
Ask HN: Dead man coding. - deadmancoding
I am a 26 year old developer that has been working professionally since i was 13.  I have severe Crohn's disease and because i refuse to take a colostomy bag I will probably be dead in 6 - 9 months; and I am ok with that.  All I know is code and technology because its been my whole (short life) but I want to experience more before I die.<p>Disclaimer: No this post is not a joke.  I used a different account from my normal one for obvious reasons.<p>So I guess my question is, if you were in my situation would would you do; one last project? or something else?
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nfnaaron
For fuck's sake, take the bag!

There's no way at all that you can imagine what you might do with your life,
what you might experience, what you might give other people.

I'm not religious at all, but if there's anything in the universe that
qualifies as a miraculous gift, it's your (you, I'm talking to you, dmc) life.

The universe would be a lesser place without you.

See what happens.

------
famfam
This might sound harsh, but since you are okay with dying at 26 of a disease
that rarely kills, my advice would be: have you sought out mental health
counseling? Along with your comments about confidence, no friends, girls, and
with the pain I'm sure you've been through with Crohn's, and if you've been
"working" since 13, I would guess you could very well be depressed. Maybe you
would reconsider the bag if you felt better.

~~~
deadmancoding
Thats not harsh at all. My Chron's is very severe and attacks my organs
(kidney and heart) sometimes. I was committed when i was younger (go ahead and
laugh) but it was just Asperger syndrome. I don't think counseling would help.
I think I am just tired of fighting it. And I am going to take the advice
given here.

~~~
expeditious
Not laughing -- nothing wrong with getting mental help. Foot doctors, heart
doctors, brain doctors; they all help fix you up if there's a problem.

If you haven't talked to a professional (psychologist or psychiatrist) lately,
go (or have a friend or relative on your behalf) seek one out and make an
appointment before you do anything else. If you explain your situation on the
phone, they may be able to squeeze you in for an appointment right away.

------
pook
Take the bag, fall in love, and do something worth staying around for. Have
children, invest in singularity-inducing tech, fight pirates on the open seas.

You'd be surprised how powerful the urge to live, despite daily I-can't-take-
this-anymore frustrations, is when you've got a child's life to look forward
to.

~~~
deadmancoding
I don't think any woman in the world would date a guy with a colostomy bag. So
by taking one I am committing myself to a life of loneliness and pain (crones
hurts like hell).

~~~
pook
Pro tip: every single man who ever married the woman he loves, has no fucking
idea how he managed to attract her. We're all completely baffled when a woman
decides to spend her life with a yog-shothoth like us.

~~~
nfnaaron
Abso-fucking-lutely.

Let woman-kind make that decision, no reason you should pre-empt them.

------
simon_
Take the bag just to keep your options open.

You can always die later if you still want to.

------
kevinelliott
I'd take the colostomy bag, even if it's an extreme struggle. Then I'd spend
the rest of my life doing what really intrigued and fascinated me, like
traveling, and meeting new people.

But, since Im not in your situation, I can only guess what I'd do.

Also, keep your chin up, and don't be afraid to ask for help. Meaning, if you
wanted to change the world, get to it and ask everyone around you to help you
do it. What do you have to lose?

------
nandemo
I'd take the goddamn colostomy bag.

------
fleitz
Since you have elected to die rather than use a colostomy bag, have you
considered infecting yourself with hookworm?

<http://gut.bmj.com/content/55/1/136.extract>
<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/16/3408/66053>
<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971>

~~~
po
Oh yeah! I read this on kuro5hin a long time ago (whatever happened to that
site anyway? So much good stuff there…) and I wondered if it was quackery or
not. I have a friend with crohns and I was going to show it to him but I
couldn't figure out if the article was reputable or not. Has anyone read the
full text of this (or any related) article?

------
blizkreeg
man, please don't think of life as being only code, .com's and retiring by
30s. I understand being passionate about your craft but you're too young to
talk like this. I also understand what harm a chronic condition can do to your
life, to your confidence, but please, don't give up.

Perhaps you need to re-invent yourself. If that means taking the bag, do it.
Think of this as a new life. Shed that old layer, leave that guy behind. Think
beyond code, beyond .com. Life is precious, really. There are women out there
who do go beyond physical appearance.

You need some mental health therapy too. Your confidence needs a boost and
that will surely help. Where is your family in all this? Bond more with some
close friends, relatives, family.

Have you tried any alternative, less-intrusive, natural remedies? I can tell
from personal experience they can be a ray of light, more often than you
think.

~~~
deadmancoding
I dont know my mom and my dad said just do what makes me happy. Reinventing
yourself is easier said that done. My entire identity is based on being a .com
wiz kid.

~~~
blizkreeg
Do what makes you happy. The best advice, indeed. Just don't give up.

------
deadmancoding
I guess the hard part is that I fee like I wasted my life. The plan was to do
.com's and things until 30 then retire. I was well on that road and now this.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I literally don't know anything but code. I
have no friends only work colleagues. Even when I broke this news people
wanted to make sure that all the projects were transferrable.

