Hey guys, you may know me as pizzarules1000, but I want to formally introduce myself to the community. My name is Kim Suozzi. Here’s a link to my Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/kimsuozzi), a video I made today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3peOK1X9E), and Twitter, which you might enjoy (https://twitter.com/dblchb). I’d be happy to upload some documents confirming my identity/that I have cancer. I’ll be at Duke tomorrow and can have my medical records sent to whomever. I also could upload a pathology report today, or have one of my doctors email you guys a document confirming my condition/treatment. I always have my driver license to show you as well. I just made a payment to CI (http://imgur.com/VVdoU) and asked them if they could help with handling the fund. I don’t blame you for wanting to be careful.
Anyway, now that I have all of that out of the way (sort of), I want to express how deeply I appreciate everyone’s support so far in donating, spreading my story, and otherwise advocating for me. I’m so glad that there’s this robust community of intelligent and compassionate people that have come to my aid. As much as it sucks to die now, I’m goddamned lucky to live in the place and time that I do. You guys are giving me hope that I can achieve my goal. Again, it’s hard to describe how much that means to me; people like you are offering me the most peace that can feasibly be found with knowledge that I’m going to die.
Kim, I am so sorry about what has happened to you. Reading your post was heartbreaking. Death is a stupid and terrible thing.
Like JGWeissman, I planned to donate $500.
Stephan has been a close friend of mine for the past decade, and when he told me he was planning to donate $5,000, I wrangled a commitment from him to do what I do and donate a significant and permanent percentage of his income to efficient charities. There are many lives to save, and even though you have to do some emotional math to realize how you should be feeling, it’s the right thing to do and it’s vital to act.
He wrangled a commitment from me too: when CI manages a fund for you, I will donate $5,000.
Hi Kim, I’m Stephan. Your story hit me harder than probably anyone else here—I’m 29, I intend to sign up for cryonics in the next few years, and glioblastoma multiforme has killed two of my ancestors: my maternal grandmother when I was very young, and my dad in 2010. If I were diagnosed with GBM now, much less at 23, I’d be mewling like a kitten in terror. I am truly sorry to hear of the shitty hand that nature has dealt you.
I will donate $5,000 when CI manages a fund for you (like JGWeissman said).
While some people have been offering you terrible “advice” on Reddit, I swear that this is completely different—I want to point out two important things that you may have missed. (Obviously, you haven’t had a ton of time to look into your options here!)
CI’s fee structure is confusing. I’ve been looking at Alcor, so I’m not very familiar with CI, but you appear to have created a Yearly membership ($75 one-time initiation fee, plus $120 per-year membership). With this membership, you need $35,000 for cryopreservation. There’s another kind of membership, the Lifetime membership. That has a $0 initiation fee and a $1,250 one-time membership fee, after which cryopreservation is $28,000.
The Yearly membership makes sense for people who can’t scrape together $1,250 at the beginning. But for your purposes, the Yearly membership is significantly more expensive.
The good news is that you can reduce the amount you’ll need to raise from $35,195 to $29,250: “Yearly Membership members may switch to Lifetime Membership at any time, by paying the $1,250 Lifetime membership fee. If Yearly Member decides to covert to a Lifetime Membership, all Yearly Membership payments paid in the year prior to the conversion date can be counted toward the one-time Lifetime Membership fee of $1,250.00. This means that the $75.00 Initiation Fee can only be applied to the Lifetime Membership fee during the first year of Yearly Membership.”
Unlike Alcor, CI’s basic membership doesn’t include “Standby”—CI presents it as a significantly more expensive feature that you can add for $88,000 (in fact, you must set it up with a separate organization, Suspended Animation). CI has a pros/cons page about this. Alcor’s $80,000 neurocryopreservation includes Standby. If your fundraising is wildly successful, you should definitely consider it.
I intend to sign up for cryonics in the next few years
Why not sign up now? To get started, just fill out this form and Rudi Hoffman will find insurance policies for you and walk you through the rest of the process. (You have clearly put some research into this, so if you have some other path, take it, but “the next few years” is too vague of a time frame for you to ever decide “now is the time to do it”.)
I’m not completely irrational. The primary roadblock is not my paperwork allergy (which is admittedly intense) but the fact that I like to completely think through major decisions. My financial situation is unlike most people’s, and insurance may not be optimal for me. While researching Kim’s options, I looked at Alcor’s funding methods closely for the first time, and a trust may be best for me. I try to collect other data, like this found today. Then it all goes into my brain, I heavily weight whatever Luke thinks, and bam—decision. Then I procrastinate on paperwork.
