My brother was diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma (cancer) at age 35. Basically was given about a 10% to live. 180 servings of chemo/radiation later we started lining up hospice and he prepared to say goodbye to his 2 young kids and wife.
Last ditch effort was an experimental drug. Out of 150 people in the trial, he's the only one alive 12 years later. 6 years ago he started a company that is about to hit 8 figures in revenue and over 300 employees.
Hah, I wouldn't put it past him to add published author to the list.
Another oddity to his life that I forgot to mention is that he worked in hospice for 6 years prior to getting sick. So he's experienced both the employee and customer side of hospice. Something very few people can claim.
> Last ditch effort was an experimental drug... he's the only one alive
I assume it wasn't the drug then but some other factor that was either missed or underestimated in his actual recovery. Wish more of these missing-pieces were known.
It's entirely possible that it was the drug, but there was some factor that led his tumor to be susceptible to it, most likely a DNA mutation in the tumor.
That's what "personalized medicine" or "precision medicine" is all about for cancer.
I might get downvoted for this, so please do your own research first before just dismissing it.
There is this cheap thing of Vitamin C injections staight into the blood. A cure that has been "well known" for centuries, but dismissed because oral intake studies weren't promising.
I love science, but in studies where a lot of money is made or can be lost, there is so much manipulation going on it makes you sick. I'm talking about pharmacy and food industry here.
Loads of money are made with chemo and cancer research. If Vitamin C injections really are better way to treat cancer, can you imagine how many billions will be lost?
My mother died of kidney cancer last year. Doctor said unfortunately modern medicine had nothing to offer her.
She turned to alternatives, tried everything from vegan diet to juicing to vitamin c (intravenous twice a week over 6 months). No salt diet. Stone heat mattress. Hydrogen rich water. She exercised daily getting as much sun because someone told her that's good.
That didn't stop the metastasis spreading all over her body. She passed away 8 months after her diagnosis, coincidentally exactly what the doctor guessed when pressed for her honest prognosis.
You accuse the pharma industry of preying on the desperate for money, but in my experience it was the opposite. Pharma told her sorry nothing we can do. In desperation she turned to alternatives. I was willing to believe anything if it cured my mum.
Hey, sorry to hear that. It is a nasty disease. I also have people close to me who died of cancer, including a 17 year old girl, and my friend who was 20 at the time.
But it upsets me that so little research is done on high doses of vitamin C, while the research that is done is actually positive.
Loads of money are made with chemo and cancer research. If Vitamin C injections really are better way to treat cancer, can you imagine how many billions will be lost?
Do you think they are so stupid that they'd not immediately funnel the money into researching other diseases that aren't cancer? Or that this one thing is somehow a cure-all for all cancers? What do you think vaccines that prevent infections that can lead to cancer? Shouldn't they, theoretically, be losing money developing such things? Wouldn't the drug companies be able to better sell their drugs by advertising they were the company that beat cancer? Furthermore, wouldn't that also make all the governments that have taxpayer-funded health care stupid or part of the conspiracy as well? Why would a country like Norway pay for chemo if a simple vitamin proved to actually work?
I very highly doubt those sorts of claims, plus any that claim to have a "wonder drug" for cancer. Cancers seem to vary widely and have a variety of initial causes, after all, and some of the most promising developments seem to be tailored to either the individual or the type of cancer (HPV vaccines, for example, among others).
First of all, you are trying to discredit me: I never said vaccines are bad, I never said it is a cure-all for all cancers.
To answer your other more sane questions:
Are governments influenced by companies? Certainly, especially in US.
Is research influenced by companies? Most definitely, sometimes researchers are even bribed.
So you doubt those sorts of claims on Vitamin C? Look into the research that was actually done.
I love science, and probably so do you. But I've already seen too much "science", where results of research was twisted just to be able to publish in a journal.
Don't dismiss me for some alternative medicine dude, I'm not. But I'm also old enough not to believe every fairy-tale that is told claiming to be "science". Especially not in fields where a lot of money goes around.
> There is this cheap thing of Vitamin C injections staight into the blood. A cure that has been "well known" for centuries
Maybe it will be beneficial. It's not going to be a cure, though, it will be something for specific case profiles, and to be combined with other treatments. There are studies which are there, and they say 'no clear evidence', 'may slow the growth', or 'potentially important'. You are talking as if it's going to be a replacement for oncology, and are getting downvoted correspondingly.
In this case, the vitamin C amounts need to be really high. Your body can't handle those amounts from oral intake.
Listen, you don't have to take my word for it. Just look up the little research that is done on it, and make sure you make a distinction between oral intake and injections.
I'm not condoning it as a cure, but you can absorb large amounts of vitamin C orally if you combine it with a lecithin. It's called liposomal Vitamin C.
You're getting down voted because of your conspiracy nonsense. "X treatment is being suppressed because it would hurt drug companies".
Well it's not being suppressed and it's been studied since 1970. TDLR; It may help patient quality of life during chemo, it reduces tumors in some models but it reduces effectiveness of chemo in other models.
(Warning - it's from the National Cancer Institute Complementary Medicine section so it's not considered a valid approved treatment in the US. That means something where cancer is subject.
Damn, I meant decades... oops. I was actually referring to the 70's. But back then they did the oral studies instead of the injection ones. But injections are also not that new.
