12 ms·

My Sudden Trip to Hell

273 points by EvilTrout 7y ago

bitexploder 7y ago
Stoics would encourage all of us to internalize our own mortality, not for morbidity’s sake, but because it helps live in the moment. The wake up call stories like this should be simulated by everyone. Imagine if this were you? Live with a fraction of that pain in your heart and try to internalize it. How does it impact our choices? Things like fingers and walking become amazing. I am always happy people share their stories, it helps us all remember our mortality and make good choices every day. Also, I wish the author a speedy and continued recovery in their journey.
- jmkd 7y ago
  An elegant reminder, thank you.
- yodsanklai 7y ago
  > I am always happy people share their stories, it helps us all remember our mortality and make good choices every day. Not for me. When confronted to death or intense pain, everything else becomes insignificant and futile. And when things go back to normal, I tend to forget. I suppose that to be fully functional human beings, we need to ignore the harsh reality of life! Is it really possible to "internalize mortality"? I know some people try very hard but are they immune to anxiety and daily worries, are they happier? I haven't met such a person yet.
  - nighthawk648 7y ago
    Do you stop yourself short? Honestly answer. Do you face death all the way? Does the immense pain dissipate, and similar thoughts had with no pain attached? There is gold in the ashes. It is up for the individual to identify. Death is painful and dreadful. Anxiety ridden. Everyone feels it when contemplating death. Like the Mideveal ages everyone should walk around with a golden jeweled skull. We plan for life, never for death. Find in the saddest moments, the hardest moments, the beauty the light gives you. For in death, there are no answers that pertain to life just as life has no answers that pertain to death. You may have control over living this life, but only if you fully see the beauty that death allows in life. Don’t let the anxiety stop you. Darkness, surrounding and surmounting, where no self exists, life boundlessly feeding into the ether and the ether boundlessly feeding into life. A process of forget, death, decay, growth and born. Where the process is outside all of that. The process that persists yet you go away. Think about that darkness there, that scary insurmountable darkness of the persisting process. The persisting process that if it had awareness and wanted to undergo death and growth it could not, yet you are bounded by this process. To always grow and die, either eternally forever or one time in the whole of forever. Both time being a perfect circle and a straight line, you being the one point for all of that eternity. To be reprised or forgotten about forever. Darkness shattering. The paralyzing will, if fostered, cared for, can exhume paralyization and can find a dark addicting taste for the affinity of the unknowable.
  - specialist 7y ago
    Me too. After every near miss, it takes me a while to trick myself into rejoining the world of the living, where paying rent and doing laundry matters. Being a geek has been an asset. I can lose myself in solving problems. Focusing on those thoughts to push aside the other thoughts. This current cycle, I got a puppy. Total pain in the ass. But he still needs to be walked, so I get up and we walk. Rinse, lather, repeat.
    - bitexploder 7y ago
      I think it comes down to the dichotomy of being human. We have this inevitable end that we know is waiting for us, but we are alive, dammit. For many on HN, that life is full of curiosity, so many things to learn, and so much cool stuff to do and see. Especially for younger people who have not experienced much grief or loss, contemplating this end is especially jarring compared to the vibrancy of life. For others it can be very morbid and bring back bad memories and induce anxiety. I think, ultimately, we should embrace our sometimes unpredictable end and become comfortable with the idea of our end to better celebrate our own lives as we live them. I do think Stoicism is not for everyone and some people just naturally develop a very stoic mindset. Ultimately, a lot of it comes down to controlling what we can and simply accepting the rest as our lot in life as humans (the living and the dying).
- throw0101a 7y ago
  People may be interested in Stephen's Colbert on the topic (video): > That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened. * https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1162183695270387712 https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1162183695270387712 Cooper was reading from a GQ interview: * https://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story https://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story Colbert was quoting Tolkien.
- HNcantBtrustd 7y ago
  Part of me thinks this person's job is complete. He started an idea, developed, and has a team to continue it. He did his role. What is next for him? Hopefully he has enough money to live without working. Then he can put his efforts into himself.
  - Bootwizard 7y ago
    Well there's no way he gave up his entire stake in the company. I would assume he continues on as part of the board, or at least an advisory role.
CaliforniaKarl 7y ago
A high temperature like 104, combined with pain, definitely warrants a doctor visit. Which doctor (GP, urgent care, ER/A&E)? Let the time, day, and how you feel be your guide. In the case of one of my relatives, the result was confirmation they had the flu (and too late for Tamiflu or the like to be effective). In my case, it was intestinal perforation that (six months later) led to part of my large intestine being taken out. Big congrats to this guy for getting through it.
trevyn 7y ago
Author acquires necrotizing fasciitis. >I didn't do anything to get it, it just happened - like being struck by lightning. While there is certainly an element of chance involved, the Wikipedia article on necrotizing fasciitis seems to disagree somewhat with this blanket statement.
- irjustin 7y ago
  How is this a blanket statement? He only talks about it in relation to himself. If anything he's saying there was no identifiable root cause. Maybe he got a cut, maybe his immune system was weak in one area, but regardless, him and his doctors didn't/couldn't name it. I don't know how you can question with his statement "it just happened". Are you trying to say his story isn't believable? If I could downvote you I would.
