30 ms·
The Other Half
- a2tech 10y agoThat's quite the story. I'm glad he made it-the loss of him would have been keenly felt.
- jedanbik 10y agoSending healing thoughts your way, Jason!
- pmarreck 10y agoI sat on a "weird pain" in my chest for a few days. Basically it was uncomfortable to sleep on my left side, and I felt a bit short of breath. Turns out I was suffering from a double pulmonary embolism, and that the only reason I wasn't doubled over in pain is because by an odd fluke of nature, the interior of the lungs do not have nerve endings (only the exterior) and had I waited any longer I could have died. At that point, a third of both of my lungs was basically gone already. And so, I ended up having to stay for an entire week in the hospital while they dripped anticoagulants into me. If my girlfriend hadn't strongly encouraged me to call my doctor... Who knows. Guys/gals... If there's any unusual pain in your chest cavity at all, just drop whatever it is you're doing and get it checked out. It might not even seem that bad at the time... it didn't to me and it didn't to Jason Scott... just do it.
- smacktoward 10y agoOr even if you're not experiencing any pain -- if you haven't been to the doctor in a long time... go to the doctor. Get a routine checkup! It can save your life. I almost learned this the hard way a few years ago. I was in my late 30s, and handled going to the doctor the way I always had since reaching adulthood -- which is to say, I didn't bother with it unless I was feeling out of sorts. Routine doctor visits seemed like a waste of time. Why sit an hour in an office to have somebody tell me I was doing OK, which I already knew? Then my glasses broke, so I went to my local optician's to get a new pair. They did a routine eye exam to make sure my prescription hadn't changed, and in the process noticed something odd about the little blood vessels in my eyes. That led them to take my blood pressure, which turned out to be high. Like, really high. The kind of high where the person giving you the test looks you in the eye afterwards and asks you, entirely seriously, how you are still alive. I was a stroke victim waiting to happen. (See http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/WhyBloodPressureMatters/Stroke-and-High-Blood-Pressure_UCM_301824_Article.jsp#.WLcAJVcp_mE http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/W...) And I had no idea. And would have continued to have no idea, right up to the moment when my circulatory system strangled my brain to death, if my glasses hadn't broken. I went to the doctor, they gave me some pills to handle the immediate crisis, we changed my exercise routine and diet a little to bring my blood pressure down for the long term, and now I'm fine. But I don't skip out on routine doctor visits anymore! And neither should you.
- chrisper 10y agoWhat is a long time? I came to the US in 2012 and haven't been to a doctor since. Not going to lie, the $ sign is a deterrent. But I am moving back to Europe this year so I will go to a doctor there and get all checked up etc.
- sitharus 10y agoThe idea of a 'routine checkup' is an American thing as far as I can tell. I've lived in the UK and New Zealand and adults only go to the doctor when there's something wrong, or if you have known chronic conditions. You certainly don't have regular blood tests.
- chrisper 10y agoYes, that is how I remember it as well.
- pkaye 10y agoHow do they catch things like kidney disease early? I have stage four kidney disease and there are barely any symptoms. Stage five means dialysis. For me it is too late to properly fix it but if caught early with regular blood tests there are ways to slow it down. My feeling is regular blood tests are a necessity for many health issues.
- elorant 10y agoI had a kidney disease while in puberty, specifically nephritis. Since then, I take a blood test every six months. It's a great habit because it can catch a lot of problems, for example diabetes, cholesterol levels, etc. Urinary tests are also very good because they can detect stones in your kidneys.
- chrisper 10y agoIsn't that rather expensive?
- MandieD 10y agoFor my husband, it was a feeling of heartburn combined with an elevated heart rate in the middle of the night. Fortunately, my reaction was, "oh my god, get up, we're going to the hospital NOW!" This was a bit over two weeks after a delayed Transatlantic flight with turbulence bad enough that we barely left our seats. The main reason I freaked out and took him to the hospital immediately instead of just saying, "that's weird," was that a close friend had had a pulmonary embolism a few weeks after flying back to the US after tearing up her knee skiing (and having to wear a stiff brace on the plane).
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoMy wife sometimes reminds me "There's a reason married men live longer." When your wife tells you it's time to go to the hospital, it's usually time to go. Yeah, there are some stereotypes I'm repeating, but they're accurate somewhat often.
- crgt 10y agoMy wife saved my life by making me go to the doctor when I scoffed at it. Wear sunscreen folks.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pmarreck 10y agoI got my double pulmonary embolism after a flight from California to NY, as well. Odd thing is they never found the source of the clot (my legs showed nada). I still make sure to get up and walk around frequently on flights now! (As well as the usual anticoagulant libation... Bloody Mary)
- cesarb 10y ago> Guys/gals... If there's any unusual pain in your chest cavity at all, just drop whatever it is you're doing and get it checked out. Also, if you have any unusual shortness of breath. Pulmonary embolisms are no joke, and depending on how much of the lung has been affected, every minute can count.
- Zikes 10y agoI'm currently on anticoagulants for my second run-in with pulmonary embolisms, and they were fairly different experiences both times. The first one started out as what felt like a sore shoulder, which "migrated" down to my chest over a few hours, and then felt like I had a cactus in my lungs. The second instance felt more like pressure than pain, but was similar enough to the tail end of my previous encounter that I was able to recognize it. In the first case, a clot dislodged and traveled through my heart about an hour after I arrived at the hospital. I had debated waiting until morning as I wasn't sure an ER visit was necessary, but if I had waited any longer I likely would not have survived.