I contributed twenty dollars. I wish I could help more, but… college student. You seem like a cool person, and I wish you long life and prosperity, current inconveniences aside. With prompt cryopreservation, your odds (in my estimation) are actually pretty good. The big risk is that either a major, civilization-disrupting disaster will occur in the next century, or CI will suffer economic failure, and be unable to afford containment costs. With chemo-preservation as a backup option in the latter case, you may take some comfort in knowing that if you die the real death, as Zelazny would say, odds are pretty good you’re taking western civilization down with you.
Best of luck to you on your fundraising, and subsequent vacation from the mortal coil.
I plan to donate when CI manages a fund. I appreciate your understanding that I want to be careful. (And set up the right incentives for future cases. I’m pretty confident you are legit.)
(ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation through them.)
You had mentioned on your Reddit post that your boyfriend is supportive of your decision to pursue cryonics. Is he interested in cryonics for himself? Cryonics is much more affordable when you set things up when you are young and healthy, he may be able to do it on his own. I have been figuring out ways to get interested people to actually do this (and it turns it to be really easy), and I’m sorry I didn’t figure this out and meet you earlier, when you were thinking about cryonics but not yet diagnosed. You actually inspired me to post about that now instead of waiting to see how many people I got to start made it through the whole process.
I donated $25. (I’m broke, okay?) I hope and pray[1] that you’ll make it to the future, and look forward to meeting you there. You are smart for finding a path to life, brave for doing what you must in the face of death, and sensible for worrying about that instead of how smart and brave you sound. You have earned peace and joy and praise; may you enjoy them now, and enjoy them later.
Not going to donate myself (makes no sense unless I set up my own cryo plans first), but I’ll be quite happy for you if you reach your goal of $35k or so charged by CI. Good luck!
If you’re planning on it, you should get on it now. Cryonics is much more affordable if you don’t have a terminal illness and can cover it with a policy.
Yes indeed. As I said in the original reply, I have no cryo plans set up. Then again, the odds of your brain being in a good enough shape for cryo long enough after a bad car crash are not good. Consider that for the cryo measures to be triggered on time, you have to end up in a hospital alive, with an intact brain, but fatally injured otherwise, and live long enough for the cryo team to negotiate with the hospital to get a hold of your body right after you die, but not long enough to be able to make cryo arrangements from scratch, should you wish to.
If you die in a car crash, your brain will most likely suffer massive damage (from traumatic injury or ischemia or both) long before any attempt at cryopreservation could be made. I suppose this also applies to all the most common causes of death before 45 − 50.
I’m not a doctor so I may be missing something important, but I can’t think of any type of predictably fatal traumatic injury that leaves you alive with an essentially intact brain for at least 1 − 2 days.
Notably: “In the western world, the most common cause of death after trauma is severe brain injury.”, “In modern day civilian trauma centres, thoracic injury directly accounts for 20-25% of deaths due to trauma; thoracic injury or its complications are a contributing factor in a further 25% of trauma deaths”
Death in the vast majority of cases entails general ischemia due to the cessation of circulation, trauma or no. How sensitive your brain is to a lack of oxygen is easily tested by having someone compress both your carotid arteries for 60 seconds. (The exception to the death-ischemia link would be brain death with circulation upheld for a variety of reasons, most commonly viability for organ transplantation.)
The killer consideration with fatal traumatic injuries is their unpredictability. Such an event will most probably drastically prolong the time to cryopreservation, at least by hours. Where are you? Which hospital are you announced dead in? Where’s the nearest cryopreservation team? When in the process are they notified? How long is their travel time? How much damage is done while you’re not yet announced dead?
The delay, hours of ischemia (while being dead), is what will degrade your brain tissue to a microscopically garbled mess, regardless of the specific type of trauma.
It bears repeating: Even the penumbra of neurons = the peripheral neurons that after a stroke still get some measure of oxygen are given up upon after 4-5 hours (no benefit from further treatment). The central neurons most affected by an ischemic event are considered lost within an hour.
I just donated, and seems like quite a few people are doing same. Please post something here to see how you’re doing on your target and CI formalities. (more can be done at a later point)
I agree with this, this is why I’ve decided to wait with my donation.
Hey guys, you may know me as pizzarules1000, but I want to formally introduce myself to the community. My name is Kim Suozzi. Here’s a link to my Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/kimsuozzi), a video I made today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3peOK1X9E), and Twitter, which you might enjoy (https://twitter.com/dblchb). I’d be happy to upload some documents confirming my identity/that I have cancer. I’ll be at Duke tomorrow and can have my medical records sent to whomever. I also could upload a pathology report today, or have one of my doctors email you guys a document confirming my condition/treatment. I always have my driver license to show you as well. I just made a payment to CI (http://imgur.com/VVdoU) and asked them if they could help with handling the fund. I don’t blame you for wanting to be careful.