- deepsun 7y ago
  From Wikipedia: > For reasons that are unclear, it occasionally occurs in people with an apparently normal general condition.
- wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
  The Wikipedia article mostly talks about Type I NF. The author of this post had Type II NF, which is not necessarily associated with the same preconditions as Type I NF.
- somebadguy 7y ago
  What a prick you are.
dawhizkid 7y ago
for some reason I assumed that he would write about how this trauma would give him a new perspective on what was really important in life, but at the end it sounded like the experience didn’t really change his perspective on desiring to work all the time on his startup and that he was only stepping down because he couldn’t perform 100% and not because this experience changed anything about how he prioritized work/career?
- brazzy 7y ago
  Read again: he writes that he decided to prioritize his family over work before all of that happened.
  - NateEag 7y ago
    He was clearly lying to himself. If your job is consuming all of your mental space, which is clearly the mindset he describes in the article, there is none left for your family.
- rtb 7y ago
  I agree. I find it heartbreaking that the brightest minds of our generation are working on better ways to get spam into people's mailboxes. He more or less worked himself to death just to "enable our customers to deliver a highly responsive, on-demand experience with their marketing and their content." Surely the world would be better off without further optimising targeted spam.
- Theophraustous 7y ago
  I read this as him sharing this painful experience he had with us, but spinning it to show how devoted to his work he has been. Maybe this is simply because anything I read on LinkedIn gives me that feeling.
_of 7y ago
Terrifying. Could it be that stress caused the Streptococcus pyogenes infection? It would be the most sensible explanation. I imagine being a CEO of a startup is a very stressful role, causing suppression of the immune system and thereby S pyogenes had a chance to proliferate. I have no idea, just speculation.
- Pimpus 7y ago
  It was absolutely caused by unconscious emotions (like stress). The following part just made me laugh out loud: > This mainly involves infection by the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria and more commonly affects young, healthy adults. I didn't do anything to get it, it just happened - like being struck by lightning. The jarring contrast between medicine's ability to perform surgical miracles, like those described in the article, and it's total inability to understand what causes illness, is just comical. I guess there is money in one and not the other.
  - bb123 7y ago
    Do you have anything to back up your claim it was caused by the stress? That seems like a pretty big claim to make.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    It was absolutely caused by unconscious emotions (like stress). I cannot imagine a mechanism whereby stress causes a human body to create a bacterium, effectively from out of nowhere. To synthesise it. Do you have any evidence or even a posited mechanism for this amazing claim? Or is your claim that the illness isn't caused by this bacterium?
    - tjpnz 7y ago
      Not saying I completely buy into it as an explanation for this specific case - but stress can compromise the immune system making it easier for infections to occur.
    - rtb 7y ago
      No-one is claiming that stress synthesizes bacteria, that is a laughable strawman. We are surrounded by bacteria at all times. If stress were to weaken your immune system, then you might be more easily infected by them. This seems completely plausible to me (likely, even). It is not a great leap to describe this link as stress "causing" the infection, even if it might be better to describe it more precisely. Perhaps "stress meant he couldn't fight off the infection as he normally would have"?
madaxe_again 7y ago
I was going to say “I recall when I had sepsis in my teens”, but the truth of it is that I don’t - there’s a six week hole in my memory, that skips straight from lying in a pool of blood and puss on the floor of the kitchen at school, having a mop thrust in my face, to lying in a bed in hospital with tubes snaking out of me. The weird thing is, despite being unconscious for over a month, I woke up feeling like I hadn’t missed anything, and even now I look back at this with slight disbelief - surely you’re thinking of someone else, surely it wasn’t that long. I felt like I’d been out longer after a general for surgery a few years ago. They did run a whole battery of neurological tests on me once I was conscious and eating - they were pretty surprised I had no obvious brain damage - I had maintained a fever over 108 for several days, despite ice baths and the, what, 20g of daily antibiotics? I do wonder if there was some, but rather more subtle than what was being looked for. Re-integrating was weird. For everyone else I’d been as good as dead - they’d seen me carted off in an ambulance, and then a few weeks later term had ended. I on the other hand basically went straight from the end of one school term to the beginning of the next with zero intervening time, and nobody could figure out why I was pissed off. They kept asking me about what had happened - and I answered honestly that they probably knew more than I did. It also sucked that I had no soft landing back into classes, and in the time I’d been unconscious they’d started calculus - I came back and had to differentiate and integrate and had no frigging idea what I was actually doing - I remember sitting in an A-level maths exam a year later and finally having the revelation that it was about curves and rates of change. All this because I had what looked like a zit on my knee. It grew until I couldn’t fit trousers over my leg, school offered me a sticking plaster, and said I wasn’t getting out of sport that easily. Then my leg opened up one night fetching water in the kitchen, and I lost consciousness. I’ll never forget the sight of custard in crude oil swirling over the linoleum - perhaps that’s one side effect of the coma - my last conscious moment is vivid in the extreme. Anyway, that brush with death didn’t change my outlook one bit, but then again I was an invincible 16 year old. The ones since then have definitely left their mark.
- lawlessone 7y ago