- canonic 10y agoJust curious: how did you have shoulder/chest pain before the clot embolized to your lungs? Or did you go with a swollen leg and the rest happened after you arrived? Also, the vast majority of people with PE survive. Depending on the size of the bastard, you can get heart dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension (which can be very severe) down the road. Basically, unless your blood pressure tanked, your chance of dying from it was probably close to zero. Not to say it's not a scary thing or that you shouldn't go to the hospital immediately, but we over-diagnose and over-treat PE's all the time. The latter is because we over-estimate their severity.
- Zikes 10y agoThe clot started out in my legs, likely formed as a result of a transatlantic trip a few weeks prior. Parts of the clot had previously dislodged and traveled to my lungs, leading to multiple embolisms. When the much larger clot dislodged and traveled through my heart it dropped my heart rate to about 20bpm, which is fairly close to zero.
- hexane360 10y agoEspecially guys: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/01news/newstudy.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/01news/newstudy.htm
- ginko 10y ago>Guys/gals... If there's any unusual pain in your chest cavity at all, just drop whatever it is you're doing and get it checked out. It might not even seem that bad at the time... it didn't to me and it didn't to Jason Scott... just do it. Yeah, but where do you draw the line? I guess that will sound silly, but I'm always afraid that people think of me as a hypochondriac if I ran to the doctor for every little pain, most of them probably being some sprained muscle or indigestion.
- xyzzy_plugh 10y agoDoctors and cardiologists are used to false alarms. In fact, according to mine, cardiologists provide more diagnoses of pleurisy than pulmunologists. If it could be a heart attack, or similar life threatening thing, you go to emergency.
- tropo 10y agoI've gotten the "pleurisy" diagnosis, twice even, and I don't believe it. Pleurisy seems to be the catch-all default diagnosis for when they can't find anything wrong and just want you to go away. There isn't actual evidence in favor of pleurisy, just the inability to find something else wrong. In the first case, I'm pretty sure I had a panic attack. At least they served me bacon and eggs, probably hoping for a repeat customer with a real heart attack. In the second case, I'm pretty sure I pinched a nerve in my back. I got shoulder pain associated with movement. I then got pain in the front -- but remember that a nerve pinched in one spot can cause pain to be felt elsewhere. Other back-related issues in the days afterward lead me to my conclusion. I'm now way less inclined to go in to the emergency room. I don't want to spend 12 hours with an IV hurting my arm, no privacy, no sleep, and not being able to work on anything. One of the times the doctor even cleared me to go home, but the nurses didn't bother to remove the IV for hours afterward. Being in the emergency room isn't harmless; it is a place where diseases spread.
- xyzzy_plugh 10y ago> Pleurisy seems to be the catch-all default diagnosis for when they can't find anything wrong and just want you to go away. There isn't actual evidence in favor of pleurisy, just the inability to find something else wrong It's a valid diagnosis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_of_exclusion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_of_exclusion I once waited four hours to see a doctor because of a sharp pain in the left side of my chest when I breathed more than shallow. The doctor told me it was probably a muscle spasm and to take some Advil. I thought "what an asshole" as I left. About 20 minutes later, someone told me a joke, I laughed, and was cured. Turns out the doctor was right. If you had ECG, x-ray, CT scan, echo, and everything looks fine, then the treatment is the same regardless. If you think you had a panic attack or hurt your back, then communicate that to your doctor. It's important. Edit: thought I'd mention: my wife is currently diagnosed with pleurisy. She went to the ER due to shortness of breath and chest pain a month ago. We've done all the tests possible. She's still in quite a bit of pain. Pleurisy usually takes months to resolve. If you were diagnosed and it disappeared within a day or a week, then you were likely misdiagnosed. However, it does not necessarily mean the prescribed treatment was erroneous.
- eatbitseveryday 10y agoChest pain can also be related to muscle spasms in the ribs or other areas, or even heart burn, said my doc for my own symptoms. It's impossible to tell. Thus it would be wise to get checked up just in case.
- komali2 10y agoThe only problem is a checkup on my fantastic insurance costs 25$, 50$ if I go to the urgent care. There was a time in my life when that would mean I'm eating beans and rice for 2 weeks to make up for that. It's a damn shame but going in "just in case" isn't really an option for everybody, especially if you're on the types of insurance lower-income people have (or, none whatsoever).
- eatbitseveryday 10y agoThat's the sad shit the US is in. I am sorry :(
- ptaipale 10y agoOn the other hand, here at the great socialist Nordics, if I go to the public health care and say I want a check-up, they'll laugh me out. I won't even meet a doctor. And I guess they are right. They say our public health care system is excellent.
- tombone12 10y ago"What’s the biggest single factor that puts you at risk for ignoring your health? Being a man. Sociologist Lisa Wade, interviewed in New York Magazine, says that 'some scholars argue that being male is the single strongest predictor of whether a person will take health risks.' Men like risk it turns out. Most of them also hate putting lotion on their skin (too girly) and being afraid of things (not manly). They are also more likely to have outdoor jobs and do household tasks that involve being outside the house. Think lawn mowing and BBQ-ing. They also pay less attention to their skin and so don’t catch early warning signs. Women, generally speaking, don’t mind lotions, do pay attention to changes in our skin, wear sunscreen to avoid premature aging and wrinkles, and often also wear make up year round that contains ingredients that protect skin from the sun." "[...] part of the reason that married men, or men with female partners anyway, live longer. They’re nagged into healthy habits and visit the doctor more often." https://fitisafeministissue.com/2014/08/16/men-and-skin-cancer-risk/ https://fitisafeministissue.com/2014/08/16/men-and-skin-canc...