Anyway, now that I have all of that out of the way (sort of), I want to express how deeply I appreciate everyone’s support so far in donating, spreading my story, and otherwise advocating for me. I’m so glad that there’s this robust community of intelligent and compassionate people that have come to my aid. As much as it sucks to die now, I’m goddamned lucky to live in the place and time that I do. You guys are giving me hope that I can achieve my goal. Again, it’s hard to describe how much that means to me; people like you are offering me the most peace that can feasibly be found with knowledge that I’m going to die.
Kim, I am so sorry about what has happened to you. Reading your post was heartbreaking. Death is a stupid and terrible thing.
Like JGWeissman, I planned to donate $500.
Stephan has been a close friend of mine for the past decade, and when he told me he was planning to donate $5,000, I wrangled a commitment from him to do what I do and donate a significant and permanent percentage of his income to efficient charities. There are many lives to save, and even though you have to do some emotional math to realize how you should be feeling, it’s the right thing to do and it’s vital to act.
He wrangled a commitment from me too: when CI manages a fund for you, I will donate $5,000.
Hi Kim, I’m Stephan. Your story hit me harder than probably anyone else here—I’m 29, I intend to sign up for cryonics in the next few years, and glioblastoma multiforme has killed two of my ancestors: my maternal grandmother when I was very young, and my dad in 2010. If I were diagnosed with GBM now, much less at 23, I’d be mewling like a kitten in terror. I am truly sorry to hear of the shitty hand that nature has dealt you.
I will donate $5,000 when CI manages a fund for you (like JGWeissman said).
While some people have been offering you terrible “advice” on Reddit, I swear that this is completely different—I want to point out two important things that you may have missed. (Obviously, you haven’t had a ton of time to look into your options here!)
CI’s fee structure is confusing. I’ve been looking at Alcor, so I’m not very familiar with CI, but you appear to have created a Yearly membership ($75 one-time initiation fee, plus $120 per-year membership). With this membership, you need $35,000 for cryopreservation. There’s another kind of membership, the Lifetime membership. That has a $0 initiation fee and a $1,250 one-time membership fee, after which cryopreservation is $28,000.
The Yearly membership makes sense for people who can’t scrape together $1,250 at the beginning. But for your purposes, the Yearly membership is significantly more expensive.
The good news is that you can reduce the amount you’ll need to raise from $35,195 to $29,250: “Yearly Membership members may switch to Lifetime Membership at any time, by paying the $1,250 Lifetime membership fee. If Yearly Member decides to covert to a Lifetime Membership, all Yearly Membership payments paid in the year prior to the conversion date can be counted toward the one-time Lifetime Membership fee of $1,250.00. This means that the $75.00 Initiation Fee can only be applied to the Lifetime Membership fee during the first year of Yearly Membership.”
Unlike Alcor, CI’s basic membership doesn’t include “Standby”—CI presents it as a significantly more expensive feature that you can add for $88,000 (in fact, you must set it up with a separate organization, Suspended Animation). CI has a pros/cons page about this. Alcor’s $80,000 neurocryopreservation includes Standby. If your fundraising is wildly successful, you should definitely consider it.
Why not sign up now? To get started, just fill out this form and Rudi Hoffman will find insurance policies for you and walk you through the rest of the process. (You have clearly put some research into this, so if you have some other path, take it, but “the next few years” is too vague of a time frame for you to ever decide “now is the time to do it”.)
I’m not completely irrational. The primary roadblock is not my paperwork allergy (which is admittedly intense) but the fact that I like to completely think through major decisions. My financial situation is unlike most people’s, and insurance may not be optimal for me. While researching Kim’s options, I looked at Alcor’s funding methods closely for the first time, and a trust may be best for me. I try to collect other data, like this found today. Then it all goes into my brain, I heavily weight whatever Luke thinks, and bam—decision. Then I procrastinate on paperwork.
LOL
I think I will have to trust Luke to make sure you get going on the paper work after you make your decision.
I’ll be in Seattle in two weeks, and I’ll take care of it (final three paragraphs).
I contributed twenty dollars. I wish I could help more, but… college student. You seem like a cool person, and I wish you long life and prosperity, current inconveniences aside. With prompt cryopreservation, your odds (in my estimation) are actually pretty good. The big risk is that either a major, civilization-disrupting disaster will occur in the next century, or CI will suffer economic failure, and be unable to afford containment costs. With chemo-preservation as a backup option in the latter case, you may take some comfort in knowing that if you die the real death, as Zelazny would say, odds are pretty good you’re taking western civilization down with you.