My dad was diagnosed at 42 with a rare type of GIST(gastrointestinal stromal tumor) that at the time had 6 known cases in the entire country. Doctors literally gave him 3-6 months to live, maybe 12 with really intensive chemotherapy. Fortunately, he was offered to sign up for an experimental test of Glivec against GIST(Glivec was a known drug at a time, but for something completely unrelated) - with a caveat that he could end up in a control group and be given placebo. He didn't. Glivec was found to be extremely effective against that specific type of cancer and my father has lived another 8 years completely GIST-free(died at 50 due to another cancer that has developed independently of GIST and taken him within 6 months of diagnosis).
So yeah. I know this maybe isn't a super happy story, but not every super bad prediction ends up being true.
With much sensitivity to the physical and emotional turmoil the author must be experiencing right now, I disagree with his advice:
> Stop just assuming you have a full lifetime to do whatever it is you dream of doing.
Rare and catastrophic events like this that can severely shorten your life are ones you should not plan for. If they occur, that's very unfortunate, and maybe you'll still have a contingency plan that can rearrange your plans to fit the remainder of your life, but he was still right to have arranged his life from the start to maximize his expected (in the statistical sense) impact:
> Before this diagnosis I’d been thinking of my 1st 35 years — aside from being a ton of fun and travel — as preparation. I felt like I was building a platform (savings, networks, skills, experience) that I could then use in my second act to make a real contribution, to “make my mark”
"Most of the time", he would have been right to use the early part of his life to make long-term investments in his development. It's just that this time it turned out to be the wrong choice.
In this case, living for "expected value" only makes sense if you live enough times to exploit the central limit theorem. If you review actuarial tables, you can see that at 35 (and male) you have 0.93% chance of not living to see your 40s. That is small... but it isn't vanishingly small. (source: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html)
as far as i know people in this stage of life die mostly due to an accident (car crash, etc) than from a critical disease. If one doesn't have any permanent condition, he won't be charged extra for life insurance.
Rare and catastrophic events like this that can severely
shorten your life are ones you should not plan for.
If you have dependents one should at least think about purchasing term life insurance. It's relatively cheap because the risk is small.
OTOH, because medical science has become so good at extending life, it's an even better idea to purchase disability insurance. That's something I still keep meaning to do. But it is more expensive as a not insignificant number of people become disabled, at least temporarily, in middle age. For example, disability insurance will pay for the time you're getting chemotherapy and unable to draw your normal salary. It's basically an income guarantee.
Note that employer-sponsored policies--especially term life--are crap. They're structured as a tax dodge for the employer, the cap is usually much too low, and in any event the policy is only good for as long as you're with that employer. Basically, it's a bad deal. The sooner you buy a private policy the cheaper it will be; don't wait even if you already have an employer-sponsored policy!
I used them for my term life insurance policy and was very happy with their service. I plan on using their service again for disability insurance once I have the budget.
AFAIU term life insurance is much like auto insurance--the policies break even but the issuers profit from the float. I used to think these things were bad deals. Some are, like, arguably, State Farm, which charges a huge premium because they invest so heavily in advertisement and an army of insurance agents. Or those issuers that specialize in selling policies to the elderly. But most traditional issuers quote fair prices and the industry seems generally very reputable.
> Note that employer-sponsored policies--especially term life--are crap. They're structured as a tax dodge for the employer, the cap is usually much too low, and in any event the policy is only good for as long as you're with that employer. Basically, it's a bad deal. The sooner you buy a private policy the cheaper it will be; don't wait even if you already have an employer-sponsored policy!
I had never considered this, and figured having my employer-sponsored GVUL plan was the responsible choice. Thank you for challenging that assumption! I'll run the numbers for my own situation.
When I did my own research and analysis, most advice I found online was that they weren't horrible; that private policies were preferable but employer-sponsored policies were okay. But IMO I really think that understates the cost-effectiveness in a way that misdirects people. That advice provides an excuse to just buy the employer-sponsored policy and move on.
Without being too long-winded, if you just consider the underlying economics of insurance, you'll get the best deal by purchasing and maintaining a policy for a longer period and with a payout that best matches your current and expected salary. If you're healthy, relatively young (<40), and confident you can keep paying premiums for the life of the policy, an employer-sponsored policy is just unequivocally a bad deal.
That last aspect is key--maintaining the policy for the entire term. Your risk increases significantly as you get older. If you don't maintain the policy for the entire term, you've basically thrown most of your money away. The fact that people are very likely to change jobs multiple times in middle-age (especially programmers!) means that you're not only introducing gaps in coverage, but increasing the likelihood that you either fail to buy a new employer-sponsored policy, have an employer that has a worse policy, or one that has no policy at all. That to my mind is a huge downside; difficult to quantify but so significant I don't think we need bother precisely quantifying.
Also, only small polices (<$350,000 or so, I think) will issue without a blood test. For someone making even only $50,000/year, $350,000 is much too low and not worth the money. The best premium/payout ratio will be a much higher multiple of your current salary. Think inflation. $350,000 20 years from now isn't going to go very far, and you're much more likely to die in year 19 than year 1. In my limited experience, those small employer-sponsored policies look like good deals compared to private policies, but those aren't the policies you should be comparing. When you look at proper policies (the ones that require a health check, like $750k or $2m), the private policies have more competitive premiums.
