3 ms·
> A sudden cardiac death is the disease equivalent of homicide or a car crash death. It meant someone’s father or husband, wife or mother, was suddenly ripped a
by rectang 1y ago
> A sudden cardiac death is the disease equivalent of homicide or a car crash death. It meant someone’s father or husband, wife or mother, was suddenly ripped away without warning.
Now ever increasing numbers of people avoid an abrupt death and live long enough that misery and terrible quality of life extend for decades. Hooray for all of those who emphasize preventing death above all else, whether they are motivated by extracting medical fees during life's long slow twilight, or by more pure considerations.
- mr_toad 1y agoMost people who recover from a heart attack will not suffer a terrible quality of life. Depending on the severity and the treatment many will live quite normal lives for decades, and die from something completely unrelated.
- dogmatism 1y agoThis is true. In fact if you have a heart attack and are treated relatively quickly, with no major injury and decreased function of the heart muscle, and continue to have regular follow up care and address risk factors, your mortality risk normalizes to those without history of a heart attack (but with CAD) and should have no functional limitations
- rectang 1y agoThe point stands — it’s not that the heart attack leaves you infirm, but that surviving it lets you live long enough to die of Alzheimer’s or cancer or depression. Causes of abrupt death are being winnowed down, which the author regards with horror. I hope that they never experience the prolonged agony to which modern medicine has consigned so many, and that they are never forced by suffering to change their mind.