- ganley 10y agoAbout a decade ago, I got a physical after having not set foot in a doctor's office in about 12 years. The doctor asked what made me come to get a physical after so long, and when I said nothing in particular, he pretended to write on his clipboard "Wife made me come here." He said middle-aged guys with no obvious health problems pretty much only come to the doctor for one (or both) of two reasons: Their wife made them, or they want Viagra.
- thaumaturgy 10y agoIt's not just a macho thing. I pretty severely injured an ankle back in September, at MMA, and for the first time in my life (at 38) it doesn't seem to be healing up very well. I keep finding new little movements that cause it to feel pretty wrong ("popping", "pulling", cold sensation, mild short-term pain, weakness). One of these happened in front of my girlfriend, who ordered me to see a doctor, so I did. I filled out new copies of all the paperwork I filled out a year ago when I was grievously ill, sat around for a bit, got into the doctor's office, his assistant appeared and asked me a couple of questions, then the doctor appeared after a bit and asked me the same questions again. He palpated my ankle for a few seconds, told me to get a brace, and then left the room without another word. Unless you're wealthy enough to afford a dedicated physician, there's just really no point in seeing a doctor for anything less than "I might be about to die". ...which sucks, because I'm a huge proponent of preventative medical care. It's just not available for most people.
- sgustard 10y ago>If there's any unusual pain in your chest cavity at all, just drop whatever it is you're doing and get it checked out. My wife did this last year. Out of an abundance of caution they checked in her into the hospital for 8 hours and ran a battery of tests. A full work day and $30k in medical bills later they didn't find anything. By then she felt fine and went home. I'm not faulting the original advice, but medical intervention can be expensive and frustrating.
- branchless 10y agoI just don't understand how people take the USA seriously. One of the most important things, which I doubt is in dispute, is access to healthcare. The USA tells us their model of capitalism is the best. They apply their system to healthcare. It utterly fails to deliver versus "socialist" solutions. At what point are you guys going to join the dots on this contradiction?
- blackflame7000 10y agoIt is a false assumption to say that because socialized healthcare works in some countries, the entire scheme of capitalism is therefore inferior. There are a number of unique aspects of Human health and insurance that make it very difficult to manage using conventional capitalistic means. (Namely that a human cannot be totalled whereas an object can) However, that is not an indictment on capitalism but is instead a consequence of the fact that Human life has no price. Capitalism has no means of appraising the value of priceless things.
- eon1 10y ago>It is a false assumption to say that because socialized healthcare works in some countries, the entire scheme of capitalism is therefore inferior GP didn't say this, though. They said applying the model of American capitalism to healthcare fails to deliver (a reasonable standard of care, I assume). Your assessment seems to largely agree.
- 10y ago
- QuantumGravy 10y agoI've had chest pain, shortness of breath, and odd pain in my left arm on and off for most of my life. I've complained about it and have had tests at various stages. Nothing. I'm a little scared, because I don't know what to call unusual any more.
- mikeash 10y ago"I’d now had been experiencing a heart attack for about a week." Holy cow. I didn't realize this was possible. This is a good lesson to all of us not to ignore weird, painful phenomena in our body.
- magoghm 10y agoI had a heart attack two years ago. I spent a few weeks with some weird pain in my forearms (both of them) before realizing it was a heart attack. Never felt any pain in my chest.
- jdhn 10y agoHow did you realize it was a heart attack? Did you go to the doctor and have them check it out?
- magoghm 10y agoAt first I looked for information on the Internet about the pain in my arms an saw that, among many other things, it could be a heart problem. A couple of weeks later I started feeling pain on the left side of my jaw (much like a toothache) at the same time I felt the pain in my forearms. Searching again on the Internet I saw that now it was quite probably a heart problem. About 48 hours after that, the pain in my arms wasn't letting me concentrate on anything (it wasn't stronger, but it felt different, it made me feel that something was really wrong with my body), that's when I went to the emergency room at the hospital.
- lowglow 10y agoI saw Jason perform at Internet Archive's anniversary party this year and was really captivated by his stage presence, showmanship, and ability to wrangle and move a show forward. Glad he's doing OK. Good vibes, Jason!
- zaxophone 10y agoI love Jason Scott. Just a real upstanding guy. Hoping for a speedy recovery!
- joebeetee 10y agoA (35ish y/o) family friend died 2 months ago from a heart attack, suspected high cholesterol. He was seemingly healthy, active and not overweight. Anyone else have experience with cholesterol in early 30's?
- openasocket 10y agoSimilar thing happened with my grandfather. He was a great athlete, was the varsity quarterback for a division 1 school, and was on the varsity basketball and baseball teams. He had his first heart attack at 27. He was lucky, though. Managed to live another 50 years with serious heart disease.
- RandomInteger4 10y agoLast time I had my cholesterol checked about 6-7 years ago, it appeared normal, though my HDL was low. I'm 31 now and have been having a weird heart feeling. Not a pain though, but like beating issues. Depending on what I eat and which supplements I take, my heart starts beating weird and my blood pressure goes up. The weird beating seems like my heart is either beating normally or weakly and then there's a "hiccup" every minute or so. When I lay down with my ear against the pillow when this happens, I can hear my blood flow, which seems weird, like my blood containing tubes/pump is wider than the amount of liquid in the chambers; like an echo-y water flow sound. Part of me thinks this is the L-arginine I take (to get "swoll" as they say) combined with the amount of caffeine I take in? Another part of me thinks this is a valve issue from bacterial endocarditis, since I still have my wisdom teeth, though I brush 3+x/day, but I've had 2 splinter hemorrhages without trauma on my fingernails recently, though I like any signs of Osler nodes. I'm 6'1", 184-ish, muscular build, so maybe it's all in my head and the above paragraphs are the result of hypochondria exacerbated by a lack of health insurance or the money to even pay for a routine doctor's visit. I mean, I eat all healthy homemade food; currently cooking black beans + garbonzo beans to make a hummus of sorts. Hoping my anxiety stays tempered long enough for me to get back on my feet while finishing my current project. EDIT: I forgot to mention a frequent shortness of breath, though like in Jason Scott's case, this doesn't seem to prevent me from physical activity, but it bothers me that I can't take deep breathes all the time.