One final tidbit: employer-sponsored premiums are pre-tax, while private policies aren't. OTOH, payouts on the former are taxable, while (at least for term life) the latter are tax exempt. Normally pre-tax is a better deal, like with health insurance and retirement funds. And it _could_ be, theoretically. But it's not. A $1m employer-sponsored policy is really only going to payout about $750,000 or less, but the premiums aren't discounted to match even considering the pre-tax advantage. I don't remember how much time I spent crunching the numbers--most of my calculations were back-of-the-envelope--but I'd be surprised if my conclusions were wrong in this regard.
Basically, just buy a private policy. I purchased _less_ than policygenius.com (and standard financial advice) recommends based on my current compensation because I didn't want to end up in a situation where I allowed the policy to lapse because of the premiums. Again, that's just throwing money away. At some point you just have to pull the trigger because you can become paralyzed thinking about this too much. I probably erred to low, but I'm absolutely sure I didn't err in choosing to buy a private policy.
And remember, if the issuer isn't sending someone out to your house to draw blood[1], your policy is much, much too small. The questionnaire you fill-out for policygenius.com or anywhere isn't for naught, especially the compensation answers. IIRC, I had to send in proof of my compensation after I chose a policy and put things in motion. Unless you're actually getting a poverty wage, any cost-effective policy will require a health check, and the best premium/payout ratio will be in the range of something like 10x-15x your current annual salary, rounded up or down to match the nearest, most standard policy amount.
[1] They sent someone to me. At the time my employer-sponsored policy required me to go to a doctor. I don't know which is more common, but FWIW at least some issuers send someone to your door[2], which is very convenient. When I initially joined my then employer I did elect their sponsored policy. But I never got around to going to a doctor for the required health check so it never activated.
[2] The lady was nice and her job seemed like a pretty cool gig for a phlebotomist.
And if you get a disability insurance then also do not forget to also get a legal insurance b/c insurance companies will try every way to sneak out of their obligations, recklessly capitalizing on the fact that a disabled person is likely too weak to effectively fight for their rights.
Life is random, from birth to death. We probably should not live it with fear or hard expectations. I remember reading on Twitter about an entrepreneur that was killed instantly from an avalanche on Mt Everest. Who could predict?
Just do the best you can, try to be kind, and use sunscreen.
Not to be callous, but dying climbing Mt. Everest isn't random. Climbing Mt. Everest has a lower survival rate than stage 1 cancer. Chance of death is about 10%.
Nonsense, please check your sources; you're off by nearly an order of magnitude.
Death rate throughout Everest's entire history is around 4%, and around 2% from 2000 to present. That's also skewed a bit by 2014 and 2015 being particularly bad years; it was 1.4% between 2000 and 2010, and 2016 and 2017 are both around 1%.
If you have a 10% figure in your head, you must be thinking of K2 or another more dangerous mountain.
Wikipedia shows that from 2011-16, there were roughly 2000 folks who tried to climb to the summit of Everest, and about 70 deaths on the mountain (including those not trying to reach the summit).
I agree with your conclusion, but really you should not be doing adventure tourism (edit: Maybe I'm assuming too much) on Mt Everest unless you realise that you are dramatically elevating your chances of sudden death.
Your odds of being the 0.00001% are very low, but someone has to be it. He's just saying recognize that. Recognize that all your hopes, dreams, fears, assumptions, etc. can literally be gone in an instant and live accordingly.
I know it sounds ridiculously cliched, and of course you never think it will happen to you, but let me assure you that life really can be taken from you at any time, so live it with that reality in mind.
Right; the problem being with a rate that low is that there really isn't much to do about it, unless you pretend its much more likely than it actually is. Living accordingly, given all other potential for error in your life that actually is likely to occur, is really to change nothing at all.
That way of thinking is short-sighted and (in my opinion) stupid, though. If you plan around dying at any moment, then you'll never reap the rewards of planning for the future. Unless you mean "enjoy your life while it lasts" which is really cliché and pretty pointless advice.
Pick a different small number then. The point really isn't the specific number, but rather that someone ends up being "that one person who lost the genetic lottery" or "chose their lifestyle poorly" or "happened to live next to the toxic fountain factory" or however you prefer to phrase it when someone gets a terminal disease at 35 or younger.
you can believe that you have a chance to never live to a ripe old age and then never make long-term plans. this means: not saving up for a family, not having a family in the first place, not committing to a profession, business, or a path of learning that requires years or decades of consistent effort, or simply not having much of a life at all.
it would be like a company that never makes decisions that affects them in the long term (of more than a year) because the chance of running out of working capital exists.
PSA for anyone reading this: Colorectal cancer for younger people seems to be on the rise. They don't seem to know why.
My father had colon cancer and was not expected to survive it. I think he was 69 when he was finally diagnosed. He had put off seeing a doctor because he thought it was "just old age" and it was quite advanced by the time he was diagnosed. He did survive it and died, iirc, just short of his 89th or 90th birthday.
A lot of my relatives have had cancer, some of them more than once. Few of them have died from it. So, I tend to be biased in assuming that it can be conquered, even when the doctors say the odds are long against.
I know I have seen quotes on HN about how the odds are long against startups and other things, but how you can work to overcome those odds. I think it is a bit like that.
