Mortality ..... you ever worry about it

[Mr Cairo]

Because lately thats all thats on my mind , I suppose its a variety of things that have done it but to break it down to its component parts the men and women in my family do not tend to live much past 50

The Problem is two issues one a heart problem that seems to run in the family and two a blood pressure problem that also runs in the family

My dad died at 55 from a stroke My mum Died of a heart attack at 58 my 2 uncles died at 47 and 52 one from a blood clot to the heart the other im not sure about , My oldest living relative is only 58

My Eldest sister died at 57 from a heart condition caused by high blood pressure (heart just gave out) and my youngest sister has had 3 heart operations and has only just hit 50

So last week i had my annual checkup and my blood pressure was much higher than it should be ... Doc said with my history it was time for meds to help control it , I hit 45 this year and had the sudden thought that hell if i go the way my family does i could only have ten more years

thats put me in quite a poor mood ..... I just cant get that thought out of my head

I realise im probably worrying over nothing but Since then its been its all been a bit depressing I have a son who is only 11 and it worries me , I was 10 when my Dad passed and in some ways I think it put the fear of god into me

It will sort itself out and im sure that medicine is better these days and with checkups and stuff i will be fine but its at the back of my mind all the time now ..... I mean i realised a few years ago that there were fewer years in front than there are behind but all of a sudden ...... You Know ?

Anyway does anyone else worry about the time they have .... or is it just me ?

[glunark]

Not just you, my mum is 80, but she has had cancer and a heart attack, my dad had 3 heart attacks, the last one which killed him when he was 62 and I was 16, my only brother died of cancer aged 56, so my thoughts that I might at least live as long as my dad have kind of gone out of the window, and today I went to doctors to show them a mole, which they then stamped something on a peice of paper that said "high risk of cancer" on it.

They will ring me back in a few weeks to get the mole seen to, its probably nothing, but in answer to your question, wondering how much time I have left is never far from my mind.

[DaveC]

A few years ago I had a Brain Aneurysm. Got up Satruday morning had a severe headache (but as I suffered from Migrains nothing unusual). Later that afternoon I was sat watching TV wishing the headache would go and the next thing I knew I was in a Hospital bed and it was Monday

Apparently I had a huge seizure and if it hadn't been for my proximity to a State of the Art Hospital I would have been dead. But the thing is I would have known nothing about it. Since then dying hasn't ever concerned me because I realise how instant it can be and worrying about it can't change anything

If someone gives me the option on how to go then that's the way I would choose much better than a slow death

If you have a history of strokes in the family it may be worth checking out that you don't have a PFO (Patent foramen ovale) it's where your upper right and left ateria in the heart has a hole and lets all kinds of junk jump from left to right which should have been filtered out and gives said junk a direct route to the brain

This is what led to my Aneurysm and I've recently had the hole closed by the surgeon opening a vein and closing the hole by going through it to the hole and patching it. Amazingly you're awake throughout the whole procedure watching the X-ray along with the Surgeon But you walk out of the hospital in a few hours with very sore wrists

But as PFO's are the leading cause of Strokes I stongly suggest you ask the Doctor about a Bubble test (where they insert saline bubbles into blood and watch to see if jumps the aterial wall).

[Happy-Hangman]

I've had several mini-strokes in recent years, and every male member of my paternal bloodline (save for my abnormally long-lived great grandfather) has croaked at, or before, 46. I'm 45. My Mum died last year, aged 86, but was seriously in decline for most of the past few years, so her end was - and I hope this doesn't sound callous, because it isn't meant to be - something of a relief, for herself and her loved ones. More upsetting was the death from cancer, a little over two years ago, of a friend's daughter, just a few days before her sixteenth birthday.

My own mortality doesn't really concern me. I have no dependants and no over-reaching ambition, so I have no real 'legacy issues'.