- ben_jones 10y agoHow is it THAT IN 2017 someone is still designing business critical systems with single points of failure?! Seriously though I wish him a full recovery and we all need to remind ourselves that all too often we lose track of what's really, life stoppingly, important.
- StapleHorse 10y agoBackward compatibility :) I wish him a fast and full recovery, too.
- Angostura 10y agoFair's fair: the system flagged up an error condition, and faced with a quarter of the critical system failed degraded performance but kept going until it could be patched.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sp332 10y agoNo budget.
- alistproducer2 10y agoThree years ago Jason was speaking at the vintage computer festival in Atlanta. He gave a talk about emscipten and all the cool things they do with it. I talked with him for a bit. Super cool and knowledgeable guy. I wish him well.
- pshc 10y agoI attended one of Jason's talks on taking control of your own data. Super inspiring. I went up to ask him a question after (and I never do that!) and went away satisfied.
- tnorthcutt 10y ago* Regardless, I personally would have been fine on the accomplishment/legacy scale, if not on the first-person/relationships/plans scale.* Jason, I think it's an understatement to say that you've done incredible things on the accomplishments/legacy/contributing-to-society front. Thanks for your incredible work. I hope the next however-many-years allow you to do all you wish to on the person/relationships/plans front. Godspeed!
- nailer 10y agoQuick readability fix: open DevTools and paste: document.body.style.fontSize = '14pt'; document.body.style.fontFamily = 'Georgia,Cambria,Times,Times New Roman,serif'
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoOr click your browser's “reader” button.
- unexistance 10y agoI'm guessing this should be applicable in bookmarklet too?
- chrisper 10y agoThis is why it is important that you monitor your stress level and eventually just say "stop." Yes you may miss due dates, plans, and even make some people angry, but at least you don't die. I realize this is not always possible, but the "can do (everything)" attitude is not always the right one. Also, having a surgery while being awake? Not sure how to think about that. I mean just imagining that makes me feel weird.
- athenot 10y agoFor a stent, they only use conscious sedation, that's enough. It's not like they open up your chest; they go in through your wrist or your goin.
- chrisper 10y agoIn the article he said he could see his heart on a monitor. Was he maybe referring to the camera they use when they are in your body?
- athenot 10y agoThere is imaging but not from a camera in the body (blood is not exactly transparent). It's a form of x-ray video with a tracer in the blood, so they can observe both the guide and the blood irrigation. The doctor will use live x-ray pictures to carefully guide the catheter up into your heart and arteries. Dye will be injected into your body to highlight blood flow through the arteries. This helps the doctor see any blockages in the blood vessels that lead to your heart. A guide wire is moved into and across the blockage. A balloon catheter is pushed over the guide wire and into the blockage. The balloon on the end is blown up (inflated). This opens the blocked vessel and restores proper blood flow to the heart. Source: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007473.htm https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007473.htm
- textfiles 10y agoVerified - this is what I saw and what was used on me.
- uladzislau 10y agoA tablet of aspirin taken (even chewed if it's too bad) by the first symptoms of the chest pain can save your life.
- yannk 10y agoWhy? Because: (small amount works, chewed is better) http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/aspirin-for-heart-attack-chew-or-swallow http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/aspirin-for-heart...
- eric_h 10y agoAs an aside, I know this simply from experience with taking drugs recreationally. Chewed or otherwise ground up pills hit you faster, and I've found dissolving a ground up pill in hot water is the winner, as far as time to kick in. Pharmaceutical pills have all sorts of additives intended to delay the release of the active chemical, recreational pills have an obviously less rigorously tested version of the same. My mother, a (retired) cardiovascular pharmacologist, taught me that the quality/effectiveness of those additives is often what differentiates brand name drugs from generics (sometimes significantly, admittedly she's been retired for quite a while now, so that information might be out of date, but she actually did some professional research on the subject back in the day). I'll never forget the time when I, at about the age of 11, was sent in to the store to buy a big bottle of Aleve that my mom was going to "smuggle" across the border to Canada for her sister (Naproxen was prescription only at the time in Canada, but available OTC in the US - amusingly, Tylenol w/codeine was the inverse). I bought a generic naproxen sodium instead (thinking I was so clever for saving about half the money I'd been given), and I got chewed out and sent back into the store to replace it. That was what she got for teaching me to actually read the active ingredients of drugs on the label ;)
- gtrubetskoy 10y agoI wonder if a finger blood oxygen meter ($20 on Amazon [1]) is a good tool to diagnose that you might be having a heart attack. It's easy to carry one with you. I am not a doctor, and Googling for it isn't turning up much useful, but it'd seem logical that during a heart attack your blood oxygen would be abnormally low? Perhaps someone in the know can comment? [1] https://www.amazon.com/Santamedical-Generation-SM-165-Fingertip-Saturation/dp/B00R59OTOC/ https://www.amazon.com/Santamedical-Generation-SM-165-Finger...