Good luck in your journey. Best wishes on your outcome.
Asking people to take responsibility for this one simple thing is taboo.
(I have a Colonoscopy just last week as part of a routine exam at my age. The procedure really isn't that bad. A couple hours on the toilet during the prep, and that's about the worst of it).
Obesity is merely one factor. I have read a number of articles on this and even written at least one (I get paid to ghost write health articles). My understanding is, no, they don't really know why.
Furthermore, how to not be obese is not really a solved problem. Suggesting that fat people are merely irresponsible is pretty lousy. Most fat people have tried to lose the weight. Some have tried incredibly hard and done rather crazy-sounding things, to no avail. We don't really understand that problem space either. Some people are able to lose the weight and keep it off. Others fail and fail and fail while trying like hell.
"Furthermore, how to not be obese is not really a solved problem."
Make your body absorb less calories than it uses. The simplest (not easiest) way is then to eat less. Most people who have "tried to lose weight" but did not manage it just tried lightly. They tried every new miracle weight loss program thinking 50lb could be lost fast before summer.
The thing is there are no miracle cure: you have to learn what has plenty of calories and eat or drink less of it. You have to learn to say no to food. You have to learn that throwing excess food is ok once you're done eating (which is the main problem for people coming from low income environment I think). For people who eat as a way to curb their depression, you also have to work on this illness if you want them to lose weight. You may also have to cut contact with family or friend who will sabotage you (crab in a bucket mentality).
Most fat people have tried to lose the weight. Some have tried incredibly hard and done rather crazy-sounding things, to no avail.
I half wish we didn't have these kinds of comments about weight loss; it comes from the Puritan-work-ethic-suffering-is-laudable style of thinking, and implicitly carries messages like: a) weight loss must include suffering, b) it must include hard work or you aren't earning it, c) 'quantity of trying' is something in and of itself which is praiseworthy, regardless of what is tried or how effective it was, d) crazyness is a proxy for trying hard by implication of exhausting all less-crazy options, regardless of whether that's actually true, e) defending 'why someone didn't lose weight' and whether they endured enough suffering to be allowed to live without criticism is more important than understanding, empathising, fixing, almost anything.
To quote from a blog about going the other way - muscling up:
Just because we’re tired doesn’t mean we had a good muscle-building workout, just that we had a tiring one. Depending on what you’re doing, there’s a good chance there’s a workout that’s less tiring but does a better job of stimulating muscle growth.
Similarly, being full doesn’t mean we ate enough calories, just that we ate a filling meal. Maybe there’s a less filling meal that provides more calories and nutrients.
And in the same idea, just because someone tried hard and suffered to lose weight, doesn't mean they did the most effective things to lose weight. Just because they felt starving doesn't mean they were sustaining long term calorie deficit, just because they tried for years doesn't mean they found a good way and it didn't work, but that they spent years doing things which didn't work. Just because they suffered while exercising doesn't mean it was an optimal calorie burning workout, just that it was unpleasant..
The two (effort/suffering and fat loss) aren't necessarily directly connected at all, yet we discuss as if one is a proxy for the other. It might well be that fat loss implies effort, but effort does not imply fat loss. Or it might be that effective fat loss doesn't necessarily imply effort although that's one way for it. I anecdotally note P.J. Eby's comment once that he'd tried an awful lot of weight loss attempts, but it wasn't until he found Vitamin K supplements that he started to see progress. Vitamin K supplements aren't hard work or major suffering (and undoubtedly they aren't a panacea for all obese people).
The wider context of the quote is:
we’re going to slip, we’re going to “fail”. That’s part of the process. A setback is just an opportunity for us to figure out what went wrong, what needs adjusting, and how to move forward more effectively. A setback shouldn’t be seen as a failure, and it certainly has nothing to do with our ability to build muscle. The moment we stop thinking about change as binary—either as success or failure—but rather as a process that’ll evolve, the more likely we are to actually reach our goals.
So when looking at our routines and our efforts, we need to look at them objectively. If our routine was failing, which part is holding us back? What piece is missing?
If our routine is working but is tough to maintain, what part was enjoyable and sustainable? What is wearing us down? What’s the part that’s actually responsible for our results? What’s useless filler that just wears us down?
This is how we gradually develop lifestyles that work for us—making things more effective, more enjoyable, easier. This is how we get to consciously decide who we want to become. Then eventually those habits become what we do automatically—unconsciously.
In that context, of a life and a way to live, what benefit of talking about "I tried hard", in the past tense, at all?
It's almost tautological to say people who tried hard and are still fat, weren't trying the right things - and yet actually saying that is liable to bring about a reply describing in detail how much effort and suffering and time was involved, as if the sentence was "you didn't try hard enough". Which it isn't.
Empathizing with disease, with medications, with psychological problems, with car-park focused urban sprawl, with disability, with thyroid problems and metabolic disorders and absorption disorders and poor education and stressful busy lives and constraints on money and food availability and susceptibility to peer pressure - these are all things that can usefully and helpfully be discussed. Praise of "they tried something and suffered for it, so if anything was going to work, suffering was going to work, and it didn't work", should fade from the world. It's unproductive, unhelpful, and focuses on all the wrong things.
My point was only that it is not a solved problem. That's it.