  it sounds like it was the schools duty to get you medical attention far sooner and they failed.
pbourke 7y ago
Wow. Mark was the CEO of one of the first startups that I worked at in Toronto. I recall him being very driven and focused. It seems like these qualities helped him overcome this enormous challenge. Wishing you the best, Mark.
dana321 7y ago
When you feel a "flu" coming on, a little bit of zinc sulfate on the tongue does wonders. I've wiped out a flu on more than one occasion. If that isn't enough and your adrenals are gone, or a virus has taken hold take licorice sticks for a couple of weeks until your adrenals recover and the virus has been destroyed, its a really good anti-viral but makes you go to the toilet really hard (remember to intake more potassium as licorice depletes this quicker)
- Hinrik 7y ago
  Is it appropriate to offer unsubstantiated medical advice on HN?
  - empath75 7y ago
    No, and it’s off topic because he didn’t even have the flu.
- bmn__ 7y ago
  You are not a licenced medical practitioner. Telling people that kind of stuff face to face gets you into serious trouble, what makes you think it's okay to do so on-line?
- targonca 7y ago
  "your adrenals are gone" Wtf. Adrenal crisis [1] would be fatal. You're talking nonsense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_crisis
puranjay 7y ago
This was terrifying. How does an infection like this happen though? What can you do to prevent it?
- cr0sh 7y ago
  In many cases, probably nothing. But here's what I'd do: Stay away from places where a lot of different people touch a lot of different things - and if you have to touch those things, wipe them down first with antiseptic wipes or similar. In addition to this - take care not to let (or get, if possible - not always easy, depending on what you do for a living, your hobbies, and just life itself) wounds happen on your skin or mouth. If you do get a wound (cut, scratch, bite, etc) - try to take care of it properly immediately; clean it, apply dressing, etc. In the case of mouth wounds (ie - you bite your tongue or lip hard enough to draw blood), about all you can do is a salt rinse and keep your teeth brushed. Stay away from hospitals and care homes and the like - seriously, one of the best places to get an infection is in a hospital or doctor's office. It seems counterintuitive, but when you have a place where sick people congregate, not everything is going to be "squeaky clean" even when they are regularly cleaned. You might take the extreme step of wearing some kind of mask to reduce the inhalation of bacteria and/or viruses. It won't completely stop it, but it will reduce it a little. Don't hang around sick people? If a coworker shows up to work sick, you might want to go home yourself (explain to your boss why, first - and let them make a decision as to who should go home - likely, they'll send the coworker home first). Unfortunately, so many people have kids, and are "carriers" of stuff that don't affect them much because they do have kids, but if you don't have kids and/or don't hang around kids much - you can pick up things that way easily. Always wash your hands thoroughly after using the bathroom. Elbow out the door if possible (or use a paper towel to open the door). Avoid stress (easier said than done for some people) - ultimately, though, stress does weaken the immune system; this is known. Better is to understand when you are stressed, and what forms stress can take, so you can know when you are under it. Some kinds of stress aren't always easily apparent. Note that this might also apply to "good stress"; I'm not sure. If you are tired and "stressed" from an extreme workout, I am not sure if that helps or hinders your immune system during your recovery... Ultimately, though, you can't control everything, and you have to live your life. There's probably no way to trace back to where this guy picked up his infection. If I had to make a guess, maybe the gym? It could have easily have been during a run or a walk outside as well. Or just some door he pushed open to go into a room or building. The bacteria/viruses that cause these kinds of infections and issues are all around us, and our bodies do a fairly good job of keeping them at bay. But sometimes, bad luck happens.
kuu 7y ago
This kind of stories I find them scary but inspiring at the same time. Quite interesting.
codingdave 7y ago
> and I would be fully present for all the moments that mattered. This quote stood out, because as a promise to your family, it really sucks. We never know what the moments that matter to other people are going to be. Big events are nice. But when you think back on your life, how many important moments were from small events? Just having a nice talk, doing a chore with your dad, telling your mom about your day? How many idle comments from friends ended up having a large impact on you? When dealing with family, you need to be there enough that moments happen, because the scope of their impact on the lives of those around you are not predictable.
- jurasource 7y ago
  Agreed. I hardly ever see my daughter in the morning but make sure that 99% of the time I'm home in time to put her to bed and read a story (she's 8), often it's at bedtime that any worries come out, and I'm so glad I'm able to be there to listen.
- smrtinsert 7y ago
  If you are a founder/CEO type, you are missing the important events, period. I don't care what your Facebook/Insta/LinkedIn says. On your deathbed, all your success wont buy you another second with your children. I'm fine with people sacrificing for their work, but don't try to sell the "I'm doing it all" crap.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  On of the things my wife insisted on was that we always got together as a family for dinner. That definitely had a negative impact on my career in that I couldn't be the 'last guy to leave', but it gave me a solid relationship with my kids as they grew. I am glad to this day that she insisted.
msie 7y ago
I am disturbed that he was almost sent away from the hospital if it weren’t for the persistence of his business partner that it was something that needed further investigation.
- close04 7y ago