Philosophically, too, death doesn't worry me. The anniversary of my Mum's death prompted me to post this on Facebook:

Nothing dies. It’s not a palliative sop or sentimental platitude, muttered in the absence of any more practical, logical condolence. It’s a basic fact. One of the most basic precepts of physics is the surety that matter and energy is never wholly destroyed, but, rather, converted, augmented and transformed. Now I can’t comment on the ‘Soul’, if such a thing exists as anything more than an abstraction of Consciousness, but Consciousness itself is the result of very particular conjunctions of physical, bio-chemical and bio-electric forces. Memory, creativity, compassion, hatred, joy and prejudice, all those things which make us the glorious, tragic, fantastic or desperate individuals we are utterly unique, are borne of matter and energy.

The physicist and aeronautical engineer J. W. Dunne, in his book ‘An Experiment With Time’ (1927), was the first to argue a non-linear concept of Time with regard to Consciousness. Past, Present and Future existed simultaneously, only our perception of it ascribed any meaning to the concept of ‘time passing’. Despite his grounding in hard science Dunne was mocked at the time for his interest in metaphysics: his theories might, he reasoned, explain experience of ‘ghosts’, déjà vu, precognition and all manner of apports and other oddities dismissed out of hand by scientific orthodoxy. If there is such a thing as The Soul, though, surely the same reckoning would apply. These things were not supernatural or paranormal, in Dunne's view, they were simply considered as such as a consequence centuries of Western belief in a strictly linear chronology - misperceived because, put simply, we didn’t have any framework within which to describe our experience and misperception of them other than as oddities.

That Dunne’s views were a (practical) extension of aspects of Einstein’s linked theories of Special Relativity (1906) and General Relativity (1916) - and that old Albert’s hypotheses largely accepted by his peers by 1920 – was ignored by critics, who preferred to mock the engineer for wasting his time studying 'ghosties and goblins'. Interestingly, contemporary researches into Quantum Physics tend to add weight to a non-linear temporal universe. Possibly more interestingly, this dovetails with a number of significantly older Eastern traditions of metaphysics, such as Buddhism. For anyone interested, Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn’s ‘No Death, No Fear’ (2003) explores this time-honoured eastern view (in rather more accessible terms), exploring its relation to more established Western concepts of Providentialism or Fate.

And before anyone asks, yes, I DO appreciate the irony of an atheist spending so much time considering metaphysics.

And yet our brains seem to be hotwired to perceive the motion from past, present and future, possibly because empirical experience is the way our brains process the ‘data-base’ of perception. This, too, is a conjunction of physical and bio-electrical activity. If so, memory is part of a transformative energy-process. So is grief. So is love. Even when such processes apparently cease – through death or infirmity – they do not do so wholly. Other transitions, transformations and conjunctions occur.

Whatever: nothing dies.

[staticgirl]

I've been terrified of dying since I was little. I frequently have funny turns when I think about it. It's a leading cause of all the panic attacks I have ever had. My hands are sweating as I type.

Both of my grandmothers were dead before 40. My paternal grandfather was dead before 65. Cancer rages through the family. My mum has heart, thyroid and diabetes problems. A great aunt died of some kind of arthritis(?) as a child. But treatments are improving for all their diseases every day. No British woman needs to die of TB anymore (Grandmother P) and she probably wouldn't die of whatever cancer it was grandmother D had. I'm not going to get the lung disease Grandfather P had from working in a chemical factory and my lifestyle is more healthy than my mother's (never smoked and not so overweight) so the heart disease she has is less likely for me. I am probably (the survival of the NHS and welfare system willing and barring accidents like that which happened to my dad) going to live longer.

I am still scared of not existing anymore. It is hard being an atheist at such times as I have no faith in any alternatives and I wish I did, sometimes! I want to die without knowing or be able to upload my neural net into some kind of processing space, please.

Of course I was always going to be a goth....

[runalong]

I was more worried around 30 for some reason - I still don't like the idea of stopping - not seeing what happens next to everyone I know is just...irritating. Five years on I am more concious that parents are older and one day (hopefully a long while yet) they won't be around which is a bit of a scary adult thought...