(In my first draft) I originally included the detail that I was quite heavy for some time and didn't manage to slim down any until I got the right diagnosis. I deleted that (before hitting "post") in part because I get a lot of flak for talking about myself for reasons I cannot really fathom. It seems I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.
For context: My medical condition predisposes me to retain fluids. I have lost multiple dress sizes and I still don't have the flat stomach I wish I had, though I walk more than 2 hours a day every day and I eat very carefully in accordance with what I have found works to not aggravate my underlying medical condition. Counting calories is contraindicated for my condition. My specialist never once suggested I should try to lose weight when I was 245 pounds and about a size 24-26, because the vast majority of people with my condition are horrifyingly underweight and the condition is quite deadly.
If just working your ass off was going to make you thin, I should be thin. I am not.
So, sorry to have hit some nerve for you, but my one and only point was that this is simply not a solved problem. There are people who simply cannot lose the weight, no matter how much they try, research it, etc ad nauseum.
That's what I thought, too, but then I read this [1]:
> “The honest truth is nobody knows 100 percent why there is an increase,” said Dr. Mohamed E. Salem, an assistant professor at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University. He said that he is older than about 60 percent of his patients — and he is 42. “It’s hard to blame it on obesity alone. We suspect there is also something else going on.”
The weird thing is that the sharpest increase is among young whites, and it doesn't seem to be entirely correlated with obesity.
You could argue that high sugar diets are just a proxy for obesity, so if obesity has been ruled out as a cause for this new increase then high sugar diets can be ruled out as well. Plus, no real reason it would be confined to young white people only.
But I still avoid the stuff, because it seems so unlikely that the quantity of sugar we consume is just harmless.
I dont think you can make that assimption at all. A lot of is have conditions or habits that result in modifying our eating habits and movement habits enough to always be thin even with high carb diets.
Ischemic Colitis. Also called Runner's Colitis. Basically endurance running can cause the colon to become inflamed to the point of bloody stools, among other symptoms. If there's blood in your stool your colon is clearly in a great deal of distress and you should probably put a halt to whatever's causing it. Indeed, given the known factors that increase colon cancer, you can boil all of them down to one root cause: inflammation.
Oh, I'm not giving our modern diet or lack of exercise a pass mind you. I mostly eat plants nowadays because the research is pretty clear that eating meat all the time elevates your risk and I avoid sugars save for a twice-a-week pastry because sugar is probably even worse. That being said, I'm troubled by the fact that in modern society millions of people feel compelled to take up a sporting event inspired by the heroic feats of an ancient Greek messenger who promptly collapsed and died after running what would become known as the very first marathon. Perhaps it helps them feel better than average, perhaps it's a way to overcompensate for how unhealthy our lives are. In the latter case we're probably only making things worse.
I wouldn't overlook or absolve the thousands of chemicals that have been recklessly deployed into the biosphere and rather haphazardly regulated. But if the corporate class gets its way (and it usually does), that is also not acceptable to talk about.
Exactly, you can't even mention this online without getting flamed either. Look at the compounds banned overseas and not in the US. Look at agricultural practices. Look what is in our meat.
Someone comes alongs and says "show me a study!!" No, we don't have studies for every single possibility.
Any amount of unexplained rectal bleeding is reason enough to schedule an appointment with a doctor.
The doctor is likely to recommend a colonoscopy. Removal of polyps (a likely source of bleeding) reduces the chances of cancer developing and can only be done during a colonoscopy.
Had forgotten about two experiences I had in roughly three months ago.
Stiffer feces lead to "tight squeeze" and then bleeding to the point of dripping in the toilet. True red blood. This happened twice within a week, feeling around in shower discovered pain on surface of recturm. I was eating terribly at the time.
It went away and I went on with life. Reading this today is a billboard reminder to get colonoscopy and clear myself ASAP.
Many experiences of that. The chinese TCM call that 热气 ("heatiness"). Excess of fried food, toasted stuff etc likely to cause it.
BUT...General message to everyone....anything that seems not normal, and persist more than a few days.... GO SEE A DOCTOR. What is the cost of a visit vs the value of your life? In any case go visit every year to get a checkout if you can afford so. Its a duty to those your care for and to those you care about.
I had rectal bleeding similar to the OP. My GP dismissed this as probably just a hemorrhoid, and due to my age at the time (42) didn't refer me to a gastroenterologist. Almost cost me my life. A year later, the symptoms persisted and he finally made the referral. The gastro doc knew instantly upon exam that I was in serious trouble. A scope turned up a 5cm tumor that required a full resection. Luckily I survived to write this post; 12 years that have been a blessing. To anyone with rectal bleeding of any type, see your GP and ask for a referral to a specialist, regardless of age!
Bright red blood is generally not a big problem as it just means hemorrhoids or a cut on the anus. If you EVER see DARK RED blood you should go get a colonoscopy immediately. There is no good reason for that to ever happen.
Agreed. First thing I thought when I read that. To anyone reading, there is no OK amount of bleeding there, excepting some aggressive tp, and even that can lead to issues. If you have this issue, it is not likely cancer, but many of the causes are deadly if not addressed. Please see a doc.
Fuck. For what seems like years I occasionally have some bright red blood on the TP and occasionally the toilet is red. I don't know why I never thought to go to a doctor. I figured it was from hemorrhoids or something. Generally though, I don't get sick, unless of course I have been and just ignored it.
