The year I didn't survive • Hacker News Board

Re: The year I didn't survive

#261

Post by sumo89 » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:32 PM UTC

lux wrote: post #58

Sisyphean is the word I’ve come back to a lot myself since my wife took her life on November 6, 2024. Feeling like I’m now trying to live for both of us, grasping at ways of honouring her memory despite the incredible love we had being unable to “save” her, and somehow not at all myself anymore, but having to keep moving forward feels hopeless beyond belief. I lost my dad suddenly just two months prior, and my grandm…

There's an unavoidable amount of guilt. I should be remembering them more, I should be honouring them by keeping them in my thoughts, but I can't think about them 24/7 and now I feel guilty that I'm doing them a disservice. The callous answer is life goes on and you need to go on with it. The friendlier answer is you have to give yourself permission to live for yourself, thinking about them only some of the time is still keeping their memory alive. It can help to have a representation, be it a specific day like their birthday you assign to their memory or a physical item. I lost a parent when I was a teenager, it turned my world upside down, I found what helped was having a thing as dedication to them. It let me compartmentalise the emotion to that object and gave me permission to not think about them all the time because they're being remembered by that item existing. It's not easy but does get easier, ultimately just be kind to yourself. It's not a quick process.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#262

Post by wegfawefgawefg » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:47 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #260

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure but thats true about the entire internet. people dont come here for sad life stories they come here for hacker news. if people post stuff like this I cant find the cool tech news, and people who want to post or see cool tech news wont post or comment on it either. there is a dynamic range of attention on the front page and this consumes it. I see it as an emotional ddos attack. Because you cant criticize it. If…

Sometimes you gotta pick your battles. I don't think this is one you're going to win. Best to find a way to live with it, like using the Hide feature :)

i watched some of my favorite irc channels degrade due to lack of curation. theyre dead now. it isnt that nobody is online. the culture was just totally lost. they used to be cool places where people helped eachother code and would talk about math, now they are erotic role play and trans safespaces.

the code people left.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#263

Post by wegfawefgawefg » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:48 PM UTC

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #259

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure but thats true about the entire internet. people dont come here for sad life stories they come here for hacker news. if people post stuff like this I cant find the cool tech news, and people who want to post or see cool tech news wont post or comment on it either. there is a dynamic range of attention on the front page and this consumes it. I see it as an emotional ddos attack. Because you cant criticize it. If…

>ive got like three major deaths in my family and more coming. >this is just poetic literature >theres nothing novel about this post There's certainly something in there that I can agree with. Though I dont think you'd appreciate the irony as well as I do.

eh im not sensetive. sounds interesting. lets hear it.

(to comment on the deaths im in my early thirties. big family members are going. step dad died of cancer when i was 17. had a near death experience once or twice.

at some point you just accept death is a part of life. you dont want people to die. youve been through the recovery twice before. you dont wish it on other people. but the artistic wallowing doesnt do anybody any good. because youre only getting out on your own. when i catch my friends doing it i slap them.

now theres a big difference in my case since I was a man and the author was a woman (and pregnant). her social circumstance probably treats her like she has intrinsic value. allegedly i dont.

anyways im here for tech news. my step dad would have showed me hacker news 15 years ago if he had known i cared. and if he had, id hope it has fucking tech news on it like it presumably would have had he bothered. (he was a programmer))

Re: The year I didn't survive

#264

Post by cbruns » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:49 PM UTC

throwaway356356 wrote: post #111

CobaltFire wrote: post #13

My son had cancer during COVID, though he was fortunate enough to beat it into remission (with the help of a huge care team). I was active duty military, and he is also non-verbal and autistic. The things she talks about, how focused she was and how hard it is to do any of that now, I've been experiencing exactly the same things. I find it hard to do anything, put anything together, etc. after 3 years of managing his…

Throwaway: when my daughter was 4, she took a bath. My wife was in the living room doing laundry, literally 5 steps away. At that point, my daughter had just finished swimming class 3 months before. I was at work. When she called "mum!", my wife said: "Coming" and folded one final shirt. When she then entered the bathroom, my daughter floated in the tub, face down. No breathing, no sign of life anymore. My wife reviv…

While at a stop sign, a car veered off the crossing street into my car at about 40 mph. My pregnant wife and 1 year old were in the back seat. Our car was destroyed and the other guy drove off, never to be found.

