Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

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I still hope to figure out how to support myself via some kind of online income. I am 45, a lot older than most of the YC applicants as I understand it, I have a very serious medical condition and two grown sons who still live with me. I have lived in the SFBA previously, in Fairfield about 45 miles from San Francisco (halfway between SF and the state capital). My sons are very against returning to Cali. I liked it but I have my reservations. I think I need to go someplace that meets my health needs. Keeping myself (and my sons) well is my highest priority and it is very clear in my mind that this is the single most important criteria for me ever having any kind of financial success.

I have figured out how to get myself (and my oldest son, who has the same diagnosis) well when doctors and most of the world believe it cannot be done. I joined HN to ask how to quickly learn a programming language. I did this more than a year ago, shortly after I got off the last of my medication and finally had a clear head for the first time in many years, but I still have not learned the first thing about a programming language. The reason for the request for info on a programming language: I have concluded that I need a more information dense means to convey what I know. The written word on my website is just not cutting it. Only people who aren't already deeply rooted in current views of the problem seem able to use it at all. Everyone else is openly hostile. I think a simulation (aka game) could potentially solve the problem. But I still do not know a programming language and I am still working full time and still have a significant time burden in terms of continuing to get well. I have never met a single person who was as sick as I was and came back the way I have. So I have zero yardstick for judging how long this "should" take. I will get there when I get there, thus I am in no position to make promises to outsiders in terms of deliverable timeframes.

I also waffle a lot between this idea and other interests. The massive open hostility I have gotten for trying to help people doesn't go over terribly well with me. I often wonder if I should bother to try to solve this issue or if I should go off and try to live the "normal life" I always wanted now that I am nearly well enough to do something like that.

Thank you for sharing and I hope it all works out for you. It's refreshing that you clearly understand your situation and are working with it.

I remember you from another thread on learning programming -- keep perservering and I am sure the HN community is happy to help with your efforts. At least, I am.

I've been programming games and simulations since I was a kid, and I have an interest in making educational and therapeutic games. So if you'd like any advice or anything, just contact me (details in my HN profile).

I will take you up on that.

That's a really good idea. What's the diagnosis and what is your view on it that you want to get across? (If you don't mind me asking.)

I was diagnosed with "atypical cystic fibrosis", which is a relatively mild form of CF. I made a lot of dietary and lifestyle changes. CF involves a miscoded protein called the CFTR. The protein handles trafficking of certain molecules into and out of the cell, one of which is sodium chloride (salt). The misprocessing of salt is such a well known trait that a "sweat chloride" test is the most common test for the condition, yet doctors hardly address it at all. I found that consuming a good quality sea salt high in brine (a mixture or other minerals) and the right fats and carbs so it absorbs properly can reverse a lot of my symptoms. CF also generally encourages the body to be extremely acidic. I found that addressing PH balance and correcting it back to normal also does a lot to reverse symptoms. My reading has indicated that both of these factors -- PH balance and salt/mineral balance -- being extremely out of whack inside the cell will promote misfolding of proteins. This suggested to me that if you can address those issues, you can get the body to produce more functioning CFTRs and thereby get the body to function closer to normal. And, in fact, my son and I do function a lot closer to normal as long as we stay on top of the PH balance and get adequate amounts of good quality sea salt. We also engage in a lot of practices to reduce exposure to microbes, toxins, etc.

For me, it is more complicated than that because I was so very sick, so I had to address a lot of complicated infections and stuff. But my son had not been on antibiotics for over three years prior to being diagnosed, so it is clear to me that the right kind of support from an early age can drastically reduce the issues this disorder causes (at least in most cases -- in some cases, the CFTR is completely missing and I assume that would be different). Most medical intervention is focused on drugs and surgeries and vaccines. There is very little nutritional information available. Most research seems to be drug studies and the standard wisdom doled out by CF doctors is to eat great quantities of junk food because it is high calorie, high fat, and high salt. A "high calorie, high fat, and high salt" diet is the current state of the art advice for people with this disorder and I think it does a lot of harm. Instead, I went for aggressive nutrition to reverse a lifetime of nutritional deficiencies and began getting healthier and getting off all the drugs.

It's complicated and playing around with these ideas when you have no idea what you are doing can cause problems, so I understand why it goes over so badly with other people. A more information dense means to safely convey how this works looks to me like the only means to get more people to adopt this approach.

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