The last several years I was working to develop a workable "cure" for bipolar (Which it seems I have, but which took a lot of research time and emotional energy.) Perhaps I ignored these things because I couldn't stand the idea of something more.
If there is anything the journey to healing from so called "Bipolar" taught me it was that I have a robust nervous system and can look this stuff head on if I have to.
I'll go get checked out this week if not tomorrow. Thanks for posting this.
Oh, also. I have a friend who recovered from multiple bouts of cancer by eventually for going western medicine and doing vegan diet and reversed everything.
I'd also suggest looking into some sort of psychedelic therapy, perhaps ayahuasca -- the emotional system is the immune system and it really wouldn't hurt. Also, may help with the psychological experience you are having now.
Grateful that you are here and reporting back from the front lines.
I began writing up a reply for you, but realized the comments might get turned off before I have a chance to post it. You can email me anthony@175g.com if you like. I will post here too when it's ready.
I was incredibly surprised how the author dismissed this symptom. Maybe I am just paranoid but if something like that happened to me I would go to the doctor's immediately.
It's possible to swallow something indigestible that then comes out in poop - sometimes this could cause bleeding. If you have anything inserted in your anus for any reason this could also cause bleeding.
Remember that the anecdotes on here serve two purposes.
(i) to show that the aggregate does not inform the individual. As a species we are too influenced by aggregate stats. There is huge variation in individual responses.
(ii) history is written by the winners. Those people who did not survive cancer are not here to write about it and those surrounding them tend to want to forget and move on. Survivor bias is a real thing.
Not only is this story a reminder that life is short, but also that we must battle each day to keep perspective when the world and our human limitations are always trying to skew our views.
Given the tensions in the world, seeing things from the other points of view has never been more important.
Had same thing at age 44. Stage 2.5, was given 60% chance. Had chemo and radiation. There's something I can share with you if you write to tatumizer at gmail dot com. I really hope I can help.
I'm 60 now, still working as a programmer.
Forgot to mention most important tidbit I learned. Normally, you need to have your first colonoscopy at the age of 50. Mo matter if you have symptoms or not. But for certain ethnic groups, the probability is much higher. Your doctor may, or may not, tell you this (political correctness? Illiteracy? Not sure. In my case, family doctor was in denial even when he saw it), you need to do your own research. Find out where you belong, you may need it at age 30.
Last fall at the age of 32, I was diagnosed with leukemia (ALL). I went from a completely normal life to being in the ER in just a week (thought I just had the flu in between). My life has been completely on hold for the past 10 months while I deal with this and the resulting bone marrow transplant.
Thankfully ALL has a very high success rate for treatment and long term survival, but it has certainly made me realize how unpredictable life can be. I was putting things off that I wanted to do with my life and once I finish recovering, I certainly will work to correct that.
It's never too late to turn to the Dharma. I lost a child recently and the only hope I can find out of it has been to study what the Buddha taught.
> if we start thinking about impermanence now, while we still have time to find skillful means to deal with it, then later we will not be caught unaware. Even though in the short term the contemplation of death and impermanence might cause discomfort, in the long term it will actually save us from greater suffering. [1]
FWIW, I don't think you came off as pushy or predatory (as someone who is firmly on the atheist side of things), but any suggestion of religion can easily cross that line when someone is in an emotional malleable state such as this. I think that's why people tend to be a little jumpy about it.
This seems so predatory. Instead of proselytizing, why not just hold off and try to understand what this person is going through? Practicing your own human empathy on human terms is far more important than whatever list of teachings you might find out there.
Firstly I'm really sorry you felt I was being pushy. I don't feel I have anything to gain from what I shared, which is how I interpret proselytizing: my child died. Six weeks ago. So yeah, I'm on a lot of pain, and reading these texts are what have helped me through weeks of tears. Maybe it's inappropriate for me to share that so casually here, but I truly hoped it may help someone else going through death, or being around it. And you're right, I can continue to practice empathy. And for me, these texts point to how to do that... maybe someone else would find it helpful too.
> The will of nature may be learned from those things in which we don't distinguish from each other. For example, when our neighbor's boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken. Apply this in like manner to greater things. Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is a human accident." but if anyone's own child happens to die, it is presently, "Alas I how wretched am I!" But it should be remembered how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others.
There's no hell more harsh than a memory
There's no home more hell than an empty nest
Winter takes the warm away, spring takes the cold away
Summer takes the rain away and fall took away my friend
I believe there's never a place better than right where you are
Although imagining an afterlife can tend to mend a broken heart
And with someone dead, it's a way of coping with loss
But I don't need you out there somewhere if I have you in my thoughts
I don't envy anyone in a position where they're forced to choose
Pull the plug or not I can't tell if this is for me or you
I mean I know you're sick, tired, and confused
But sometimes letting the tired go to sleep is the best thing to do
Or fighting it with cryonics, SENS, other medical research etc. But pretty much any religion or everyman-philosophy has something to say about death. I have the same reaction as the green sibling, if something comes off as proselytizing it's pretty gross. Hitchens on death-bed conversion: https://youtu.be/q4cPe_YS8i8 Just be considerate that your way isn't the only way if the suggestion really comes from a good intention, which in these cases with personal experience I tend to believe does.
