information" you refer to are within the accepted standard of care, a doctor is not going to be successfully sued for doing so.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#113

Post by danielweber »

DanBC wrote: post #10
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #9

How long until a daily brain scan and body scan is a part of everyone's routine, the same way brushing your teeth is? Problems like these are untreatable if left for too long, but if caught early, there's sometimes hope. The solution seems to be to develop as many types of passive scanners as possible. The problem is false positives. But wasting a month needlessly visiting the doctor doesn't seem that bad.

False positives don't mean a month of visiting a doctor - they mean several months of anxiety inducing "watchful waiting" or invasive biopsies. And false positives are not a rare event. False positives are very common. On top of that the radiation (from CT scans) increase the risk of cancer. Scans for healthy people are strongly discouraged. There's a possible benefit if you have any of the genetic markers for lung c…

And then the lawyers descend on all the false negatives. "Doctor, why did you miss this shadow on this photo? Two years later cancer was found there."

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#114

Post by Loughla »

wspeirs wrote: post #90

I am in no way trying to downplay the severity of this post, but I had a very different reaction when I read this. My reaction was, "Why did the head of the division tell the group about his condition in detail?" Maybe it is because I live in America, and maybe it is because I know someone who had cancer and was reprimanded by HR for discussing his cancer -- and survival from it -- on an internal work forum. My prefe…

If the employee discusses the illness on their own, there are no laws in the US to say they can't. Where you get sticky is if you discuss it without their consent. That's a big-time no-no.

I think you are either mixed up in the details, or have an overly aggressive HR rep.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#115

Post by michaelvkpdx »

I'm sad for Steven and for all the other software engineers who tell similar stories.

I don't have math or numbers on this- does anyone?- but I can tell from personal experience that just about every time some software engineer my age becomes mortally ill, it's brain cancer. There is something unstudied about what we do that causes problems.

Personally, I had my biggest scare a couple years ago while I was working on a deeply nested, recursive algorithm. Trying to keep the whole thing in my head caused me to stay awake at night. Eventually, I had a fainting spell at a sushi bar, an ambulance was called, and ultimately the doctor thought I'd had a a massive heart attack.

This didn't turn out to be true, thank God, and they never found the biological cause. But I swear to this day that it was the algorithm gnawing on my brain. I don't know that I've been the same engineer since.

There's a terrible risk in our business and no one is researching it. I almost feel like we software engineers are like 3 pack a day smokers before enough science and research was done to prove to the public that smoking causes cancer.

Software engineering can cause brain cancer.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#116

Post by brianwawok »

JonnieCache wrote: post #104
wspeirs wrote: post #90

I am in no way trying to downplay the severity of this post, but I had a very different reaction when I read this. My reaction was, "Why did the head of the division tell the group about his condition in detail?" Maybe it is because I live in America, and maybe it is because I know someone who had cancer and was reprimanded by HR for discussing his cancer -- and survival from it -- on an internal work forum. My prefe…

Why would it not be OK? What could the company possibly be liable for?

Person A says "I have a brain tumor!" Boss of Person A fires person A for poor performance. Person A sues company of Boss of person A for firing due to a medical condition.

From my limited legal knowledge, it seems like this is the argument for why they try to avoid outside of work knowledge being viewed by those in a hiring/firing/promotion position over you. It is kind of a joke, because if you are out for 8 weeks for chemo, clearly something is up... but somehow just knowing something is up is different from knowing you have cancer?

