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Are you still alive (or mostly functional) because of modern medicine? Login/Join 
Freethinker
Picture of sigfreund
posted
I originally posted a version of this poll some years ago, but I’m curious how people will respond today.

A few definitions.

Alive - You’re not dead. (And dead means just that: We don’t get over being dead unless you’re a god or are raised from the grave by a god. Having one’s heart stop for a time these days doesn’t automatically make us dead, although it usually requires modern medicine to keep us from dying if that happens.)

Mostly functional - You can live a mostly normal life: Drive a car, live by yourself if you had to, etc. But it’s not about making it through BUDS or Ranger school. For the purpose of this poll if you hadn’t had the benefits of modern medicine, that wouldn’t be true; you’d have to have someone perform many daily routine tasks for you.

“Modern” medicine - Modern goes back a ways, but it includes such things as the ability of surgeons to enter the skull or abdominal cavity to fix things in an effective manner without a high risk of causing a fatal infection. It includes sterile operating procedures, the availability of antibiotics, vital organ transplants. All those things have kept countless people alive and functioning with all their limbs, etc. At one time an open bone fracture frequently led to an infection that required a sometimes-successful amputation. Penetrating wounds of the abdomen were usually fatal, especially if the bowels were injured. Treatments for strokes and heart attacks have likewise saved innumerable patients.

The question also refers to high probability, and not necessarily certainty. I, for example, might have survived spinal meningitis when I was 10 without penicillin, but probably not, so I vote yes.

Question:
Are you still alive or mostly functional only because of modern medicine?

Choices:
Yes.
No.

 




6.4/93.6

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
— Plato
 
Posts: 47365 | Location: 10,150 Feet Above Sea Level in Colorado | Registered: April 04, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Rock Paper
Scissors
Lizard Spock
Picture of James in Denver
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Ruptured colon

Entered hospital at 8pm

Surgery began at midnight

Surgery ended at 6am

Recovered but stopped breathing within 3 hours or recovery

Moved to ICU and intubated

Intubation removed 24 hours later

Treated Sepsis over next 60+ days with high does IV antibotics

Currently undergoing Chemo for Colon cancer

James


----------------------------
"Voldemorte himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!"
Book 6 - Ch 23
 
Posts: 4484 | Location: Colorado | Registered: August 24, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Altitude Minimum
Picture of BOATTRASH1
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Yes for me. Bypass in 2009.
Prostatectomy in 2016.
 
Posts: 1198 | Location: Shalimar, FL | Registered: January 24, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Savor the limelight
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I'm the first no vote. At 51, I've yet to break a bone. Kidney stones at two different times would be the worst thing I've had, but neither time required anything but lots of fluids.

That being said, I strongly suspect I'm reaching the life stage where something will come up that requires modern medical intervention to extend my life.
 
Posts: 10821 | Location: SWFL | Registered: October 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Drug Dealer
Picture of Jim Shugart
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Insulin-dependent diabetic here.



When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. - George Bernard Shaw
 
Posts: 15471 | Location: Virginia | Registered: July 03, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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Anyone who has done a ten day course of antibiotics is alive because of modern medicine.


======
...welcome to the barnyard...some animals are more equal than others
 
Posts: 952 | Location: Utah | Registered: May 29, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
Picture of Sig2340
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Antibiotics and myocardial infarction interventional pharmaceuticals essentially added 25 years to life expectancy in the modern world.





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31377 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Three Generations
of Service
Picture of PHPaul
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Indeed. Misdiagnosed and ineffectively treated tonsillitis resulted in multiple abcesses in throat, and inflamed larynx and something to do with the thyroid that required a surgical drain.

When I went into VERY serious respiratory distress and my kidneys started shutting down an ambulance ride to the ER finally convinced the ENT doc that I needed a little more than penicillin.

Surgery, 9 days in ICU on a respirator and IV antibiotics and 2 more days in the general ward. Several months later I went back in and had my tonsils removed at age 41.




Be careful when following the masses. Sometimes the M is silent.
 
Posts: 15181 | Location: Downeast Maine | Registered: March 10, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Age Quod Agis
Picture of ArtieS
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You could say so. I'm not sure I would have died, but I wouldn't be what I am today, either.

I've had pneumonia three times as well as other infections that could have been problematic, and antibiotics solved those problems.

I've had a hernia repaired, and a shoulder surgically rebuilt. Neither would have been likely to kill me, but my quality of life is better due to modern medicine.

I suffer from mild asthma. An inhaler in my pocket greatly enhances my quality of life, comfort and ability to participate in strenuous physical activity.

So, yes. I benefit greatly from modern medical science.

In addition, my eldest daughter is a Type 1 diabetic. She might not have survived, and certainly would not be as healthy, without medical intervention.



"I vowed to myself to fight against evil more completely and more wholeheartedly than I ever did before. . . . That’s the only way to pay back part of that vast debt, to live up to and try to fulfill that tremendous obligation."

Alfred Hornik, Sunday, December 2, 1945 to his family, on his continuing duty to others for surviving WW II.
 
Posts: 12743 | Location: Central Florida | Registered: November 02, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Optimistic Cynic
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I put myself down as a "no." I have had my share of medical incidents and treatments over my 69 years, but never anything life-threatening that would have needed modern medical intervention. I would be missing a finger on my right hand, a minor inconvenience.