- tgokh 10y agoWhile a low reading on one of those meters (coupled with symptoms) is likely a good sign that something's wrong, I think it's quite possible for the pulse oximeter to read normal even if you're having a heart attack. There's a saying in medicine that "time is muscle" because the longer you wait to "fix" an obstruction in a coronary artery, the more likely that region of heart tissue is to die. However, tissue death is not (usually) sudden, so even if you're experiencing a significant heart attack, the heart may be pumping sufficiently and the lungs functioning normally to give you a normal oxygen reading (this is not medical advice)
- cesarb 10y agoI wouldn't count on it. During a heart attack, it's the blood flow to the heart muscle that's blocked, but the lungs are still working and oxygenating the blood. So these oxygen meters will show a normal value, since your finger is still receiving the normal amount of oxygen in the blood. For a pulmonary embolism, on the other hand, I'd expect them to be useful. And always keep in mind that they can't detect carbon monoxide poisoning, even though the blood oxygen is low in that case.
- Peradine 10y agoA pulse oximiter measures the oxygen content of arterial blood in the peripheries. A heart attack is caused by a localised blockage of the arteries to the heart, causing reduced oxygen and nutrient delivery to an area of heart muscle. A heart attack alone would not affect peripheral oxygen content unless it was severe enough for a complication such as heart failure to develop, but by that stage it's much too late. Indeed the vast majority of patients with an acute heart attack would have completely normal pulse oximetry findings, the only way to properly diagnose a heart attack is with an electrocardiogram (EKG) and/or blood tests to look for markers of heart muscle damage
- spinchange 10y agoI wonder all the time why we don't have more widely available, "consumer grade" tech like handheld ECGs, etc., to help better detect stuff like this. (There are products like this, but not in U.S. markets to my understanding - at least not without a prescription) If you're unfortunate enough to suffer from something like anxiety attacks and also have heart trouble in your family's medical history it is very difficult (and expensive) to ascertain if you're having a panic attack or an actual cardiac episode.
- jinjin2 10y agoThere are plenty of those available in the US. Check out https://www.alivecor.com/en/ https://www.alivecor.com/en/ for an example.
- spinchange 10y agoAwesome, thank you for the link. I don't know why I've not seen or found that yet!
- Peradine 10y agoThat wouldn't be able to detect a heart attack, its to look for atrial fibrillation (AF), which is a long-term abnormality of heart rhythm associated with increased stroke risk
- tgokh 10y agoThere are products like AliveCor's Kardia on the market. The issue is that it's difficult even for a physician to interpret EKGs, and automated interpretation has proven quite challenging. There's been a lot of progress in detecting certain rhythms like atrial fibrillation (which is what AliveCor's product is able to auto-detect), but other rhythm detection remains difficult. Edit: Data science types wanting to tackle this problem, check out https://physionet.org/challenge/2017/ https://physionet.org/challenge/2017/
- geoyang 10y agoWe are currently beta testing a device that can take your EKG and provide some level of analysis on your phone. If you are interested, we have currently have a private beta and have a few more openings! Of course we have much more planning in our production version. Please feel free to take a look: www.grektek.com. As the other reader mentions, cardiologists are the ultimate judges and even that can be difficult, but we have found helpful information can often be gleaned using our device and App.
- bkmartin 10y agoIf you read this... I'm very happy that you are ok. Thank you for sharing your story and I hope that it helps to save someone else's life. Prayers for healing. Rest easy.
- textfiles 10y agoI read it, and thank you.
- jrwoodruff 10y agoFirst job out of high school was working in a department store. One of the sales guys I worked with was Keith. He smoked, liked to drink and go to Disney World. After returning from a Disney World trip, he told me how he spent most of it on the hotel room floor because he 'threw his back out' and had general chest pain. Nothing excruciating, just annoying enough that he wasn't up for hours of walking. His friends told him to go the doctor, but he blew it off and said he was feeling better. The next day he died in the store, behind the register, before we opened, from a heart attack. He was 36. Last year I went to an urgent care because of chest and back pain. They sent me on to the ER after an EKG showed an abnormal rhythm. Turns out I hit the rowing machine too hard the day before and had a massive case of indigestion from Mexican food at lunch. I felt silly, but really everyone that I dealt with was cool about it. I'm lucky enough to have insurance that covered it all, and I'm happy that it wasn't a heart attack. I don't know if there's a moral to this story, just that... shit, you never know when your day is coming, and I still have a lot to do before it happens.
- komali2 10y agoRegarding insurance, I wonder if you would have gone in if you were Keith, who at 35 is working sales at a department store. He might not even have been insured.
- ars 10y agoWant to disrupt the heart attack market? Make a small home machine that can take an EKG and tell you if everything is fine, or if you should go get checked. Adjust it to give some false positives, but no false negatives. Make it cost around $50, and make sure it's fully reusable (i.e. you can borrow one from a friend for a quick check). If machine learning is not up to the task, then send the EKG to a doctor, I believe they can read them in just seconds (correct me if I'm wrong), so it should not be expensive per-person. To simplify it, have it connect via bluetooth to a phone, so you don't need to worry about WiFi, or a display. For reliability have it store the last 10 readings, even if not connected, so it should have a start button and indicator lights.
- 10y ago
- JeremyMorgan 10y agoReally glad he got in there and got it taken care of before it got really bad. I cringed when I read he was chugging energy drinks to stay awake, given the context of the post.
- kozak 10y agoI sleep with my Fitbit Charge 2 on my wrist, and I found that the Resting Heart Rate value is extremely sensitive to what happens with my body. Drank a little alcohol? See a change on my Resting Heart Rate value for that night. Got too much stress, or maybe spent a day at home without exercise? Yes, I see it on the graph. So my question is whether such an event as the one that is described would be clearly visible to the fitness tracker, maybe even clear enough to alert the wearer.
