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Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
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Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#52I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…
My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…
I would actually be more critical of "regular checkups" than your post. If we are looking at being "data driven" when it comes to our health, the jury is definitely still out on even having annual physicals for otherwise relatively young, symptom free individuals: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/skip-your-annual-p...
A central problem is that you get loads of false positives when you are screening symptom-free individuals, and these false positives can cause real harm: beyond anxiety, they often bring on potentially painful, expensive and side-effect causing treatments. Just see the recent recommendations over the PSA test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_cancer_screening.
Definitely go to the doctor if you notice any symptoms or worrisome changes. For other types of screenings, be aware that the recommendations often change and that there is a real cost/benefit analysis (even in terms of your own body, not just financial cost) to be done.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#53I wonder how he died?
He looked otherwise healthy I wonder if it was something related to sleep apnea. Ryan Davis from Giantbomb also died suddenly while on his honeymoon. http://www.giantbomb.com/ryan-davis/3040-93335/forums/ryan-d...
Way too many people dismiss sleep apnea. Folks, it can kill you - or cause other serious problems. In addition to narcolepsy, your general metabolism can get messed up too.
I spent 4+ years not getting any REM sleep and my metabolism STILL suffers as a result - even 14 years after starting on CPAP and using it EVERY night since then.
It's too long to go into here - but I did a writeup years ago about my "journey", along with my wife's issues with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome).
http://weblog.mrbill.net/archives/2014/01/13/falling-in-love...
Do you snore (badly)? Do you find yourself tossing and turning a LOT at night? Do you wake up gasping or with a general sense of dread/fear? Are you super-tired during the day? Have you ever fallen asleep while typing, while at a stoplight in your car, etc? Talk to a doctor about having a sleep study done. It might save your life.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that help you test for early stage cancer markers? That tests usually isn't in the batch of regular (and it's quite expensive), but it does make a difference between death an survival.
Yeah, pancreatic cancer patient here. Mine presented as acid reflux, which my GP treated with Prilosec. Only after I went anemic and the ER staff scanned for a bleeder did they find the 8-9 cm tumor. Push your GP if necessary for some soft-tissue radiology if you feel "not right". Wish I'd caught mine a couple months earlier. (Six months after surgery - I'm well so far, still doing chemo for the next three months. We…
Glad you are doing well. Pancreatic cancer is probably the scariest of all cancers, and I can hardly imagine your ordeal.
Still, one needs to be careful about taking one incident and generalizing from that. There is, for example, a very real possibility that performing an ionizing-radiation scan for every patient who presented with acid reflux would cause more cancer than it cured.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you haven't had a health check, get it done today. Or you might want to postpone your visit to the doctor until you have an actual reason to go there: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/skip-your-annual-p... http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/ritual-not-science-keeps-th...
How does that help you test for early stage cancer markers? That tests usually isn't in the batch of regular (and it's quite expensive), but it does make a difference between death an survival.
The assumption that "it does make a difference between death an survival" in not necessarily born out by the data.
There has been a big push back recently against using an improvement in 5 year survival rate as an indication of success in the war on cancer. For example, if a new diagnostic test lets you find out you have cancer earlier, but you still end up dying at the same age you would anyway, the 5 year survival rate would go up, with no real benefit to you. In fact, there could be lots of real negatives, like anxiety and an increase in other tests and procedures that don't actually improve your lifespan or quality of life.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that help you test for early stage cancer markers? That tests usually isn't in the batch of regular (and it's quite expensive), but it does make a difference between death an survival.
Yeah, pancreatic cancer patient here. Mine presented as acid reflux, which my GP treated with Prilosec. Only after I went anemic and the ER staff scanned for a bleeder did they find the 8-9 cm tumor. Push your GP if necessary for some soft-tissue radiology if you feel "not right". Wish I'd caught mine a couple months earlier. (Six months after surgery - I'm well so far, still doing chemo for the next three months. We…
Glad that things are going ok now, but this kinda popped out at me:
> Yeah, pancreatic cancer patient here. Mine presented as acid reflux, which my GP treated with Prilosec.
The fact that you walked in with pancreatic cancer and got told you have heartburn doesn't exactly argue for regular checkups.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#57I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…
My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…
We could argue about what comprehensive means, but if you see my post below, the test I recommended has blood work for internal organs health check, chest xray, abdomen ultrasound and (pap smear/mamogram etc depending on gender/age). This requires one single blood draw, and no significant levels of radiation.
Most tests do have some degree of false positives, but there a number of defensive diagnostic tests which are nearly error free and clinically significant
To name some: * BUN + Serum creatinine - Kidney health * LFT - Liver health * Sugar levels - Early detection of diabetes
I am not recommending a MRI, but everyone should get an annual health check, for some values of comprehensive.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have thought that someone on HN would know how to use a search engine.
In an oddly related way this reminds me of a time prior to the Internet. In that era you would open up the Yellow Pages and call a company or a store and ask them if they "carried such and such widget". They would reply "no". You would then say "do you know of anyone who does" hoping for a tidbit of info or direction on who you could contact next. The person on the other end would inevitably tell you to, as if this w…
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Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by comprehensive health check? What tests should I do? I do yearly physicals, but I feel they are mostly "feel good" exercises.
Do they draw blood and ask for a urine sample? Do they make you strip down and examine you from head to toe? Do they make you "turn and cough"? Do they listen to your heart and lungs? Do they look in your mouth? Do they look in your eye? Do they ask you about your health history? If some or all of these are "no", it's not a comprehensive exam.
Some of these aren't even up to date. Lets stop acting like we're health experts here. If your doctor is still making you do "turn and cough", then your doctor is using out of date practices (source: my GF is a doctor). Similar to another person's post above, she cringes at posts like this. You SHOULD go to the doctor to get check up each year, but you should not just go get every test under the sun just in case. There's a reason when you go in for your yearly check up, the doctor does what they do. Perhaps it's more important in this discussion to say that there's a reason your doctor doesn't do every test under the sun on these checkups.
Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died
#60Dave was an excellent CEO and the nicest guy - everyone at SurveyMonkey liked him and liked working for him. This is just devastating news. I saw someone say on Twitter "Dave defined the word 'mensch'" - very true.
>"Dave defined the word 'mensch'"
FWIW, mech4bg is probably referring to Yiddish for "human being" and not a reference to the terrible ex MP (UK) Louise Mensch.