> if something comes off as proselytizing it's pretty gross
Thanks for sharing additional helpful and cathartic resources. Reading texts like I linked is in the same spirit you may enjoy what you've shared. It may be you're incensed by the religious connotation of what I said. But I have nothing to gain from sharing it, just the hope it may help others. Sorry if you felt it was pushy.
I hear you and glad to confirm it's coming from a good intention, we're all going through our own personal hells and it's nice when we can help each other with them and not get lost in isolated bitterness. My initial irritation wasn't the religious connotations or wondering if there was an ulterior motive for gain, just the introductory "it's never too late to turn to..." phrase which accompanies unhelpful proselytizing so often. So don't be sorry, just interpret it as my feedback on the presentation rather than the content.
It took a case of endocarditis, a 30% chance of survival, two heart valves being replaced, a pacemaker installed, and another brush with death during the 6 month recovery, all at age 24, to wake me up. Ever since then, one thing I've really wanted, with all of my heart, is for people to wake up - see that this is not forever and tomorrow is not guaranteed. Listen to me, listen to the author - please, do what you need to do to enable yourself to pursue the dreams you really have, stop "just getting by".
Shit happens; my wife was stabbed on the way back home at 29 and has been in a coma and now vegetative state since. If someone has a good way to deal with this crap, please do let me know.
Really sorry to read that. Hope things improve for you. My wife attempted suicide a few times last year. Thankfully things have stabilized since, but I had been contingency planning for life afterwards just to stay sane. I don't think there's a good way to deal with the crap...
Visited a GP about a year ago due to blood in my stool, and he said it was hemorrhoids, but it hasn't gone away since. Going to schedule another appointment this week thanks to this article.
Every time I read a story like this it makes me angry that $700 million were wasted on Theranos instead of being invested in cancer research. Why isn't Elizabeth Holmes in prison yet?
Do your research. I'm not an expert, not even close, but a buddy of mine pushed his wife's curve way, way out. Maybe you can too.
She has stage 4 lung cancer, it's spread to her brain. If she gone to Stanford, like she wanted, they would have done whole brain radiation to try and blast the brain tumors. The problem with brain tumors is that there is that barrier that keeps bad stuff out of the brain and it only lets small stuff through, chemo tends to be large.
My buddy started researching and asking questions (he's business/sales but I think he's an engineer). The 5 year survival rate is less than 1% for stage 4 lung cancer. So he started asking doctors and hospitals "what's your 5 year survival rate". Everyone pointed him to national stats and he said "no, I know those numbers, what are yours?". El Camino Hospital publishes their numbers because they are much, much better: 15%. I know, 15% isn't great but it is a boat load better than under 1%.
So they went there. El Camino has a different approach to this sort of situation, they use some chemo (avastin maybe?) that is small celled and gets through the brain barrier. They also did pin point radiation.
The results: it's 2 years out, I think 2 years and 1 month, and my buddy's wife isn't fine but she's damn close. She's on an every 3 week chemo cycle, she typically gets 11 good days and 10 crappy-bad days. They both retired (I still pay his health insurance which is a big deal) and bought a travel trailer, do 2-5 days trips up and down California. They are fully aware that they are trying to cram all of their retirement into a few years and so far are doing a great job, their doctor loves it (apparently a lot of cancer patients sit on their butt, just waiting for the next chemo session).
If she had gone to Stanford, while the radiation would have likely wiped out the tumors, it also has this little side effect called dementia, happens very quickly. So this outcome is much, much better and it only happened because my buddy did his homework.
And one sort of cool thing happened: this all started before my company imploded and I gathered the team and said "I want to send Bob on vacation. We've only got so much runway left so if you don't want to use some of that money on Bob, I get it, I won't judge, I'll pay for the vacation myself." It was unanimous, they wanted the vacation to be from the team (I was so proud of them, that's the team I wanted). So we sent them back east to see the fall colors, they had a great time.
It's worth stating that I've watched my mother-in-law and my father die of cancer (and while my love for my dad is pretty obvious, I loved my mother-in-law as well, we got along great). The thing that I've learned is the second you know you have something that is life threatening do whatever you want to do RIGHT NOW. I pushed for the vacation thing for Bob because my mother-in-law didn't want to have friends over "until she was better". I deeply regret not just arranging to have all her friends come in. She died pretty quickly.
So I don't want to be morbid, or show any lack of hope, but there is the possibility that OP is in the best shape he's gonna be. So use that time to have some fun, build some memories, whatever you think is good. If you kick cancer's ass you'll have some memories to look back on, if you don't, your family will have some to hold onto. Do not listen to the doctors, they tend to be overly hopeful and give you a false sense of hope (I get it, it's kind of all they can do, but we would have liked a more realistic view. They let my mother-in-law think she was going back to work).
Good luck, cancer sucks.
Edit: explain that lots of patients don't live between chemo sessions and a typo.
Everything I've read says that all bleeding should be checked out.
Even if you're not willing/able to get a colonoscopy, it's easy for a specialist to check for hemorrhoids. If the hemorrhoids are internal (not all are) they use a little fiberscope that only needs to go in for an inch or so. It takes a minute to do at the office.
I wound up having some internal hemorrhoids surgically repaired. Not a big deal at all. The bad news is that the prep for that surgery is pretty much the same as the prep for a colonoscopy. IIRC (it's been over 10 years) I think the doctor first did a colonoscopy and then repaired the hemorrhoids, all in the same operation.