- brandon272 10y agoOne reason I reduced my alcohol intake substantially is the effect that alcohol had on my resting heart rate. It would go up around 90bpm (or higher if I was dealing with a particularly bad hangover the next day). When I abstain it stays around 60.
- graeme 10y agoInteresting. Did heart rate monitoring change any other behaviours?
- brandon272 10y agoNot that I can think of. Same schedule, diet, activity, sleep patterns, etc.
- komali2 10y agoI'm currently wearing a Zio Patch, which generally is used to track and monitor arrhythmia over a 2 week period. The last time I got the results back there was a section for something along the lines of "cardiac arrest" or something (which had a nice 0 next to it for me). Whether the patch itself has the computational power to both sense and interpret a cardiac event like that, or whether they can only do that after in the lab, I don't know, but I bet it could be modified to start squealing if it detects a heart attack. It's basically a 2 week EKG. The only problem is my insurance pays 1000$ every time I wear it.
- brlewis 10y ago
- Dangeranger 10y agoThis story and the comments make me curious as to how many hard charging project leaders have, or would, work through a heart attack. These words stuck out to me: > I was fucking annoyed – I felt like I was just super tired and needed some energy, and energy drinks and caffeine weren’t doing the trick. He then went on to keynote a conference and live for what seems like at least two more days without seeking medical attention. I'm a mid 30's man, my family history includes heart disease, my father is stubborn as am I. If some day I felt tired, and constricted, my first thought would not be that maybe my heart is failing, but it probably shouldn't be my last thought. We cannot achieve our goals or lead projects if we are dead. This close call woke me up to paying attention to my body, and maybe we all can benefit from it.
- matt4077 10y agoI'm not completely sold on the relationship of stress and heart disease. I spend some time working in politics, and almost all principals worked 18h-days with less than 5h of sleep during the week. Yet life expectancy is higher than average. There are obviously ots of competing factors at work: they have plenty of opportunities to eat healthy, and the discipline that makes them get up at 5am also makes them go for a run at 5:30. Then again two of my bosses had to retire after run-ins with the crystal meth law they themselves passed... Considering the limits of willpower, I'd rank it Smoking/Exercise/Food/Sleep/Stress.
- Dangeranger 10y agoThat is interesting. I wonder if there have been studies on occupation and heart disease. One contributing factor to the incidence of heart attacks in the tech field could be our propensity to sit still for many hours in a row to retain focus.
- dzhiurgis 10y ago> bosses had to retire after run-ins with the crystal meth law they themselves passed... Wait, what?
- 10y ago
- scandox 10y agoIn Ireland when you say "other half" you generally mean wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend or partner. And the No. 1 thing I thought reading this was that Rachel, whoever she is, must be a damn saint.
- elorant 10y agoLast August I go to bed one night and I feel extremely nauseous with a burden on my chest. After vomiting I feel relieved but the burden is still there. So I decide to visit the ER afraid that I might have a heart attack. They give me all the exams and it turns out it was a stomach problem, specifically GERD which turned out to be a bitch because it took 6 months to cure and a very strict diet. While at the hospital the doctor informs me that quite a lot of people with stomach issues misinterpret them for heart attacks and vice versa, which is the really troubling thing because they think it's their stomach and they die since they neglect to see a doctor. So I ask him, how do you tell whether it's a stomach or a heart issue? You don't, he replies. If you feel anything funny related to your chest go to a hospital.
- aerique 10y agothe doctor informs me that quite a lot of people with stomach issues misinterpret them for heart attacks and vice versa Yeah, my dad died (11 years ago) of a heart attack while he was thinking he had stomach issues.
- danjoc 10y agoWhy the title change? "archive.org guy nearly died" was much more direct/informative. I wouldn't take a second glace at this thread under "the other half" assuming it to be marriage advice.
- dang 10y agoBecause it's the author's own title. That's significant, especially for so intimate and personal a piece. It's true that one can trade that off for immediate factual placeability, but on HN we prefer to make the opposite tradeoff. That's one of many reasons why the guidelines say "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
- canuckintime 10y agoI recently saw a suggestion that there should be two titles: one that's the author's own title and a second that's the HN submission title (which could be identical if the HN submitter prefers so). Any opinion on the suggestion?
- dang 10y agoIn my opinion, too complicated, and people would use it to editorialize.
- lkrubner 10y agoOnce again, the policy on headline titles for articles on HackerNews is a bit bizarre. The original title explained that the man almost died. This current title is "The Other Half" and does not explain anything at all. As a practical matter, the policy seems to amount to "We use the title of the original article, unless it is strongly stated, in which case we regard it as clickbait and change it to something dull." That is not a good policy, since we should all hope for and promote strong writing, and the fact that a strong headline could be confused for clickbait is not a good reason to change it. Nor should the default be "use the article's original title" since a better default would be "Highlight what part of this article would be interesting to the Hacker News audience."
- sambe 10y agoThe policy avoids encouraging/endorsing clickbait. Aside from that, headlines are not purely functional. Preserving the author's creative choices seems valuable to me in cases such as this. If I haven't got time to skim the start, I probably shouldn't be on HN right now.
- ddlatham 10y ago+1 Much of language derives its meaning from its context. In the context of this blog a title of "The Other Half" can have a very different meaning than a title of "The Other Half" on Hacker News. Lifting the title verbatim to a new context can change its meaning. Even though the intention may be good to be faithful to the original, purely by being in a new context, the title has been effectively changed. In fact, using different words for the title in the HN context can well be more faithful to the meaning than the using the same words.