  It’s a common thing due to the fact that doctors see too many trivial, common cases and apply Occam’s razor. I had the same experience in a big, prestigious hospital. After a surgery went wrong they insisted I’m ok and getting better despite my less and less vigorous protests. When they finally accepted to investigate this more thoroughly they realized the severity. The story repeated itself through multiple surgeries. Even just hours before the last one they insisted I should be getting better and again only investigated after several pleas. Which was very surprising considering that when going into this last surgery my chances of survival were under 15%, I was basically in septic shock and already mostly unconscious due to the illness and medication. I think a doctor’s diagnosis starts with assuming basic issues and escalating later rather than the other way around. It might make sense statistically... unless you’re among the unlucky few.
  - theseadroid 7y ago
    Would those cases be considered misdiagnosis and incur reliability to the doctors?
bitL 7y ago
A friend of mine had her young brother suddenly developing a narrow line on the skin, growing quickly; 24 hours later both his arms and legs were amputated to keep him alive. I am wondering if having allowed emergency wide-spectrum antibiotics freely for such cases would help? Time seems to be extremely critical in such cases.
- yepthatsreality 7y ago
  What was the cause of the amputation?
- IAmGraydon 7y ago
  That's called Lymphangitis and it's a sign that there is an extreme underlying infection, usually by the same bacteria that this article is about.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  I would consider it a mandatory equipment of the household. Primarily I take them on trips to remote 3rd world countries where you can't rely on quick quality health care, even though most of the time I come back home with them untouched. For me its usually Sumamed, plus whatever specific for destination (malaria pills, stomach/throat, eyes etc.). Just beware of the expiration - they may lose potency and better renew them. I am not sure I would use them at home in case you describe though - I would just run to emergency if possible. Also antibiotics don't work with viruses, fungus or parasites, so its not a panacea.
  - flr03 7y ago
    You really don't want people to have ready to use antibiotics at home. It's already very difficult to contain bacteria resistance to antibiotics. Very soon people would not only die from rare bacteria related decease but any kind of random bacteria infection.
    - bitL 7y ago
      Your points are valid, people are irresponsible with antibiotics, however consider that e.g. 1 hour drive to emergency would cost you an arm, literally, whereas quickly eating 5 pills of wide-spectrum antibiotics would keep the infection at bay and give you time to drive to ER without any adversarial effects on your future life. What would be your choice?
twoquestions 7y ago
Considering the bills for a condition like this, I'd be wondering if it's even worth it to go to the doctor. My life isn't worth the destitution visited on everyone I know necessary to keep me alive, and I can't imagine the moral calculus his family had to go through. I'm glad this guy could get the care needed to survive, and I wish him the very best in his recovery.
- realshowbiz 7y ago
  Yes. You have one life, and it’s worth living with or without money.
  - 10122018 7y ago
    Spoken like somebody who has money. Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering a person can endure due to having no money? I don't think it's your place to say that person's life is worth living.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      Spoken like someone who's never lost someone they love. Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering a person can endure due to having lost someone? I don't think it's your place to say that a person's life isn't worth the money.
      - 10122018 7y ago
        My brother killed himself recently. So yes I do. And nowhere at all did I suggest "a person's life is not worth the money."
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        You're attacking a strawman and being deliberately annoying.
kerkeslager 7y ago
It's a sign of what it's like to be an American that the following stood out to me: The timing of his illness is rather unfortunate, as it caught him in New York, rather than Toronto, which probably cost him a lot of money.
- aantix 7y ago
  Pay for it with taxes, pay for it with premiums and bills. You’re paying for it. No one works for free, the medicine costs money. The money comes from somewhere.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Just seems to cost a lot more in total in the USA than it does elsewhere.
  - didbsivdf 7y ago
    Yes, but consider that the US taxpayer pays per capita more or less what the Canadian taxpayer does on health care, while covering only Medicaid and Medicare. The Canadian, on the other hand, doesn’t have insurance premiums or deductibles. (For the record, I hate the CND health care system. It’s just that, knowing both systems, the US’ is worse :)
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    The doctors’ and hospital administrators’ sports cars aren’t cheap either.
    - aantix 7y ago
      Neither are their 500K student loans nor their delayed work opportunities until 35.
      - didbsivdf 7y ago
        Hating on a Dr. for having a nice car is BS, but what you mention are failures of America. Only America trains their Dr. until they’re 35, while having them do nothing towards their medical degree in their undergrad. Only America saddles then with $500k in debt. Remove both barriers, and presumably you’d have market forces push more ppl to the profession reducing wages.
vagab0nd 7y ago
I'm not up-to-date on these bacteria. It's shocking to me that at this day and age we still don't have good treatments. Would bacteriophage have helped?
twic 7y ago
This reminds me of the time that science fiction writer Peter Watts got necrotising fasciitis, and wrote a series of sardonic blog posts with gruesome photos (seriously - gruesome) about it: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?cat=41 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?cat=41 He was never in a coma, though, so got to be a bit more chipper about the whole thing.
dennisgorelik 7y ago
PathFactory received $15M in funding: https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organizations/funding_total/lookbookhq https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organ... Amount of traffic to pathfactory.com is negligible: https://www.similarweb.com/website/pathfactory.com/ https://www.similarweb.com/website/pathfactory.com/

