5 ms·
> Advances in medicine made iron lungs obsolete by the 1960s, replaced by ventilators. But Alexander kept living in the cylinder because, he said, he was used t
by scop 3y ago
> Advances in medicine made iron lungs obsolete by the 1960s, replaced by ventilators. But Alexander kept living in the cylinder because, he said, he was used to it.
As somebody with a medical condition since birth, this line really hit home. I'm not speaking for Mr. Alexander, but for myself "used to it" is such a great way of putting the odd experience of living with frequent and cumbersome medical intervention.
On the one hand you have no choice so it is quite easy. You just do it. On the other hand there are often periods here and there through your life where you wrestle with the treatment, complain about it, explore other options, etc. But then a new option does come around every so often and, well, some times you stick with what you know even though there are "better" options.
"used to it" is such a disarmingly accurate way of putting it. It is simultaneously the most difficult and easy thing to do.
Requiem aeternum Paul Alexander.
- dasil003 3y agoThat line also jumped out at me. My understanding is iron lungs were only declared "obsolete" due to cost and mobility reasons, but the actual experience of an iron lung is better because it is less invasive and spreads the pressure more evenly over ones whole torso rather than forcing air into the lungs from the inside. In other words, an iron lung is more like actually breathing (and maybe that's how Mr Alexander was able to learn to breathe despite the prognosis).
- jxramos 3y agoyes I believe one of the videos of him expresses the better comfort the negative pressure has on his body somehow over the positive pressure contraptions he's used.
- hinkley 3y agoI remember a conversation in the 90’s about lung damage from over-inflation by dialing the volume incorrectly. They were talking about tech that was better at avoiding it, and thus the lung damaged caused by it. That conversation stuck with me because I found it horrifying.
- throwway120385 3y agoThe field uses the term "barotrauma" for this. Ventilators use high pressure alarm limit among other things to limit the potential for barotrauma in volume-controlled modes. There's also flow-terminated modes which try to deliver a fixed volume but will terminate the breath if a flow criteria is met. The high pressure alarm limit can also terminate a breath early to try to prevent barotrauma. Mechanical ventilation is very complex and has come a long way since the 1990's. The lung is an exceedingly complex organ, and breathing itself is an exceedingly complex bodily function that we largely take for granted until something goes wrong. Suction devices also have their own horrifying outcomes. Someone told me a story once in the context of maximum vacuum limits of an EMT that was suctioning debris and fluid from an open brain injury and had the vacuum up so high they were vacuuming a person's brain tissue.
- hinkley 3y agoCollege roommate told of a history prof who worked for free. Plastic surgeon botched a lipo and caused muscle damage. Malpractice paid him enough to retire his board-flat ass. He worked for free, or next to nothing, taught the curriculum he wanted to (can’t afford to fire him!). Apparently he brought high end audiophile speakers to school and played classical music on them when not lecturing. The kind that cost half a year’s salary for a teacher.
- _yb2s 3y agoMany professors work for free… it’s called an unpaid adjunct position. You’d be surprised how extremely common it is- students paying a ton and the professors unpaid. Often they are doing it for experience hoping to move into a paid position someday, which are in short supply… or they have multiple jobs and the other one is related in some way and pays, but being a professor has advantages such as students that will work for you for free, and the ability to use the university’s name when writing grants and papers. I knew a humanities professor that taught a heavy course load for years, and he and his wife lived off her paycheck serving food in the university cafeteria. Sometimes getting an unpaid adjunct position can still be extremely competitive and hard to get. Academia is pretty weird.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- candiodari 3y agoThis is something people don't seem to realize. Often you hear people talk about how difficult it is to be born blind. Yet everyone I've ever spoken to that happened to has a simple answer: "not difficult at all. It isn't there". One put it like "I'm also not a tiger and can't jump 8 meters high. It's similar". Very strange how adaptable humans are sometimes.
- ska 3y agoI think born with a condition such as that is always (mentally) easier than losing some capability, especially if you are grown. If you are born without sight, it only exists as an abstract concept for you.
