IGX

A cardiologist told my father about 15 years ago to come in the next day for surgery, or else he would die. He didn't get a second opinion. Maybe he needed it, maybe he didn't. Bernie Siegel MD,
http://berniesiegelmd.com/.
a former professor of surgery at Yale talked to numerous conferences of doctors. He would read a diagnosis and make a bet with them. “Tell me within six months when this patient dies. If you win, I pay you a year’s salary. If you lose, pay me a year’s salary.” No one ever took him up on it. He admonshed them, “How can you tell a patient he has 3 months to live?”

My father had a 14 hour heart surgery with an anesthetic that ruined his short term memory and sense of direction while driving. I'll spare you the gruesome details of what ensued, except to say it was dangerous for him to drive more than about ten minutes from his home. He knew there was something wrong but was in denial. I was told by a PhD in neurophysiology that particular anesthesia had a similar effect on a lot of old people, and they could not accept they had a problem. I wanted to send my father’s driver’s license back to the DMV but didn't. It's a very heavy set of decisions when adult children have to start taking responsibility for aging parents. My mother was 90 years old and in a lot of pain after a very difficult surgery. I wanted her to go back to the emergency room, and she refused saying she had suffered enough there. She won and lived another five years. When my father's license expired, he was driving without a license for a while. I didn't know that. He did a lot of damage to himself but never had an accident that killed or injured anyone.

Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US. It used to be the fifth in the 1970s.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical- ... -of-death/

I'm not against medical doctors. I've had 2 surgeries, one on my meniscus, and had my gall bladder removed after numerous gallstone attacks. I try to be an educated consumer. It doesn't always work. Sometimes, you only find out the hard way, and that could take decades.

Ugh, very sorry to hear this. I will say:

a former professor of surgery at Yale talked to numerous conferences of doctors. He would read a diagnosis and make a bet with them. “Tell me within six months when this patient dies. If you win, I pay you a year’s salary. If you lose, pay me a year’s salary.” No one ever took him up on it. He admonshed them, “How can you tell a patient he has 3 months to live?”

That would be a sucker's bet. Other party has complete information, it would be insane to take that action. It doesn't mean people guessing how much time a person is likely to have is wrong.

lenny wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:38 pm He would read a diagnosis and make a bet with them. “Tell me within six months when this patient dies. If you win, I pay you a year’s salary. If you lose, pay me a year’s salary.” No one ever took him up on it. He admonished them, “How can you tell a patient he has 3 months to live?”

Cool. The Yalie is asking his colleagues, "How certain are you of this diagnosis?".

He's trying to point out the futility of forecasting.

lenny wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:38 pmMy father had a 14 hour heart surgery with an anesthetic that ruined his short term memory and sense of direction while driving.

One good shot to the head that causes brain bleeding, a car collision or the consequences of life saving surgery - that's how close we all are to ending up in this state or worse.

Clive Wearing has thirty seconds to seven seconds memory. He caught viral encephalitis. The disease damaged his ability to form memories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y


Pump brain.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... g-machine/

lenny wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:38 pmI try to be an educated consumer. It doesn't always work. Sometimes, you only find out the hard way, and that could take decades.

I did eight years as a biomed, in dialysis. I watched dozens of people go home and die. I watched four drop dead in front of me. I'm dealing with old information and anecdotes, this is before HIPPA. I did watch their attitudes and talked with some of them.

Dialysis is boring. You have to sit still for hours while a machine does shit to you. Pulls everything out of you.

The patients who took an interest in their care, who complied and negotiated with doctors, did best. Some lasted for decades.

The nice ones? Depended.

The ones who didn't care died fast.

To live longer, you gotta give up all the things that make you wanna live longer especially as you get old. It's not 100 percent true, but for a lot of people it is.

I had 2 motorcycle accidents in Europe in 1969. A car hit me at fairly high speed at a ninety degree angle. A split second sooner I wouldn't be writing this. It's a miracle any of us are alive.

How many chemical reactions are there in the body per second?

https://www.microblife.in/how-many-chem ... uman-body/
This number likely fluctuates over time and varies from person to person but it should be pretty close so let’s use it! (1 x 10^9 RXNs per second per cell) x (37x 10^12) = 37 x 10^21 i.e. 37 with 21 zeros after it or 37 thousand billion billion chemical reactions per second in the human body.

Some people are very unlucky. They have genetic diseases that kill them that can take years or have terrible accidents. A friend of mine was an ER doctor. One morning he told me very nonchalantly, "A guy came in with his head shot off. It took five hours for him to die." He could have been reading a shopping list for all the emotion in his voice. He told me he was asked to be a rock doc. I asked him what that was. Procuring high quality cocaine for a famous rock band. He refused.

I was very lucky that I walked away twice from those accidents without a scratch. I wouldn't ride a motorcycle again. Some people create a lot of their own bad luck. I picked up some hitchhikers in the 1977 in Florida who told me crazy stories about how they got into fights and went to jail. I asked myself why that didn't happen to me. My answer was that I wasn't looking for trouble, and I've been very lucky a bunch of times that trouble didn't find me.

One surfer tried to run me over. He could have killed me. There were only 2 of us in the water. He was about 50 yards away. I watched him zig and zag towards me, certain that he'd veer out of the way. He didn't. At the last second, I ducked under, and his surfboard grazed my fingertips. As he surfed by, he asked if I was OK. I saw him on the beach. He wasn't a teenager. He was about 50. I was in too much shock to say anything. I told one of the surf teachers at the club and he said matter of factly, "Some people are jerks."

I lived in Jerusalem for a number of years. There was a period where there were four terror attacks near me in a few months. I could have seen 3 from my window if I had been looking at the right time. Jerusalem is a lot safer than most any American city. If you're interested in living long and a reasonably high quality of life, you do the obvious - don't smoke, drink in moderation, exercise, eat whatever is currently considered a healthy diet, wear a seat belt, etc.. You all know that.

As far as I'm concerned, you're here until your number comes up. Nobody lives forever. In the America I was raised in, death was hidden away. I was five years old when my paternal grandfather died. My parents didn't tell me. Denial for most old people becomes a lot more difficult. I'm probably the oldest person who posts anything since Andy died and whatever his name, Seeahill, the famous author, left because he couldn't take any more of you guys. This has become entertaining for me recently, so I post. Not that anyone other than Ronald RayGun listens to the music I put up since it's ancient and so am I at Irongarm.

Maybe I'll drop dead before I can send this off. I probably won't but there are no guarantees. The intent of my original post was not to distrust doctors (although there are a lot of good reasons to) but to try and get a second medical opinion, but that's not always possible. YMMV or if you're on the metric system YKMV (your kilometrage may vary)

In Israel our the work started, but for the rest of you fuckers
Hope you're having a good weekend