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#117

Post by Tarks »

exten wrote: post #108
madaxe_again wrote: post #50

I don't have a brain tumour, but I have had, and am still having, an experience which has made me think seriously about my mortality. I'm 31. About three years ago I started having three/four day long bouts of total delirium, roasting fever, extreme nausea, can't even keep sips of water down when it happens - by day three or four, I'm usually too weak to move, totally dehydrated. Two years on, my GP is still going "c…

I am about 10 months in to a similar experience, pre-diagnosis, and I can echo your statements about how terrifying the unknown can be. Being surprised to wake up in the morning can really alter your perception of reality. I think there is an enormous amount of abstraction needed in this perception to avoid going insane. I think it is important to be able to remove oneself from the reality of ones own mortality and I…

Hehe wow it's funny to see my words written by someone else, I've come out of the other end of this, for three months I'd be surprised to be alive in the morning after nights of wakin up to chest pains (when I was 22 and relatively healthy). Like everything it can change you, it gave me a different way of seeing the world and I can slip back into that cold mindset to consider things when I need a bit of distance. It also gave me even more appetite for doing fun things and staying true to my natural, childish disposition :)

I'll never forget the ceiling of the apartment I spent so many nights waking up in pain seeing, or the sun shining on the wall in the mornings as I thought "oh, I'm alive!"

Best of luck to you too friend.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#118

Post by [deleted] »

exten wrote: post #108
madaxe_again wrote: post #50

I don't have a brain tumour, but I have had, and am still having, an experience which has made me think seriously about my mortality. I'm 31. About three years ago I started having three/four day long bouts of total delirium, roasting fever, extreme nausea, can't even keep sips of water down when it happens - by day three or four, I'm usually too weak to move, totally dehydrated. Two years on, my GP is still going "c…

I am about 10 months in to a similar experience, pre-diagnosis, and I can echo your statements about how terrifying the unknown can be. Being surprised to wake up in the morning can really alter your perception of reality. I think there is an enormous amount of abstraction needed in this perception to avoid going insane. I think it is important to be able to remove oneself from the reality of ones own mortality and I…

[deleted]

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#119

Post by VLM »

seren wrote: post #68
geographomics wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MRI does have some caveats - it's not available to people with ferromagnetic material embedded within them, and not suitable for those who are claustrophobic. Also CT scans tend to be more accurate for bone, and are quicker to perform so less susceptible to the subject moving about. There's also the issue that, at present, MRI scans are considerably more expensive than CT.

And a MRI needs an enclosure, I am not aware of small portable MRI systems that would allow you to image a single leg, or breast. X-Rays are more dangerous but are more versatile in some cases.

COTS for maybe a decade now. Look at sports medicine equipment suppliers. I'm unaware of any breast oriented products but they probably exist.

Google for Esaote (my coworker got scanned a couple times by their product) and "extremity MRI"

As you'd imagine the economics are non-trivial. The machine is smaller and cheaper that a full size MRI (google claims its fraction of a million, like the cost of a house) but obviously something that can only scan knees and ankles and elbows is a pretty tough sell unless you're a sports medicine practice in which case its a pretty easy sell...

On the other hand if a "whole body sized" MRI costs $2500 per scan, then you've only got to scan maybe 100 knees to pay the capital cost of a dedicated extremity MRI. And how long would that take at a busy sports medicine practice, like a week?

I would not describe the machine as portable. Being a giant magnet you probably need a special safe room to operate it, so I don't envision paramedic/EMT ever having a MRI in the ambulance or whatever.

WRT discussion in the comments about claustrophobia I don't mind the small spaces so much as being chained down for an hour or so, that drives me nuts. My MiL went thru some tests for her gallbladder that took hours, I'd be clawing at the walls after ten minutes. Also if I could get nitrous for my wisdom teeth I see no obvious reason a MRI patient couldn't be gassed but they "never" seem to do that, which I find weird. For $2500 for a full body scan you could at least give me a couple shots of vodka.

Re: From hacker to hospice in seven weeks

#120

Post by bentcorner »

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #115

I'm sad for Steven and for all the other software engineers who tell similar stories. I don't have math or numbers on this- does anyone?- but I can tell from personal experience that just about every time some software engineer my age becomes mortally ill, it's brain cancer. There is something unstudied about what we do that causes problems. Personally, I had my biggest scare a couple years ago while I was working on…

I think it's more likely that sitting in an office insulates you from other risks that are more common in other professions.

http://www.abta.org/about-us/news/brain-tumor-statistics/

http://www.abta.org/brain-tumor-information/risk-factors/

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