273 points by EvilTrout 7y ago

Stoics would encourage all of us to internalize our own mortality, not for morbidity’s sake, but because it helps live in the moment. The wake up call stories like this should be simulated by everyone. Imagine if this were you? Live with a fraction of that pain in your heart and try to internalize it. How does it impact our choices? Things like fingers and walking become amazing. I am always happy people share their stories, it helps us all remember our mortality and make good choices every day. Also, I wish the author a speedy and continued recovery in their journey.

jmkd 7y ago
An elegant reminder, thank you.
yodsanklai 7y ago
> I am always happy people share their stories, it helps us all remember our mortality and make good choices every day. Not for me. When confronted to death or intense pain, everything else becomes insignificant and futile. And when things go back to normal, I tend to forget. I suppose that to be fully functional human beings, we need to ignore the harsh reality of life! Is it really possible to "internalize mortality"? I know some people try very hard but are they immune to anxiety and daily worries, are they happier? I haven't met such a person yet.
- nighthawk648 7y ago
  Do you stop yourself short? Honestly answer. Do you face death all the way? Does the immense pain dissipate, and similar thoughts had with no pain attached? There is gold in the ashes. It is up for the individual to identify. Death is painful and dreadful. Anxiety ridden. Everyone feels it when contemplating death. Like the Mideveal ages everyone should walk around with a golden jeweled skull. We plan for life, never for death. Find in the saddest moments, the hardest moments, the beauty the light gives you. For in death, there are no answers that pertain to life just as life has no answers that pertain to death. You may have control over living this life, but only if you fully see the beauty that death allows in life. Don’t let the anxiety stop you. Darkness, surrounding and surmounting, where no self exists, life boundlessly feeding into the ether and the ether boundlessly feeding into life. A process of forget, death, decay, growth and born. Where the process is outside all of that. The process that persists yet you go away. Think about that darkness there, that scary insurmountable darkness of the persisting process. The persisting process that if it had awareness and wanted to undergo death and growth it could not, yet you are bounded by this process. To always grow and die, either eternally forever or one time in the whole of forever. Both time being a perfect circle and a straight line, you being the one point for all of that eternity. To be reprised or forgotten about forever. Darkness shattering. The paralyzing will, if fostered, cared for, can exhume paralyization and can find a dark addicting taste for the affinity of the unknowable.
- specialist 7y ago
  Me too. After every near miss, it takes me a while to trick myself into rejoining the world of the living, where paying rent and doing laundry matters. Being a geek has been an asset. I can lose myself in solving problems. Focusing on those thoughts to push aside the other thoughts. This current cycle, I got a puppy. Total pain in the ass. But he still needs to be walked, so I get up and we walk. Rinse, lather, repeat.
  - bitexploder 7y ago
    I think it comes down to the dichotomy of being human. We have this inevitable end that we know is waiting for us, but we are alive, dammit. For many on HN, that life is full of curiosity, so many things to learn, and so much cool stuff to do and see. Especially for younger people who have not experienced much grief or loss, contemplating this end is especially jarring compared to the vibrancy of life. For others it can be very morbid and bring back bad memories and induce anxiety. I think, ultimately, we should embrace our sometimes unpredictable end and become comfortable with the idea of our end to better celebrate our own lives as we live them. I do think Stoicism is not for everyone and some people just naturally develop a very stoic mindset. Ultimately, a lot of it comes down to controlling what we can and simply accepting the rest as our lot in life as humans (the living and the dying).
throw0101a 7y ago
People may be interested in Stephen's Colbert on the topic (video): > That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened. * https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1162183695270387712 https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1162183695270387712 Cooper was reading from a GQ interview: * https://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story https://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story Colbert was quoting Tolkien.
HNcantBtrustd 7y ago
Part of me thinks this person's job is complete. He started an idea, developed, and has a team to continue it. He did his role. What is next for him? Hopefully he has enough money to live without working. Then he can put his efforts into himself.
- Bootwizard 7y ago
  Well there's no way he gave up his entire stake in the company. I would assume he continues on as part of the board, or at least an advisory role.

CaliforniaKarl 7y ago

A high temperature like 104, combined with pain, definitely warrants a doctor visit. Which doctor (GP, urgent care, ER/A&E)? Let the time, day, and how you feel be your guide. In the case of one of my relatives, the result was confirmation they had the flu (and too late for Tamiflu or the like to be effective). In my case, it was intestinal perforation that (six months later) led to part of my large intestine being taken out. Big congrats to this guy for getting through it.

trevyn 7y ago

Author acquires necrotizing fasciitis. >I didn't do anything to get it, it just happened - like being struck by lightning. While there is certainly an element of chance involved, the Wikipedia article on necrotizing fasciitis seems to disagree somewhat with this blanket statement.