I cant take the bag. I already have confidence issues and girls kind of think
I am a loser. I cant imagine what they would think then (yes i now that is
shallow and unreasonable logic.)

~~~
zatara
Have you seen George Miller's 'Lorenzo's Oil'?

You are a hacker. Take the bag and hack your away out of it. This your last
project (or not) and you are more motivated than any other doctor to solve it.
It will maybe require you to go very far from your comfort zone, deep into
genetics, tissue engineering or molecular biology. So what?

Your solution may benefit thousands. Maybe this is your mission in life.

------
evanwolf
DMC, if you're looking to borrow goals, try <http://43things.com>. You can see
a wide range of what people have on their bucket lists and new years'
resolutions.

If you'd like to make a difference, try to doing at least one good deed every
day, a mitzvah. Anonymously if possible. It's harder than it sounds, and will
get harder as your physical options become more limited.

Those of us with longer time horizons consider life a balancing act: mixing
work, fun, education, beauty, family, community, religion, health. Since
you're budgeting your time, consider what sort of mix you'd like. It's your
story to write. Maybe 60 art museums in 60 days? Or go someplace where they
don't speak much English (France and Spain come to mind) and learn the
language?

Last, and this may be the hard one, think of ways to leave this world better
than when you came. Does freedom from long term consequences create an
opportunity to do something extraordinary if perhaps unpleasant, taboo, or
illegal? A dictator you can take down because your life is cheap? A government
censorbot that needs a privacy countermeasure you can code because you're not
afraid of jail? A homeless person you can take into your home and mainstream
because the worst that can happen is they steal your property?

Good luck with your life. Live well. Be decisive. Ask yourself always: "What's
the best use of my time right now?"

------
jz
If you work for any employer that actually cares about you, convince them to
keep you on their insurance and take a 6 month sabbatical. If they are not
sympathetic to your situation, quit your job immediately since they have no
regard for your well being. Try the bag and see how it goes. Make friends,
travel, enjoy life. Do the things you always wanted to do. Then reassess in 6
months.

Looking at my own life the things that I feel blessed for, have nothing to do
with work. After falling in love and starting a family, being rich and
changing the world are no longer important. As long as I can provide for my
family and raise my children in a way that would make me proud, nothing else
matters.

Unplug and try the bag. There is much more to life than business success and
$.

------
famfam
Women would rather have a colostomy bag than a douche bag.

~~~
exit
sadly this isn't true in most cases. women are very much attracted to
type-a(sshole) personalities. there are certainly many exceptions though.

~~~
po
Luckily, you only need to find one exception.

------
SingAlong
If you really love what you are doing, you'll just stop reading this comment
here and take that bag.

You said you refuse to take that bag, so now consider this situation... you
have 3 more days to die and you just created something beautiful & awesome and
you want to see it thru. Might be a business or even a time travel machine or
even someone you love. Won't you regret that you didn't take that colostomy
bag to live long enough to see the job thru and have fun?

Still waiting to take that bag? Damn it! you are forcing yourself to be a
loser.

As for women, like everyone else said, i dunno how to blow them off their
feet. And sadly so do people who have done it :) So take that bag and get
lucky!!!

------
isleyaardvark
Suicide is one of the few mistakes you can make in life that you can never
correct.

~~~
exit
it's also one of the few "mistakes" you'll never regret. death is the end of
attachment.

------
kimfuh
No tomorrow means a limitless today. Read everything here, forget about it,
then do absolutely anything you want until you die. Between now and then, you
might find something to live for. Happy journey my friend.

------
shaunxcode
take the bag! There is a good chance that a permanent solution will be more
than viable in your lifetime if not in the near future! Life is far far too
precious to not take the risk.

------
patrickmclaren
We're all given a time limit. No doubt that this isn't the first time you've
come to terms with how long you have left.

You've asked for suggestions on what you should do before you're gone, I think
that's what the people commenting here should be addressing.

My suggestion is make a difference. Change something that wouldn't otherwise
be changed. You've made a reckless decision to cut decades off your life,
perhaps an equally reckless decision will result in something that lasts a lot
longer.

------
uptown
Get away from the keyboard, and go experience the world. Photograph or write
about it all, and share it with as many people as possible along the way.

~~~
drKarl
A 6-9 month trip around the world sounds good

~~~
blizkreeg
With Crohn's that's not an easy possibility. It would, in fact be miserable
with surroundings, food, and weather changes. Please don't do that.

~~~
deadmancoding
I cant. Luckily I can work form home because its hard to leave home.

------
iwani
If you wouldn't consider taking the bag at all, I guess one final web project
will be it. Make it a meaningful one. Make it reflect you as who you were in
this life. Also make it useful for other people when you're gone. We'll all
remember you. We'll all remember that there was this one kickass coder who
just hadn't enough time to do even more amazing projects

Good luck :)

------
namagi
As someone who was diagnosed falsy with Crohn disease before please just make
sure you have not a food intolerance of some kind if you haven't already - for
example (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease>).

------
adam-_-
Go traveling. Use CouchSurfing (or something similar) it would be impossible
not to meet people and the people involved are generally unbelievably
welcoming.

Or join up with some of the group adventure holiday type things.

------
mburney
I would travel to many different places, and take lots of risks that people
don't take when they're afraid of dying. And write an epic (semi) auto-
biographical picaresque novel to document it.

------
za
[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

------
retube
Leave the computer. go see the world. walk, hike, swim, get drunk, chase
girls, write it all down. enjoy yourself.

------
maxdemarzi
Take art classes with local artists and get to know as many people as
possible.

------
cubes
Do something else. Travel. Go to Burning Man. Get away from the keyboard.

~~~
uptown
The guy's got Crohn's disease. I think he's already got first hand experience
with burning man.

------
starkfist
Crohn's disease is not fatal.

~~~
deadmancoding
No it's not but the complications caused by it can be. If you are willing to
live a miserable life with a colostomy bag and tons of med's that make you
feel like crap then no its not fatal. If you choose to live life on your own
terms then it can kill you.

~~~
cianestro
If you're still alive read "The Tibetan Book of The Dead" (I'm not Buddhist
but it will provide you with a deal of clarity if you can see past the
metaphors). I'm not a fan of platitudes but I think taking responsibility for
yourself and living on your own terms starts by ending self-pity; death is
invariably linked to it--you must let it go out of scope before you do.

------
exit
are you at all angry at the world?

