6 ms·

First 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.

First 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 ago
Regarding 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 ago
  Want 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.
  - Mahn 10y ago
    This is already a thing apparently (I never tried it so I cannot vouch for it's accuracy/reliability): https://www.amazon.com/AliveCor-Kardia-Mobile-Android-devices/dp/B01A4W8AUK/ https://www.amazon.com/AliveCor-Kardia-Mobile-Android-device...
    - ars 10y ago
      That only checks for atrial fibrillation, not heart attack.
  - Cass 10y ago
    An EKG machine cannot tell you whether you're fine or not. Not all heart attacks show up on EKGs, which is why the hospital will do a blood test for Troponin, too. A home Trop test would do what you want, but it can take several hours for the test to turn positive, and the hours between the onset of pain and the blood test showing that you're having a heart attack should really be spent attached to a cardiac monitor and in the presence of trained medical personnel, i.e. in hospital.
  - markvdb 10y ago
    <quote> Want to disrupt the heart attack market?</quote> Might be a good idea! Just don't stop there and be more ambitious. Kill the heart attack market as much as you can by making this technology widely available to those that need it at no cost. Find different ways to earn something from it... If there is one thing that has been proven over and over again, it's that the market and health care don't go together in terms of efficiency. I'm not even touching the ethics angle here... When I hear the n-th iteration of the basic income discussion and the "useless" class, health care strikes me as the area to make a real difference in, much more than "basic income". Because even the "useless" class will find ways to sustain itself, given adequate health.
    - komali2 10y ago
      Food as well. When I worked at a grocery store, it boggled my mind to watch food stamps families buy frozen meals. I wasn't on food stamps but I was paycheck to paycheck, what made me aware that it was cheaper and healthier to buy dry beans and raw veggies but them, unaware?
- johnchristopher 10y ago
  The fuck is that country where working sales at 35 is wrong and an indication you might not have insurance despite having a job O_o
neotek 10y ago
>I felt silly, but really everyone that I dealt with was cool about it. Twice in my life I've presented at the ER with severe chest pain that I thought was heart-related, twice it turned out to be nothing serious (musculo-skeletal pain in one case, very bad indigestion in another), and both times I felt like a fucking idiot for even just showing up, let alone after being told I just need to eat more fruit and shit more often. But at no point did anyone in the hospital, from the cleaning staff to the nurses to the doctors to the x-ray technicians to the people at the front desk, ever make me feel unwelcome or that I had wasted their time. When I apologised to a nurse for taking up space in a bed that should have been put to better use for someone who was actually ill, she sat down next to me for a moment and told me that she would rather I was wrong a thousand times and "wasted" a thousand beds in hospital, than right one time and dead at home because I was trying to avoid embarrassment.
fapjacks 10y ago
Seneca talks about this a lot. When I first started going to war in my early twenties, I began confronting my own mortality, and found myself slowly being funneled towards the great Stoics.
- tomcam 10y ago
  I thank you for your service. I think the Stoics are criminally underread. Yet I am having some mild discomfort accepting such profundities from someone named, ah, fapjacks. Just sayin'.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Profundity is where you find it, not where you look for it.
    - tomcam 10y ago
      That's profound
- thecrazyone 10y ago
  Humans have found different ways to deal with their own mortality - denial or religion or saying that's "natural". More people learn, their techniques have also changed, like (almost) no one thinks you/somebody died because it rained the day before and the rain gods spite you for doing XYZ. My point being, drawing from the practices of people multiple centuries ago might not be the best thing
  - mitchty 10y ago
    > My point being, drawing from the practices of people multiple centuries ago might not be the best thing Given how much of cognitive behavioral therapy borrows from stoicism in this case I think this assessment is premature. Stoicism like buddhism are great philosophies on how to deal with the world as it is. And to understand that most of the problems we think of are products of our own mind. Stoicism doesn't do either denial or say its natural. It forces you to reevaluate how you think of the question. For that alone it is worth drawing from.
JonoBB 10y ago
About 2 years ago I started feeling some chest pains at night. I was just over 40 at the time. I phoned the NHS helpline, who had a paramedic at my house within 1 minute (literally) and she hooked me up to a portable ekg. She found nothing wrong but thought it was a good idea to go to hospital. She stayed with me till the ambulance arrived about 45 minutes later. Ambulance staff was brilliant, and everyone at the hospital too. I checked out about 3 hours later after free everything (x rays, blood tests, egg, etc). I know the NHS has some problems, but they were outstanding in all respects that night, and not havin to even think about the financial side was pretty good too.
mtw 10y ago
Keith smoked. Smoking increases your risk of heart attack or myocardial infarction, amongst others. There's been a lot of public awareness campaigns on the dangers of smoking and in 2017, I can't believe he wasn't aware of them. Continuing smoking was a conscious decision.
brynjolf 10y ago
Your country amazes me. Where I live if you call the hotline for medical advice and describe anything that sounds like heartattack they are obliged to tell you to go to the hospital and wants to send an ambulance. I know because I was in one and felt supercity when it was a torn muscle
- gambiting 10y ago
  Yeah. The thought of not going to see a doctor or not calling an ambulance because it might cost me something is literally unfathomable.