irjustin 7y ago
How is this a blanket statement? He only talks about it in relation to himself. If anything he's saying there was no identifiable root cause. Maybe he got a cut, maybe his immune system was weak in one area, but regardless, him and his doctors didn't/couldn't name it. I don't know how you can question with his statement "it just happened". Are you trying to say his story isn't believable? If I could downvote you I would.
deepsun 7y ago
From Wikipedia: > For reasons that are unclear, it occasionally occurs in people with an apparently normal general condition.
wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
The Wikipedia article mostly talks about Type I NF. The author of this post had Type II NF, which is not necessarily associated with the same preconditions as Type I NF.
somebadguy 7y ago
What a prick you are.

dawhizkid 7y ago

for some reason I assumed that he would write about how this trauma would give him a new perspective on what was really important in life, but at the end it sounded like the experience didn’t really change his perspective on desiring to work all the time on his startup and that he was only stepping down because he couldn’t perform 100% and not because this experience changed anything about how he prioritized work/career?

brazzy 7y ago
Read again: he writes that he decided to prioritize his family over work before all of that happened.
- NateEag 7y ago
  He was clearly lying to himself. If your job is consuming all of your mental space, which is clearly the mindset he describes in the article, there is none left for your family.
rtb 7y ago
I agree. I find it heartbreaking that the brightest minds of our generation are working on better ways to get spam into people's mailboxes. He more or less worked himself to death just to "enable our customers to deliver a highly responsive, on-demand experience with their marketing and their content." Surely the world would be better off without further optimising targeted spam.
Theophraustous 7y ago
I read this as him sharing this painful experience he had with us, but spinning it to show how devoted to his work he has been. Maybe this is simply because anything I read on LinkedIn gives me that feeling.

_of 7y ago

Terrifying. Could it be that stress caused the Streptococcus pyogenes infection? It would be the most sensible explanation. I imagine being a CEO of a startup is a very stressful role, causing suppression of the immune system and thereby S pyogenes had a chance to proliferate. I have no idea, just speculation.

Pimpus 7y ago
It was absolutely caused by unconscious emotions (like stress). The following part just made me laugh out loud: > This mainly involves infection by the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria and more commonly affects young, healthy adults. I didn't do anything to get it, it just happened - like being struck by lightning. The jarring contrast between medicine's ability to perform surgical miracles, like those described in the article, and it's total inability to understand what causes illness, is just comical. I guess there is money in one and not the other.
- bb123 7y ago
  Do you have anything to back up your claim it was caused by the stress? That seems like a pretty big claim to make.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  It was absolutely caused by unconscious emotions (like stress). I cannot imagine a mechanism whereby stress causes a human body to create a bacterium, effectively from out of nowhere. To synthesise it. Do you have any evidence or even a posited mechanism for this amazing claim? Or is your claim that the illness isn't caused by this bacterium?
  - tjpnz 7y ago
    Not saying I completely buy into it as an explanation for this specific case - but stress can compromise the immune system making it easier for infections to occur.
  - rtb 7y ago
    No-one is claiming that stress synthesizes bacteria, that is a laughable strawman. We are surrounded by bacteria at all times. If stress were to weaken your immune system, then you might be more easily infected by them. This seems completely plausible to me (likely, even). It is not a great leap to describe this link as stress "causing" the infection, even if it might be better to describe it more precisely. Perhaps "stress meant he couldn't fight off the infection as he normally would have"?

madaxe_again 7y ago

I was going to say “I recall when I had sepsis in my teens”, but the truth of it is that I don’t - there’s a six week hole in my memory, that skips straight from lying in a pool of blood and puss on the floor of the kitchen at school, having a mop thrust in my face, to lying in a bed in hospital with tubes snaking out of me. The weird thing is, despite being unconscious for over a month, I woke up feeling like I hadn’t missed anything, and even now I look back at this with slight disbelief - surely you’re thinking of someone else, surely it wasn’t that long. I felt like I’d been out longer after a general for surgery a few years ago. They did run a whole battery of neurological tests on me once I was conscious and eating - they were pretty surprised I had no obvious brain damage - I had maintained a fever over 108 for several days, despite ice baths and the, what, 20g of daily antibiotics? I do wonder if there was some, but rather more subtle than what was being looked for. Re-integrating was weird. For everyone else I’d been as good as dead - they’d seen me carted off in an ambulance, and then a few weeks later term had ended. I on the other hand basically went straight from the end of one school term to the beginning of the next with zero intervening time, and nobody could figure out why I was pissed off. They kept asking me about what had happened - and I answered honestly that they probably knew more than I did. It also sucked that I had no soft landing back into classes, and in the time I’d been unconscious they’d started calculus - I came back and had to differentiate and integrate and had no frigging idea what I was actually doing - I remember sitting in an A-level maths exam a year later and finally having the revelation that it was about curves and rates of change. All this because I had what looked like a zit on my knee. It grew until I couldn’t fit trousers over my leg, school offered me a sticking plaster, and said I wasn’t getting out of sport that easily. Then my leg opened up one night fetching water in the kitchen, and I lost consciousness. I’ll never forget the sight of custard in crude oil swirling over the linoleum - perhaps that’s one side effect of the coma - my last conscious moment is vivid in the extreme. Anyway, that brush with death didn’t change my outlook one bit, but then again I was an invincible 16 year old. The ones since then have definitely left their mark.