- skierscott 10y ago+1. I didn't know where this article was headed for the first half. Partway through I scrolled and saw "On Thursday I had a heart attack" and with that context I could understand the point of the article.
- mseebach 10y agoIt's not 'bizarre', it's unfortunate at best. The piece has a title that isn't very descriptive, and HN policy biases towards transparent link-sharing with no editorialising. No policy is perfect, and it has some casualties, this being one of them. But it has to be weighed against the (IMO) very strong general case benefits of avoiding editorialising.
- mozumder 10y agoMan that's young.. What are the best ways of actually reversing blocked arteries/artherosclerosis? Excercise? Statins?
- anonymous_iam 10y agoI hope Jason recovers in time for DefCon.
- wanderingjew 10y agolol
- hengheng 10y agoWho is this about? I read a well-written and beautiful story, I just have no idea what the context is.
- AceJohnny2 10y agoJason Scott is a computer archiver, in that he works to preserve the history of all things computing. He works for the Internet Archive. He's been featured around here a few times: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=textfiles.com&sort=byPopularity&prefix&dateRange=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=textfiles.com&sort=byPopularit... One of the more memorable posts was the one where they worked frantically to preserve a warehouse full of old manuals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10076974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10076974 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott (and even his cat has a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockington)
- textfiles 10y agoThat's what I said!
- rsmets 10y agoInteresting story. Having a skilled doctor is essential to making it out of those situations unscathed. I was lucky enough to have one of those too. I had an ischemic stroke at the age of 21 while studying abroad in Prague. Rushed to ER and emergency cutting edge surgery, intra-arterial thrombolysis, ensued. This is a 'test' procedure in many parts of the western world. They went through my groin to get to the blot clot in my brain. Woke up that evening in the ER with pretty much no clue what had happened. While the quality of the care was pretty good, with the surgeon being spectacular, the language barrier made things a bit difficult for my two weeks stay there after! Not to mention I was hands down to everyone's junior in that section of the hospital I was moved to after the ER ha. Anyway that's the short version of a story I should probably write down somewhere similar to yours. I'm 24 now and completely healthy =). For all the 'making the world a better place (at a macro level)' that us devs are doing it is a nice reminder that making the world a better place on an individual level is probably still the most impact any of us can have. I don't even know what my doctor's name was! But thank you to all you MDs.
- plaguuuuuu 10y ago>For all the 'making the world a better place (at a macro level)' that us devs are doing Speak for yourself... I'm just automating peoples jobs and subsequently making them unemployed, lol.
- okreallywtf 10y agoSomething that I learned in a recent first-aid class: the symptoms for a heart attack often differ between women and men and that women more often experience burning sensations that can be confused with heartburn or indigestion. This can contribute to more women not seeking medical care because the symptoms can be more nuanced. Better safe than sorry, especially where the heart is concerned.
- fasteo 10y agoMy highest appreciation for Dr. Sonny Palmer. He went above and beyond his duties and I truly believe he is not the exception, but the norm.
- and0 10y agoJason described HN once as "the ass-end of the tech elite" and I still use that quote to this day. Wonderful dude.
- mayrosedgdotcom 10y agoI love that textiles.com exists
- iguanayou 10y agoAll of the symptoms can also be caused by panic disorder. Advice like "IF YOU FEEL ANY DISCOMFORT AT ALL GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM ASAP" is bad advice for people with anxiety disorders. Go to a doctor and get checked out to rule out any heart issues. If it's panic disorder, there are safe drugs that are great at making these symptoms go away.
- ajtaylor 10y agoTwo Christmases ago I had a 100% blockage of the LAD for about 45 minutes - the time it took to get me from my house to the cardiac unit. It's called the Widow Maker for a reason. I was extremely lucky in that the pain was acute enough we called 911 immediately, and both the firehouse and hospital were very close by. I was 41 and in excellent health. No drinking, smoking, drugs, etc. If you're feeling chest pain, please don't mess around. Get checked immediately. Better to feel silly than miss a heart attack and die!
- Finbarr 10y agoI had a spontaneous pneumothorax in my late teens. I was lying in bed and felt a sudden extreme pain in my chest. It was worsened with every breath. I had been drinking and decided to try and sleep it off. Over the next couple of weeks the pain got slightly better but persisted, and I noticed a shortness of breath. Eventually I went to the doctor and was sent straight to hospital where I discovered my left lung was 50% collapsed. I've had several more subsequently and went straight to hospital each time. Thankfully I haven't had a recurrence in years now, but I learned the same lesson the author of this post did - you shouldn't ignore chest pain.
- bleair 10y agoThis part fascinated me : "" I waited 5 anxious minutes, and then was bought into a room with two doctors, one of whom turned out to be Dr. Sonny Palmer. Sonny said Georg thought I needed some help, and I’d be checked within a day. I asked if he’d seen the letter with his name on it. He hadn’t. He went and got it. He came back and said I was going to be operated on in an hour. "" You obviously don't want to be rude when talking with doctors, but you absolutely should be your own advocate. Any time you're dealing with medical choise ask questions, such as "did you notice X" or "did you see the information from other person Y" or "do I have other options here than the plan you outlines?" or "your advice sounds good, but what are complications / side effects in doing this?" In the United States it feels like our attitude is "I go to doctor to get fix for aliment. He prescribes X. Done", and it's never that simple.
- shanusmagnus 10y agoCouldn't agree with this more. I'm from MN, we tend to be pretty polite and understated, assume that doctors (and other authorities) know what they're talking about. Had a friend who progressed to a heart attack in a waiting room because he didn't want to make a fuss. Make a fuss.