Best of luck to you on your fundraising, and subsequent vacation from the mortal coil.
Welcome.
I plan to donate when CI manages a fund. I appreciate your understanding that I want to be careful. (And set up the right incentives for future cases. I’m pretty confident you are legit.) (ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation through them.)
You had mentioned on your Reddit post that your boyfriend is supportive of your decision to pursue cryonics. Is he interested in cryonics for himself? Cryonics is much more affordable when you set things up when you are young and healthy, he may be able to do it on his own. I have been figuring out ways to get interested people to actually do this (and it turns it to be really easy), and I’m sorry I didn’t figure this out and meet you earlier, when you were thinking about cryonics but not yet diagnosed. You actually inspired me to post about that now instead of waiting to see how many people I got to start made it through the whole process.
Dear Kim,
I donated $25. (I’m broke, okay?) I hope and pray[1] that you’ll make it to the future, and look forward to meeting you there. You are smart for finding a path to life, brave for doing what you must in the face of death, and sensible for worrying about that instead of how smart and brave you sound. You have earned peace and joy and praise; may you enjoy them now, and enjoy them later.
Love,
Leo.
[1] PayPal counts as a higher power, right?
Not going to donate myself (makes no sense unless I set up my own cryo plans first), but I’ll be quite happy for you if you reach your goal of $35k or so charged by CI. Good luck!
If you’re planning on it, you should get on it now. Cryonics is much more affordable if you don’t have a terminal illness and can cover it with a policy.
Do you want to set up your own cryo plans?
I suspect that I can probably borrow enough against a regular life insurance if and when the time comes.
The time might come with a car crash, nullifying this strategy.
Yes indeed. As I said in the original reply, I have no cryo plans set up. Then again, the odds of your brain being in a good enough shape for cryo long enough after a bad car crash are not good. Consider that for the cryo measures to be triggered on time, you have to end up in a hospital alive, with an intact brain, but fatally injured otherwise, and live long enough for the cryo team to negotiate with the hospital to get a hold of your body right after you die, but not long enough to be able to make cryo arrangements from scratch, should you wish to.
If you die in a car crash, your brain will most likely suffer massive damage (from traumatic injury or ischemia or both) long before any attempt at cryopreservation could be made. I suppose this also applies to all the most common causes of death before 45 − 50.
I understand the point, but do you have any stats on this or just guessing? Esp. for adult drivers buckle in and such.
Guessing.
I’m not a doctor so I may be missing something important, but I can’t think of any type of predictably fatal traumatic injury that leaves you alive with an essentially intact brain for at least 1 − 2 days.
Some statistics
Notably: “In the western world, the most common cause of death after trauma is severe brain injury.”, “In modern day civilian trauma centres, thoracic injury directly accounts for 20-25% of deaths due to trauma; thoracic injury or its complications are a contributing factor in a further 25% of trauma deaths”
Death in the vast majority of cases entails general ischemia due to the cessation of circulation, trauma or no. How sensitive your brain is to a lack of oxygen is easily tested by having someone compress both your carotid arteries for 60 seconds. (The exception to the death-ischemia link would be brain death with circulation upheld for a variety of reasons, most commonly viability for organ transplantation.)
The killer consideration with fatal traumatic injuries is their unpredictability. Such an event will most probably drastically prolong the time to cryopreservation, at least by hours. Where are you? Which hospital are you announced dead in? Where’s the nearest cryopreservation team? When in the process are they notified? How long is their travel time? How much damage is done while you’re not yet announced dead?
The delay, hours of ischemia (while being dead), is what will degrade your brain tissue to a microscopically garbled mess, regardless of the specific type of trauma.
It bears repeating: Even the penumbra of neurons = the peripheral neurons that after a stroke still get some measure of oxygen are given up upon after 4-5 hours (no benefit from further treatment). The central neurons most affected by an ischemic event are considered lost within an hour.
Interesting strategy. It would be a good idea to validate this possibility now rather than when you suddenly need it.
(ETA: I am confused by the parent being downvoted. I don’t think it is effective to punish people for honestly answering questions.)
I know that it is possible, but no, I haven’t looked into the details.
Awesome. Welcome here! I have updated the main article to link to this.
I just donated, and seems like quite a few people are doing same. Please post something here to see how you’re doing on your target and CI formalities. (more can be done at a later point)
magfrump points out that you should mention this in an edit to the main post.