lawlessone 7y ago
it sounds like it was the schools duty to get you medical attention far sooner and they failed.

pbourke 7y ago

Wow. Mark was the CEO of one of the first startups that I worked at in Toronto. I recall him being very driven and focused. It seems like these qualities helped him overcome this enormous challenge. Wishing you the best, Mark.

dana321 7y ago

When you feel a "flu" coming on, a little bit of zinc sulfate on the tongue does wonders. I've wiped out a flu on more than one occasion. If that isn't enough and your adrenals are gone, or a virus has taken hold take licorice sticks for a couple of weeks until your adrenals recover and the virus has been destroyed, its a really good anti-viral but makes you go to the toilet really hard (remember to intake more potassium as licorice depletes this quicker)

Hinrik 7y ago
Is it appropriate to offer unsubstantiated medical advice on HN?
- empath75 7y ago
  No, and it’s off topic because he didn’t even have the flu.
bmn__ 7y ago
You are not a licenced medical practitioner. Telling people that kind of stuff face to face gets you into serious trouble, what makes you think it's okay to do so on-line?
targonca 7y ago
"your adrenals are gone" Wtf. Adrenal crisis [1] would be fatal. You're talking nonsense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_crisis

puranjay 7y ago

This was terrifying. How does an infection like this happen though? What can you do to prevent it?

cr0sh 7y ago
In many cases, probably nothing. But here's what I'd do: Stay away from places where a lot of different people touch a lot of different things - and if you have to touch those things, wipe them down first with antiseptic wipes or similar. In addition to this - take care not to let (or get, if possible - not always easy, depending on what you do for a living, your hobbies, and just life itself) wounds happen on your skin or mouth. If you do get a wound (cut, scratch, bite, etc) - try to take care of it properly immediately; clean it, apply dressing, etc. In the case of mouth wounds (ie - you bite your tongue or lip hard enough to draw blood), about all you can do is a salt rinse and keep your teeth brushed. Stay away from hospitals and care homes and the like - seriously, one of the best places to get an infection is in a hospital or doctor's office. It seems counterintuitive, but when you have a place where sick people congregate, not everything is going to be "squeaky clean" even when they are regularly cleaned. You might take the extreme step of wearing some kind of mask to reduce the inhalation of bacteria and/or viruses. It won't completely stop it, but it will reduce it a little. Don't hang around sick people? If a coworker shows up to work sick, you might want to go home yourself (explain to your boss why, first - and let them make a decision as to who should go home - likely, they'll send the coworker home first). Unfortunately, so many people have kids, and are "carriers" of stuff that don't affect them much because they do have kids, but if you don't have kids and/or don't hang around kids much - you can pick up things that way easily. Always wash your hands thoroughly after using the bathroom. Elbow out the door if possible (or use a paper towel to open the door). Avoid stress (easier said than done for some people) - ultimately, though, stress does weaken the immune system; this is known. Better is to understand when you are stressed, and what forms stress can take, so you can know when you are under it. Some kinds of stress aren't always easily apparent. Note that this might also apply to "good stress"; I'm not sure. If you are tired and "stressed" from an extreme workout, I am not sure if that helps or hinders your immune system during your recovery... Ultimately, though, you can't control everything, and you have to live your life. There's probably no way to trace back to where this guy picked up his infection. If I had to make a guess, maybe the gym? It could have easily have been during a run or a walk outside as well. Or just some door he pushed open to go into a room or building. The bacteria/viruses that cause these kinds of infections and issues are all around us, and our bodies do a fairly good job of keeping them at bay. But sometimes, bad luck happens.

kuu 7y ago

This kind of stories I find them scary but inspiring at the same time. Quite interesting.

codingdave 7y ago

> and I would be fully present for all the moments that mattered. This quote stood out, because as a promise to your family, it really sucks. We never know what the moments that matter to other people are going to be. Big events are nice. But when you think back on your life, how many important moments were from small events? Just having a nice talk, doing a chore with your dad, telling your mom about your day? How many idle comments from friends ended up having a large impact on you? When dealing with family, you need to be there enough that moments happen, because the scope of their impact on the lives of those around you are not predictable.

jurasource 7y ago
Agreed. I hardly ever see my daughter in the morning but make sure that 99% of the time I'm home in time to put her to bed and read a story (she's 8), often it's at bedtime that any worries come out, and I'm so glad I'm able to be there to listen.
smrtinsert 7y ago
If you are a founder/CEO type, you are missing the important events, period. I don't care what your Facebook/Insta/LinkedIn says. On your deathbed, all your success wont buy you another second with your children. I'm fine with people sacrificing for their work, but don't try to sell the "I'm doing it all" crap.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
On of the things my wife insisted on was that we always got together as a family for dinner. That definitely had a negative impact on my career in that I couldn't be the 'last guy to leave', but it gave me a solid relationship with my kids as they grew. I am glad to this day that she insisted.

msie 7y ago

I am disturbed that he was almost sent away from the hospital if it weren’t for the persistence of his business partner that it was something that needed further investigation.