No permanent injuries on our end, but what you said about walking on a thin crust of ice rings true. And feeling like there's another reality where things didn't turn out OK. All the best to you, I am glad your daughter is OK.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#265

Post by coldpie » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #262

coldpie wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you gotta pick your battles. I don't think this is one you're going to win. Best to find a way to live with it, like using the Hide feature :)

i watched some of my favorite irc channels degrade due to lack of curation. theyre dead now. it isnt that nobody is online. the culture was just totally lost. they used to be cool places where people helped eachother code and would talk about math, now they are erotic role play and trans safespaces. the code people left.

Yeah I get it. I'm just saying screaming at a community that they're doing it wrong is a low success rate method, and will probably only further frustrate you. Better to learn to go with the flow and do your small part to influence it; or else find a place that suits you better.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#266

Post by jcims » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

raffraffraff wrote: post #244

jcims wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife died of ovarian cancer in February of 2020, right as covid started. It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into th…

It's impossible though. Accepting something like that. If it's your own death I think that maybe you can eventually accept its coming. But if it's your wife? Christ, I'd be searching the earth non stop too. My sister died of ovarian cancer right at the start of COVID. My big sis, 1 year older. Even though the oncologists said early on that it was extremely aggressive and wasn't responding to treatment, nobody in the…

Thank you. I recognize what you write in my own experience as well.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#267

Post by jcims » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #199

jcims wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife died of ovarian cancer in February of 2020, right as covid started. It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into th…

> I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end. I just didn't know how to do it. And yet with the other choice you might have regretted "not having done everything you could have". That is the curse of those with the ability to actually do something. In many ways, those who do not understand and simply…

Thank you, I appreciate it. The 'doing everything I can' aspect is real. I was only in it for two years and it truly gave me a new perspective for folks that are dealing with similar circumstances over a much longer timespan.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#268

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #57

zmgsabst wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t believe indirect costs actually fund research and accordingly see this as directing more money into important, life-saving research. From their perspective, the origin of this thread is someone using a tragedy to emotionally manipulate on behalf of bloated institutions and their administrations — and every bit as monstrous as you believe their views are. Perhaps even more so.

I call bullshit because as the other poster said, research will not happen in an island, there are much much less invasive ways to cut spending than what is happening. I have a friend who is caught up in this and it is chaos. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house is where it went wrong.

I just can’t believe people are so naive. I do believe a lot of voters to their anger to the booths. They saw their “retribution”and voted for it.

Re: The year I didn't survive

#269

Post by wegfawefgawefg » Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 12:35 AM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #265

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i watched some of my favorite irc channels degrade due to lack of curation. theyre dead now. it isnt that nobody is online. the culture was just totally lost. they used to be cool places where people helped eachother code and would talk about math, now they are erotic role play and trans safespaces. the code people left.

Yeah I get it. I'm just saying screaming at a community that they're doing it wrong is a low success rate method, and will probably only further frustrate you. Better to learn to go with the flow and do your small part to influence it; or else find a place that suits you better.

this is part of the small part. im a canary

Re: The year I didn't survive

#270

Post by dendrite9 » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 4:19 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #167

CobaltFire wrote: post #13

My son had cancer during COVID, though he was fortunate enough to beat it into remission (with the help of a huge care team). I was active duty military, and he is also non-verbal and autistic. The things she talks about, how focused she was and how hard it is to do any of that now, I've been experiencing exactly the same things. I find it hard to do anything, put anything together, etc. after 3 years of managing his…

My wife died of ovarian cancer in February of 2020, right as covid started. It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into th…

What I wrote down below is a bit jumbled, but I felt like you describe something I hadn't realized yet. That maybe my brain has changed. And I needed to respond and think about your idea. I hope you are finding a way to deal with it.

This is resonates with me. My father died from cancer a year ago, the bit that survived two treatments was extremely fast moving. I had a business with him, and I spent a year trying to do as much of his job and mine to help him out. But he wanted to work, and I think it was good for him to have forward looking goals.

It feels like every day I am trying to figure out how to make my brain work the way it used to. And almost every day I am trying to decide if we had a bus factor of 1. Fortunately I have family support, and a part time job to keep me busy and bring a bit of money in.

I think about the emotional support and I think we did the best we could have. My dad was clear about listening to the doctors about his options. We spent some time reading about options and researching. But it was clear to all of the immediate family that we lacked the depth of knowledge needed. It was interesting to read about and learn about the techniques. And we were able to get advice from medical family friends. But his team was very good and thoughtful. We also thought the treatments were working. Until a later scan showed a small blip and before we could understand the options and decide he was in the hospital and terminal.

I still feel like I'm moving through the motions of running our business, but not actually doing it. Or something, it is a frustrating feeling that I am trying to fix but maybe I can't. Or maybe it will take years.