komali2 10y ago

Regarding 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 ago
Want 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.
- Mahn 10y ago
  This is already a thing apparently (I never tried it so I cannot vouch for it's accuracy/reliability): https://www.amazon.com/AliveCor-Kardia-Mobile-Android-devices/dp/B01A4W8AUK/ https://www.amazon.com/AliveCor-Kardia-Mobile-Android-device...
  - ars 10y ago
    That only checks for atrial fibrillation, not heart attack.
- Cass 10y ago
  An EKG machine cannot tell you whether you're fine or not. Not all heart attacks show up on EKGs, which is why the hospital will do a blood test for Troponin, too. A home Trop test would do what you want, but it can take several hours for the test to turn positive, and the hours between the onset of pain and the blood test showing that you're having a heart attack should really be spent attached to a cardiac monitor and in the presence of trained medical personnel, i.e. in hospital.
- markvdb 10y ago
  <quote> Want to disrupt the heart attack market?</quote> Might be a good idea! Just don't stop there and be more ambitious. Kill the heart attack market as much as you can by making this technology widely available to those that need it at no cost. Find different ways to earn something from it... If there is one thing that has been proven over and over again, it's that the market and health care don't go together in terms of efficiency. I'm not even touching the ethics angle here... When I hear the n-th iteration of the basic income discussion and the "useless" class, health care strikes me as the area to make a real difference in, much more than "basic income". Because even the "useless" class will find ways to sustain itself, given adequate health.
  - komali2 10y ago
    Food as well. When I worked at a grocery store, it boggled my mind to watch food stamps families buy frozen meals. I wasn't on food stamps but I was paycheck to paycheck, what made me aware that it was cheaper and healthier to buy dry beans and raw veggies but them, unaware?
johnchristopher 10y ago
The fuck is that country where working sales at 35 is wrong and an indication you might not have insurance despite having a job O_o

neotek 10y ago

>I felt silly, but really everyone that I dealt with was cool about it. Twice in my life I've presented at the ER with severe chest pain that I thought was heart-related, twice it turned out to be nothing serious (musculo-skeletal pain in one case, very bad indigestion in another), and both times I felt like a fucking idiot for even just showing up, let alone after being told I just need to eat more fruit and shit more often. But at no point did anyone in the hospital, from the cleaning staff to the nurses to the doctors to the x-ray technicians to the people at the front desk, ever make me feel unwelcome or that I had wasted their time. When I apologised to a nurse for taking up space in a bed that should have been put to better use for someone who was actually ill, she sat down next to me for a moment and told me that she would rather I was wrong a thousand times and "wasted" a thousand beds in hospital, than right one time and dead at home because I was trying to avoid embarrassment.

fapjacks 10y ago

Seneca talks about this a lot. When I first started going to war in my early twenties, I began confronting my own mortality, and found myself slowly being funneled towards the great Stoics.

tomcam 10y ago
I thank you for your service. I think the Stoics are criminally underread. Yet I am having some mild discomfort accepting such profundities from someone named, ah, fapjacks. Just sayin'.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Profundity is where you find it, not where you look for it.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    That's profound
thecrazyone 10y ago
Humans have found different ways to deal with their own mortality - denial or religion or saying that's "natural". More people learn, their techniques have also changed, like (almost) no one thinks you/somebody died because it rained the day before and the rain gods spite you for doing XYZ. My point being, drawing from the practices of people multiple centuries ago might not be the best thing
- mitchty 10y ago
  > My point being, drawing from the practices of people multiple centuries ago might not be the best thing Given how much of cognitive behavioral therapy borrows from stoicism in this case I think this assessment is premature. Stoicism like buddhism are great philosophies on how to deal with the world as it is. And to understand that most of the problems we think of are products of our own mind. Stoicism doesn't do either denial or say its natural. It forces you to reevaluate how you think of the question. For that alone it is worth drawing from.

JonoBB 10y ago

About 2 years ago I started feeling some chest pains at night. I was just over 40 at the time. I phoned the NHS helpline, who had a paramedic at my house within 1 minute (literally) and she hooked me up to a portable ekg. She found nothing wrong but thought it was a good idea to go to hospital. She stayed with me till the ambulance arrived about 45 minutes later. Ambulance staff was brilliant, and everyone at the hospital too. I checked out about 3 hours later after free everything (x rays, blood tests, egg, etc). I know the NHS has some problems, but they were outstanding in all respects that night, and not havin to even think about the financial side was pretty good too.

mtw 10y ago

Keith smoked. Smoking increases your risk of heart attack or myocardial infarction, amongst others. There's been a lot of public awareness campaigns on the dangers of smoking and in 2017, I can't believe he wasn't aware of them. Continuing smoking was a conscious decision.

brynjolf 10y ago

Your country amazes me. Where I live if you call the hotline for medical advice and describe anything that sounds like heartattack they are obliged to tell you to go to the hospital and wants to send an ambulance. I know because I was in one and felt supercity when it was a torn muscle

gambiting 10y ago
Yeah. The thought of not going to see a doctor or not calling an ambulance because it might cost me something is literally unfathomable.