On second thought, I did have my appendix removed when I was six, so maybe I'm wrong about that. Although I'm not at all sure that complications from appendicitis are an automatic death sentence, even when the appendix bursts.

And who can say what might have been without the childhood vaccines for polio, thyphoid, typhus, smallpox, etc. etc? OTOH, humans did somehow manage to increase their numbers for millennia before these technologies were available.

With or without modern medicine, life is a crap shoot.
 
Posts: 6398 | Location: NoVA | Registered: July 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
That's just the
Flomax talking
Picture of GaryBF
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Another "No" here. At 77, no incisions anywhere on my body other than a dental implant.
 
Posts: 11875 | Location: St. Louis, Missouri | Registered: February 04, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
In search of baseball, strippers, and guns
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On Easter Sunday i had emergency open spine surgery

It was the 27th major surgery I’ve had since I turned 18

So, yes, all the kings horses and all the Kings men have put me back together several times

Edit: I will be 46 in September


——————————————————

If the meek will inherit the earth, what will happen to us tigers?
 
Posts: 7796 | Location: Warrenton, VA | Registered: July 09, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Little ray
of sunshine
Picture of jhe888
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No, I am remarkably healthy for a middle aged fat guy.

But my wife would probably be dead of a kidney infection without antibiotics and the lithotripsy machine.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
 
Posts: 53117 | Location: Texas | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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I'm a no as well, no broken bones, kidney stones or various other internal maladies. Did get stitches a few times as a kid but nothing remotely life threatening. 53, hvac mechanic, lots of cranes, solvents, torches, big machines full of refrigerant, roof work, high voltage (480v-600v). Feel pretty fortunate.

Wife on the other hand, ruptured appendix that she fought off for 1 1/2 days thinking it was flu, rushed into emergency surgery, they opened her up pretty good to clean her out. She wouldn't be around if not for modern medicine.



<><
America, Land of the Free - because of the Brave
 
Posts: 1925 | Location: Goodbye, so. Fla. | Registered: January 26, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Mensch
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Left knee replacement.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yidn, shreibt un fershreibt"

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
-Bomber Harris
 
Posts: 16119 | Location: Ivorydale | Registered: January 21, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
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Voted no, but narrowly. If there were a third option I’d probably be there.

After an accident that mangled my left shoulder I still managed to reposition the excavator as needed and drive manual transmission vehicles. I’d have managed to get by, independently if needed, without much use of the left arm. I did for a few weeks before the 3.5 hour arthroscopic surgery involving three titanium anchors, two supraspinatus repairs, reattaching the subscapularis, and a biceps tenodesis. I’d have minimal use of my left arm instead of being fully functional, but I’d get by. Am I way better off due to modern medicine? Heck yes! Would I be unable to be independent without it? Not yet.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: slosig,
 
Posts: 6872 | Location: Lost, but making time. | Registered: February 23, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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Yup fusion of C5-C6 vertebrae after paralysis/lost hand functions. The 5 shoulder surgeries also worked out.





“Forigive your enemy, but remember the bastard’s name.”

-Scottish proverb
 
Posts: 1999 | Location: South Florida | Registered: December 24, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I'm Fine
Picture of SBrooks
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1984 car wreck: broke 6 places in jaw (so massive reconstruction there) and almost needed to amputate right leg at the knee (happened to have a vascular surgeon in the hospital when I showed up and he decided it was possible to save). Infection in leg following reconstruction, but was eventually knocked down.

Also have torn disc in lower spine and live with reasonable function due to modern meds.


------------------
SBrooks
 
Posts: 3791 | Location: East Tennessee | Registered: August 21, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
It's not easy being me
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Yes, most definitely.
I have Type 1 diabetes (so did my father).
From what I have read, they only began to use insulin in the 1920's.
This spring I began using a new Tandem T-Slim insulin pump, along with a Dexcom G6 sensor (the sensor updates my blood sugar every 5 minutes).
This sensor is miles above the previous glucose sensors I have tried in years past.


_______________________________________
Flammable, Inflammable, or Nonflammable.......
Hell, either it Flams or it doesn't!! (George Carlin)
 
Posts: 2769 | Location: Middle TN | Registered: March 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
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Specifically, full platelet crash due to ITP (Immune thrombocytopenic purpura) arising from complications from shingles.

My count was well below 1000 and the folks figured I would stroke or bleed out at any moment.

Was in ICU for a week, then 3 weeks in a private room, and finally let go against Doctor's orders, as my count never got about 12k.

Infusions of IVIG (Intravenous immunoglobulin) and platelets over the course of a month, and massive steroids for nearly a year, but finally the old immune system finally gave up trying to killify me.

For that, I cannot ever give blood, but I will always ask that others do so, and help pay back/forward, my forever debt.

The IVIG infusions, of which I had several, require between 1000 to 15,000 donors for each batch. (Batches? I needed lot of stinking batches!)

I owe the population, of a medium sized metropolitan area, my life.


To those of you who give blood, and as small as the world is, I bet I was on the receiving end of the best Karma ever from one of you.

Thanks.

-sm




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 43810 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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