close04 7y ago
It’s a common thing due to the fact that doctors see too many trivial, common cases and apply Occam’s razor. I had the same experience in a big, prestigious hospital. After a surgery went wrong they insisted I’m ok and getting better despite my less and less vigorous protests. When they finally accepted to investigate this more thoroughly they realized the severity. The story repeated itself through multiple surgeries. Even just hours before the last one they insisted I should be getting better and again only investigated after several pleas. Which was very surprising considering that when going into this last surgery my chances of survival were under 15%, I was basically in septic shock and already mostly unconscious due to the illness and medication. I think a doctor’s diagnosis starts with assuming basic issues and escalating later rather than the other way around. It might make sense statistically... unless you’re among the unlucky few.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  Would those cases be considered misdiagnosis and incur reliability to the doctors?

bitL 7y ago

A friend of mine had her young brother suddenly developing a narrow line on the skin, growing quickly; 24 hours later both his arms and legs were amputated to keep him alive. I am wondering if having allowed emergency wide-spectrum antibiotics freely for such cases would help? Time seems to be extremely critical in such cases.

yepthatsreality 7y ago
What was the cause of the amputation?
IAmGraydon 7y ago
That's called Lymphangitis and it's a sign that there is an extreme underlying infection, usually by the same bacteria that this article is about.
saiya-jin 7y ago
I would consider it a mandatory equipment of the household. Primarily I take them on trips to remote 3rd world countries where you can't rely on quick quality health care, even though most of the time I come back home with them untouched. For me its usually Sumamed, plus whatever specific for destination (malaria pills, stomach/throat, eyes etc.). Just beware of the expiration - they may lose potency and better renew them. I am not sure I would use them at home in case you describe though - I would just run to emergency if possible. Also antibiotics don't work with viruses, fungus or parasites, so its not a panacea.
- flr03 7y ago
  You really don't want people to have ready to use antibiotics at home. It's already very difficult to contain bacteria resistance to antibiotics. Very soon people would not only die from rare bacteria related decease but any kind of random bacteria infection.
  - bitL 7y ago
    Your points are valid, people are irresponsible with antibiotics, however consider that e.g. 1 hour drive to emergency would cost you an arm, literally, whereas quickly eating 5 pills of wide-spectrum antibiotics would keep the infection at bay and give you time to drive to ER without any adversarial effects on your future life. What would be your choice?

twoquestions 7y ago

Considering the bills for a condition like this, I'd be wondering if it's even worth it to go to the doctor. My life isn't worth the destitution visited on everyone I know necessary to keep me alive, and I can't imagine the moral calculus his family had to go through. I'm glad this guy could get the care needed to survive, and I wish him the very best in his recovery.

realshowbiz 7y ago
Yes. You have one life, and it’s worth living with or without money.
- 10122018 7y ago
  Spoken like somebody who has money. Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering a person can endure due to having no money? I don't think it's your place to say that person's life is worth living.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    Spoken like someone who's never lost someone they love. Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering a person can endure due to having lost someone? I don't think it's your place to say that a person's life isn't worth the money.
    - 10122018 7y ago
      My brother killed himself recently. So yes I do. And nowhere at all did I suggest "a person's life is not worth the money."
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      You're attacking a strawman and being deliberately annoying.

kerkeslager 7y ago

It's a sign of what it's like to be an American that the following stood out to me: The timing of his illness is rather unfortunate, as it caught him in New York, rather than Toronto, which probably cost him a lot of money.

aantix 7y ago
Pay for it with taxes, pay for it with premiums and bills. You’re paying for it. No one works for free, the medicine costs money. The money comes from somewhere.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Just seems to cost a lot more in total in the USA than it does elsewhere.
- didbsivdf 7y ago
  Yes, but consider that the US taxpayer pays per capita more or less what the Canadian taxpayer does on health care, while covering only Medicaid and Medicare. The Canadian, on the other hand, doesn’t have insurance premiums or deductibles. (For the record, I hate the CND health care system. It’s just that, knowing both systems, the US’ is worse :)
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  The doctors’ and hospital administrators’ sports cars aren’t cheap either.
  - aantix 7y ago
    Neither are their 500K student loans nor their delayed work opportunities until 35.
    - didbsivdf 7y ago
      Hating on a Dr. for having a nice car is BS, but what you mention are failures of America. Only America trains their Dr. until they’re 35, while having them do nothing towards their medical degree in their undergrad. Only America saddles then with $500k in debt. Remove both barriers, and presumably you’d have market forces push more ppl to the profession reducing wages.

vagab0nd 7y ago

I'm not up-to-date on these bacteria. It's shocking to me that at this day and age we still don't have good treatments. Would bacteriophage have helped?

twic 7y ago

This reminds me of the time that science fiction writer Peter Watts got necrotising fasciitis, and wrote a series of sardonic blog posts with gruesome photos (seriously - gruesome) about it: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?cat=41 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?cat=41 He was never in a coma, though, so got to be a bit more chipper about the whole thing.

dennisgorelik 7y ago

PathFactory received $15M in funding: https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organizations/funding_total/lookbookhq https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organ... Amount of traffic to pathfactory.com is negligible: https://www.similarweb.com/website/pathfactory.com/ https://www.similarweb.com/website/pathfactory.com/