- kypro 3y agoMy best friend as a kid was blind and being a kid his acceptance of this used to bug the hell out of me. I often found myself in conversations trying to convince him he doesn't want to be blind. But I remember asking him when we were teens and he me gave a really good answer about how he's learnt to interact with the world as a blind person so for him to be able to see it would a huge hinderance to him at this point – perhaps as much as me being blind. He'd would need to read and write again. He would need to learn how to use a computer again. He might not like how his girlfriend looks. He would need reorganise his life and activities around the fact he can now see. Would he still be interested in doing the same things if he could see? Might he want to play video games instead of piano in his spare time if he could? I think in a lot of cases it's not even just not knowing what you're missing, but it's also not worth hassle. If you're content as is then why change things?
- throwaway2037 3y agoThis is such a great post. Thank you to share this personal story. > My best friend as a kid was blind How did you meet him? Were you in the same class at school? Or a neighborhood friend?
- ekaryotic 3y agoAs a schizophrenia sufferer I discovered a curious statistic about the illness, there are no patients with schizophrenia who have been blind since birth. That fact is mind blowing to me, it seems to imply that blindness from birth creates a sort of immunity to mental illness.
- tialaramex 3y ago> "used to it" is such a disarmingly accurate way of putting it. This happens for medication too. If you're on a specific drug for your whole life, it may be disruptive to switch to a different medication even if it's notionally better. I take a pill every morning, and will for the rest of my life, would I prefer one I took every other day? Not really, it sounds like I'd just miss days sometimes. If it had fewer side effects? I haven't noticed any effects now, despite the list in the leaflet so "fewer" doesn't sound like a meaningful improvement. In the first few days maybe even weeks of taking it I'd have been open to any improvements, but now I've settled into a habit, so any change needs a serious justification.
- Dalewyn 3y agoYou've inadvertently described why most people hate software updates. No, it's nothing as serious as chronic medical conditions and I certainly do not intend to make light of them, but the underlying motives are the same. Also see: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/
- deadbabe 3y agoIt’s also why people stay in toxic, abusive, exploitative relationships. They just get used to it.
- jamiek88 3y agoYeah the dark side of human adaptability, we can get used to pretty much anything.
- graemep 3y agoI would say (from my own experience) it is a factor, but not the only one. There are also enormous social pressures to stay in abusive relationships: people feel free to tell you you should stay in a relationship, that it can be fixed, etc. Very few people are willing to tell someone they should leave a relationship. So, what you hear is everyone thinks it should be fixed rather than ended. There are many practical difficulties in ending a relationship too: financial, legal. There are also many things in pop culture and media that can encourage it: normalisation of what are actually controlling behaviours, for example. The even "when you are right you are wrong" trope is just one common version of this.
- deadbabe 3y agoIt hasn’t been my experience. I was often told to just leave relationships, even for little things.
- graemep 3y agoMaybe because I was married? Maybe individuals you knew? Cultural differences? Your profile says "chick" so most likely because people say different things to men and women. In general abusive behaviour by women is not taken seriously - in the UK handbook for the prosecution service it is even classified as "violence against women and girls" (although the text says men can also be victims) . Non violent abusive is not taken seriously even though "coercive control" is technically now a crime.
- agumonkey 3y agoAnd the brain might be very sensitive (emotionally and to an extent physiologically) to stay in known condition when you're always walking a thin line.
- mvkel 3y agoThanks for sharing your perspective. It makes a lot of sense!
- maximus-decimus 3y agoTo piggy back on the same quote, I wonder if iron lungs should really be considered obsolete. I used cpap for a while and fitting a mask to your face is just a total pain. The default ones would scab my nose, even with foam ones I had to strap is so hard to avoid leaks that it left red marks on my neck for hours after I woke up. You have the change/clean the masks. You risk problems like the recent Phillips one where a component was disintegrating, going into people's lungs and giving them cancer. The iron lung not having to go over your face would avoid all of those problems so I'm surprised it completely disappeared.