Last year I was diagnosed with neck/mouth cancer. I did three months of radiation and chemo and it cleared it up. Then two months later I went in for a PET scan and the cancer had spread to my liver. So more ration for that. Then six months later another PET scan and the cancer popped up in a new place on my liver. I'm currently on Pembrolizumab and my oncologist wants to give that a few months and see how the lesion is reacting.

I will find out in a few weeks. I don't have a good feeling about this. I have accepted that my time might be up. I'm probably looking at another round of more aggressive chemo. I am doing my best to just not think about this.

I have always enjoyed woodworking but never really spent the money on getting a proper woodshop together. But when I was on the tail end of the first round of chemo I got a lot of credit cards and bought tools. Because, fuck it.

So through all this I spend a lot of time down in the woodshop to keep myself busy. I feel like garbage but it keeps my mind occupied. Even if I had Hurd money I wouldn't want to be sitting on beach. Free time to think is my enemy. Free time results in serious bouts of depression. Basketball, and woodworking is how I am spending most of my time. Something, something, idle hands.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. Wishing you the best. You can consider having added some valuable food for thought in one person's thinking about this disease and how we choose to spend our limited time on this planet.

Totally agree with you on the dangers of free time. We, as humans, were designed to do things. I hope your condition improves and thanks for your comment!

This type of authentic and honest response is why I come to HN. Thank you for sharing and I hope you get some good news soon.

Thank you for writing this. Regardless of what happens, I hope you find the time to create something with your woodworking and upload it somewhere for rest of us to see what you've been working on.

Thanks for sharing. I had also suffered through this sort of ailment and thankfully got through it. I'm glad you are trying to live life as much as you can.

John, thank you for the inspirational message.

Thanks for sharing. Wishing you the best.

Thank you for sharing. Your immune system is searching for an antigen in a process similar to brute forcing a password (thankfully the file has more than one password). Once a password is found, the immune cells multiply like crazy and tumors melt. It can happen at any time. If your cancer is virus related, you can use vaccines to expose your immune system to potential passwords and improve your results. Though I'm not a doctor my gut feeling is that you should do as many different things as possible, that you normally don't. Go deep sea diving, change your diet, change it back, do sprints if you're normally more of an endurance person, etc.

You might want to check out Maitake mushrooms (but talk to your doctor first): https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs...

and even psilocybin, for the mental aspects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/

Good luck.

Thanks for posting this.

>the bigger question I think is, if he could do it over again, would he have tried to spend more of his short time on earth with his family and relaxing/enjoying life rather than working?

Kai-Fu Lee writes about this in his latest book and he came to the conclusion that he should have prioritised his family much more and that it was pretty much his biggest regret in life. Seems to be very, very common among people who come close to death.

Ironically the act of writing that couldn't have happened unless he continued to prioritize his work over his family.

It was with 100% certainty cancer. He was wearing a wig at one point. No idea what type, but cancer, 100%. Hard to say it was caused by working too hard.

There is no clear cause and effect that chronic stress can cause cancer: https://www.healthline.com/health/can-stress-cause-cancer

Although there is plenty of suspicion that it can (even if indirectly through stress related lifestyle choices like smoking, alcohol, poor food).

I don't think you climb the corporate ladder in the way he did without working long, grueling hours, especially if your career lands you at Oracle of all places.

Maybe. But I blame the work for the death because he only took sick leave a few months back, then suddenly died. That to me says he worked right up until he couldn't anymore. A normal person would be retiring at 65 or so. And while the job may have seemed important, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's all that important when compared to family and personal enjoyment. It's not like he worked for a company that regularly saved lives or made a difference in the human experience for anyone. They just sold a database you couldn't ever get off of. And some other stuff they acquired, and also made sure you couldn't get off of. When you get down to it, his life was spent 100% in the pursuit of money, and little else. If it was about changing the world, he'd have worked at a startup.

> But I blame the work for the death because he only took sick leave a few months back, then suddenly died. That to me says he worked right up until he couldn't anymore.

There are plenty of diseases where you die within a few months of diagnoses. For all we know he got his diagnosis and immediately took his leave.

While I agree with your overall sentiment that it's not worth it, you are making so many assumptions as you know nothing about his personal life. Not everyone has a good family life, and it's a dangerous assumption to blame work for it - the causality can often be the other way round (crappy family relations, spouse unwilling to change, etc so find fulfillment in things outside of home).

We just don't know. And it's none of our business.

It's still premature to make such claims, IMO. He may have took sick leave to find out he has some terminal disease, or to deal with such news. And perhaps he didn't want the world to know, I sure wouldn't. I'll stop here because I'm also speculating, but I think it's unfair to make assumptions.

>>> But I blame the work for the death because he only took sick leave a few months back, then suddenly died. That to me says he worked right up until he couldn't anymore.<<<

I don't believe there's enough information to reach that conclusion. It is quite possible that his sickness was sudden or that it was discovered suddenly at which point he took a leave of absence. There are numerous people who go into the hospital for a routine check of - I feel tired/I have a constant headache, etc only to be told they have a life threatening disease. By the time the father of a friend was diagnosed with lung cancer, it was already stage 4 or so and he stopped working then

>A normal person would be retiring at 65 or so.

Mark was 62; maybe you’re thinking of Larry, 75?