- lancewiggs 10y agoThis was in Australia. A senior cardiologist has no motivation other than saving your life, and the symptoms were very clear. Meanwhile a stent operation is relatively trivial - as was explained later in the piece. If he'd asked for a second opinion it could very well have added enough time to make things a lot worse.
- textfiles 10y agoHi, I'm Jason Scott. I had a heart attack and I'm the one who wrote the essay this is linking to. Since the entry was written last week, I went back to the Emergency Room twice. The first was because I was just feeling "a little weird", and they did a round of tests and verified that no, I'm healing fine, that's just how I feel now (I feel less weird every day). The second time was a few days later when I experienced a notable shortness of breath. This time, the cardiologist said it was likely a side effect of one of my drugs (it's known to do this) and we swapped the medication. Now I'm feeling pretty great. I mention this because one of the themes of messages in here are "I don't want to be a bother/I don't know if this warrants a trip to the ER" and those two thoughts should NOT be calculated into your deciding to go. Believe me, they'd MUCH rather work on "guy feels funny" than "guy got shot by other guy in argument over the Playstation" or "Guy drank so much he crapped himself and fell onto a sprinkler and is bleeding profusely". The doctors thought I should not fly for two weeks after the procedure, so we booked an AirBNB for the extra time. My hosts of the two events I spoke at (ACMI and MuseumNext) have essentially paid for this entire extra AirBNB time, which is generous and wonderful and I give a shout-out to them. Additionally, the hospital gave me a letter indicating I couldn't fly, and MuseumNext was able to move my international flight with no real added cost; that's also worth a shout-out. Melbourne is a very nice place to be resting. The main annoying part is I was (mostly) doing the right things, health wise - I had dropped 30 pounds, and was walking like crazy - I'd upped my step goals on the fitbit after I kept smashing them. On a trip to Japan last year for three weeks, I'd walked over 160 miles. I'd done this because I'd seen so many contemporaries drop dead or get really sick in their 40s and 50s - computer life is not a healthy life. The silent and unaddressed problem, on my side, was cholesterol - it was choking my arteries. Drugs will help that, but I've now radically shifted my diet to approach it naturally as well. I'm raring to go on long walks again, so I will definitely continue that. But please bear in mind - I might still die! Nothing is guaranteed! I also see a lot of differing opinions on "see doctors" versus "not see doctors". I can't imagine how having a regular doctor checkup is in any way bad. It might not affect what you DIE OF, but it can't hurt quality of life - when I had bad kidney stones for years, it was certainly my doctor who gave me the drug that fixed that. And other small notes have made my life better as well. Money/cost issues are worth a whole other post. Finally: I see that 25% of the thread is an argument over linking to the title versus describing the essay's contents. I see people are VERY INTENTLY CONCERNED over the two sides in this discussion. As always, HN knows where to aim the energy.
- losteverything 10y agoGood ending now. I wonder after reading, is Wikipedia the new "Who's who in America?" >[His] Wikipedia page.
- taneq 10y agoAs the article started out describing spending an exorbitant amount of money to achieve a bunch of non-essential goals (not counting being with his father, of course) I was expecting "the other half" to refer to a friend or acquaintance without "means" dying in an alley due to lack of funds for medical treatment.
- textfiles 10y agoI'll get it better next time.
- bane 10y agoWow, this is timely, I'm going to stay with my Dad while he goes in for heart surgery on Monday. It's kind of terrifying since he's had no heart problems his entire life until very recently, and unless he was taking his pulse for another issue wouldn't have even known it as he's had no other symptoms or any sort of discomfort. I also used to work with an older guy who had known heart problems and a defibrillator. He worked on a piece of equipment that required him to lean over a big moving dangerous piece of mechanical moving death trap. One day we noticed him leaning in in a weird way, jolting and then getting back into the correct position as if nothing had happened, it happened three times during a week. We talked to him and he just insisted he was tired. But the shift boss took him off the equipment and told him to go see his doctor. They checked his defibrillator and it had gone off something like a half-dozen times in that week. His heart had stopped and he would have died a couple different ways if he hadn't had that thing in his chest. He never even knew anything was happening except feeling lethargic. But he wasn't passing out, he was dying. Jason Scott on the other hand had lots of discomfort, but didn't realize it was his heart at all. The signs of heart trouble are so many and this just reminds me of how unclear they can be. We're a lot better off with a Jason Scott than without, so I'm delighted to hear that they caught the trouble and sorted it out with what sounds to be a miracle of modern science.
- ryan-allen 10y agoMy dad dropped dead from an arrhythmia whilst at work. People nearby performed CPR on him immediately, the ambulance was there within 7 minutes and he was rushed to the Alfred hospital in Melbourne. He was literally dead for 20 minutes, but they managed to revive him and a few weeks later, with a newly installed pacemaker, better than new. He had a very, very, very high probability of dying, or requiring specialised care due to brain damage from brain hypoxia. Those that knew CPR, and did it properly for those excruciating 7 minutes gave him his life back. The moral of the story is, if something feels awry, go and see a doctor (he wasn't taking it seriously), and learn CPR, you might just save someone's life. Oh, and our hospitals and doctors/nurses are top notch. He was in intensive care for a few days and the final bill was a few hundred dollars. Hooray for universal healthcare!
- brandon272 10y agoI'm glad that your dad is OK. Was he experiencing symptoms prior to him falling unconscious at work?
- ryan-allen 10y agoHe was having occasional shortness of breath at night. He wasn't particularly good at reporting symptoms, and our GP was a bit of a dingdong (he should have been rushed to a cardiac unit in retrospect after a recent round of testing, rather than be sent home).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
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