Sheesh, the things we type on HN. Without a throwaway even.
It took a case of endocarditis, a 30% chance of survival, two heart valves being replaced, a pacemaker installed, and another brush with death during the 6 month recovery, all at age 24, to wake me up. Ever since then, one thing I've really wanted, with all of my heart, is for people to wake up - see that this is not forever and tomorrow is not guaranteed. Listen to me, listen to the author - please, do what you need to do to enable yourself to pursue the dreams you really have, stop "just getting by".
Why isn't the medical community looking for early warnings? relatively cheap tests for hs-crp, IL-6, TNF-alpha could be helpful. Inflammation is the precursor to disease.
Do yourselves a favor & ask your doctor for the hs-crp test to measure inflammation.
That entirely depends on, e.g., the false positive rate and the specificity of the test. Couple of quick examples of the top of my head:
* A false positive for a terminal condition or cancer may have a poor effect on the patient's mental well-being AND make them less likely to submit to testing in the future (see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23540978 - "We conclude that the experience of having a false-positive screening mammogram can cause breast cancer-specific psychological distress that may endure for up to 3 years, and reduce the likelihood that women will return for their next round of mammography screening."). Depending on your false positive rate, that may result in worse outcomes overall.
* I had an MRI on my head a few years ago, and a _very_ small growth (<2mm IIRC, small enough that some future scans weren't even certain it was there) was identified. Everyone involved is certain that it is an irrelevant finding, but I'm now stuck with yearly MRIs - both a cost to the NHS and a nightmare for me (it sets off an anxiety disorder).
* Parent suggests getting a hsCRP test. Whilst potentially useful, it's also non-specific - it'll be raised by pretty much any recent illness/injury/general inflammation, and will always be raised if, e.g., you have arthritis. You would likely need further testing to determine the cause (not necessarily free of risk/cost), and your false positive rate is likely to be higher if you are testing without other reasons to suspect it will be useful.
That's not to say all preemptive tests are a bad idea -- that's clearly not the case -- but as I initially said, it's a balancing act. Blindly added more early testing will not necessarily improve patient outcomes overall; they may in fact have a detrimental effect.
I don't think it's cost effective to buy insurance for individual maladies. If you do, the perhaps logical conclusion is to include coverage against robot attacks:
My grandmother had breast cancer about a decade ago and it was grueling for the whole family. She went into remission after aggressive chemo, but I pray every day no one else in my family will be afflicted with this terrible disease and that the hard working scientists and researchers out there will soon find a cure.
This puts my own trivial problems into perspective. I hope you make it. God bless.
Stop eating anything grown in the US or under the domain of corporate farming, anything grown with chemical (Monsanto/Bayer) pesticides, and look for as much communally, organic grown food as you can. Why has IBS exploded in recent decades? Miracle grow for cancer is literally being added to the food supply.
No surprise this has been downvoted. Apparently if you can't get a 50-year study to prove otherwise, we should assume any chemical added to our food is A-OK. Common sense be damned, we have money to make! That's America for you.
Reading this article make me seriously contemplate my own mortality. The last thing you want to do after doing this is get angry at someone. I downvoted because this isn't the time for a discussion like this.
Life is a strange thing. One day you can have everything and the next nothing. Then, answers are never enough. And you're left with the option to do the best with what you still have.
I'm not sure you'd understand. The first time you realize your mortality, it can really throw perspective at you. Much more of a slap in the face than whatever hottest trending framework happens to be on Front Page HN.
Well, 1 month ago I hit a car on my bike[0] and was close to meet full consequences of it. Less experienced cyclist would be seriously injured or dead, I believe. Though it was kind of a slap in the face, I don't feel that I need to change anything.
Often you can get your hands on the medical supply chain easier in other countries, eg. China / Thailand. I've seen hospital employees create fake patients to dole out medicine on the sly.
I'm sorry to hear that; if you let them in there with their gadgets; they will find a reason to cut, medicate and radiate; that's unfortunately just the way things are. These are not the only options, not even the best options, for patients. Get a second opinion, and a third; preferably from outside of Big Pharma. You might have to make some tough lifestyle choices; like seriously cutting down on meat, alcohol, sugar and stress; but your body has an unlimited potential to heal itself when given the chance. Be well and don't panic; remember, mind over matter; how you feel will affect the outcome more than anything they could come up with.
Has to involve nasty chemicals, radiation and flesh-cutting if it's going to work. Because, erm, that's what the profiteering psychos running this world are saying.
Is that the best you're capable of? Have you actually seen people in cancer "treatment"? What about your brain, what are you using it for instead?
Likewise, the fact that I've been you makes it even more so.
I believe in experience; and our ability and responsibility to draw conclusions from that experience and speak the truth that we see, especially when it's inconvenient.
I believe in the ability and need to have different, peacefully coexisting views and explanations; to stand up for who we are, and accept others for who they are.
I don't believe in blindly trusting authorities while ignoring experience and shaming others into silence to protect the insanity.
Last ditch effort was an experimental drug. Out of 150 people in the trial, he's the only one alive 12 years later. 6 years ago he started a company that is about to hit 8 figures in revenue and over 300 employees.
Life can definitely have a lot of swings.