I tend to beleive that there's something going on in this universe but no idea what and so a little bit of me wonders what happens next

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by staticgirl

Both of my grandmothers were dead before 40. My paternal grandfather was dead before 65. Cancer rages through the family. My mum has heart, thyroid and diabetes problems. A great aunt died of some kind of arthritis(?) as a child. But treatments are improving for all their diseases every day. No British woman needs to die of TB anymore (Grandmother P) and she probably wouldn't die of whatever cancer it was grandmother D had. I'm not going to get the lung disease Grandfather P had from working in a chemical factory and my lifestyle is more healthy than my mother's (never smoked and not so overweight) so the heart disease she has is less likely for me. I am probably (the survival of the NHS and welfare system willing and barring accidents like that which happened to my dad) going to live longer.

Both my Grandfathers died before there 30th birthday, one in a German Concentration Camp and the other in the 2nd World War ironically less than 20 miles from where my other Grandfather died. It's always problematic when filling out health questionaires and you have to report that both grandfathers died so early and then they ask "cause of death" Neither of which I suspect are remotely genetic

Both Grandmothers lived well into their 90's

I fully intend to make use of my Dutch Passport and take the Euthenasia option should I be diagnosed with some sort of illness that leads to a long lingering death

Personally knowing that there's nothing after I die makes it a lot easier to go as I know that one moment I'll be conscious and then next nothing is pretty comforting and knowing that my optional suicide route isn't going to have me condemned uinto firey pits of eternal damnation

[Happy-Hangman]

All of my grandparents were dead before I was born, and my Dad died when I was seven. I can recall being very worried - aged 9 or 10 - about the possibility of my Mum dying, as she had poor health even then, but these concerns never really lingered. Death hasn't really concerned me since Primary school - other than anger at the cruelty of fate ending life painfully or prematurely - but, again, that's more directed at the mortality of others, not myself.

[Mr Cairo]

wow DaveC suddenly i feel a whole lot worse (suspect i may pay a visit to the Doc very soon)

There really is nothing like the misery of others to make you feel a little better ..... that and an episode of Castle with the sublime Alec Baldwin guest starring in it that is

Its a strange thing you think your kind of unique in your loss and family misery and then you find that out the everyone else has the same issues ... well kind of the same

What can i do to help myself ... lose some weight ... I dont smoke i drink only at the weekend hell i only Twitter once or twice a year

I am doing what i can .... but that fear its there ... and its my son that puts it there ... 11 years old , Handsome , Caring , Kind and loved ...all the things i want him to be , the fear that he will be alone before he is old enough to be alone ...... scary

I have hated the last few days bit seriously guys you are all helping a little

[Sensei Ping]

I've never really feared death, in fact I've tried to hasten it on three seperate occasions [see Suicide and Depression thread passim], its just one of those inevitablities you can't avoid [unless medical technology improves dramatically]

being an utterly self-centred solipsist, I always believe that its not me that will stop existing - it's you lot!

Originally Posted by Mr Cairo

but that fear its there ... and its my son that puts it there ... 11 years old the fear that he will be alone before he is old enough to be alone ...... scary

not having any dependents or loved ones younger than me allows me to retain this slightly callous worldview, everyone I love should pre-decease me, and many people I loathe and despise too...

I will be 40 next month so I'm definitely on the down-slope of life, and starting to feel it - but not worry about it - my knees are 40, but rest of me is still 16, and my delusion is thats its still 1988 and I'm happy

for some bizarre reason I have had a premonition [though hopefully not a self fulfilling prophecy ] that I will die in 2032 - so I have always though "Oh X amount of years to go, then" [XX years this birthday ]

apparently, you shouldn't worry about what your father died of, but what your grandfather died of

my grandfather died when his aeroplane was shot down by a U-boat - what are the chances of that happening to me!