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What Happened to Lee

(wired.com)
1298 points jgrahamc | 2 comments | 15 Apr 20 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | source
1. noir_lord ◴[15 Apr 20 16:22 UTC] No.22879624[source]▶
I have a chronic neurological condition that may eventually affect my ability to walk (though it is stable and the current prognosis is good and the drugs work for the pain) but when I was going through the process of finding out what it was and how bad it was the one question at the front of my mind was "will this affect me mentally?", I could live with the thought I may one day need a wheelchair but I don't think I could live knowing I was going to lose my essential sense of self.

This is a beautifully written article but it hit me pretty hard, I can understand the terror having faced it for a few months, I think if I got a diagnosis of dementia I'd head to Switzerland at the point where I still could.

My heart goes out to Lee and his family.

replies(1): >>22880882 #
2. bitwize ◴[15 Apr 20 17:58 UTC] No.22880882[source]▶
Losing your mental faculties is a profound fear especially for smart people. After falling down stairs in the early stages of his ALS, Stephen Hawking went to his local Mensa center to take an IQ test to make sure he was still "all there" and smart enough to do physics.