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Comment by deadmancoding | Hacker News Reader

I guess the hard part is that I fee like I wasted my life. The plan was to do .com's and things until 30 then retire. I was well on that road and now this. Thanks for all the suggestions. I literally don't know anything but code. I have no friends only work colleagues. Even when I broke this news people wanted to make sure that all the projects were transferrable.

I cant take the bag. I already have confidence issues and girls kind of think I am a loser. I cant imagine what they would think then (yes i now that is shallow and unreasonable logic.)

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Have you seen George Miller's 'Lorenzo's Oil'?

You are a hacker. Take the bag and hack your away out of it. This your last project (or not) and you are more motivated than any other doctor to solve it. It will maybe require you to go very far from your comfort zone, deep into genetics, tissue engineering or molecular biology. So what?

Your solution may benefit thousands. Maybe this is your mission in life.

If you aren't even 30 yet, I can tell you that you only have about 30% of the things you will learn in life in your head right now.

Yes that's right: You're still a little kid, intellectually and emotionally. Don't worry, we all were.

By killing yourself now, you're denying yourself all of that potential knowledge because you figure your not happy with the 30% you already have. That's a fool's game. You'll really understand how little you think you know in the next few years.

You know how you look back at high school and see that all the cool people that got all the chicks and never went to class haven't really done much in their lives since? Yeah, well they never do. The girls that think you're a loser now change their tunes quite dramatically as they hit 30 and realize that those loser qualities you had are actually pretty attractive.

It gets better my friend. So much so that me, at only 35, with a wife and two kids looks at this bag and says, "Meh, doesn't seem too bad, what's he going on about?" I know my wife wouldn't leave and my kids wouldn't care. You're going to find those people.

Of course, that assumes you stay alive to experience that.

Take the colostomy bag. Invent the artificial colon.

And stop worrying about what people think of you.

A few years ago my math teacher told me about his son who had cancer. The cancer somehow damaged his left eye and the eye had to be removed or it would start spreading. So my math teacher took the heartbreaking decision to remove his son's left eye(His son was too young to decide for himself). A few years later, they discovered another malignant tumor in his right eye, so the teacher again took the decision to remove his right eye. Now you could imagine how horrible this must have been for both of them, but his son didn't give up and several years later he created a computer (or was it software?) designed for blind people. Not only did he get rich, but he also helped a lot of blind people.

I know it sounds cheezy but when you find someone you love, things like that won't matter, she will only want to help you through it. It sounds like you haven't experienced that yet, which makes it all the better reason not to die.

I think it's a lot of pressure to put on yourself to feel like you wasted your life so young. Give yourself a break.

How about this: take the bag, for now. If life with the bag does end up sucking, you can always find a way out later. But leave your options open and give it a try?

Instead of discussing it here, say exactly the same things to a therapist: someone whose job it is to listen to stuff like this. I think you're depressed, but what do I know.

Until then, put the computer down and go outside. Look around, what seems interesting? Find out how to get involved and do it.

There must be support groups around this: find out how other people deal with the bags and the impact it has on their lives. Don't read blogs & books: go out and actually talk to people face to face.

Please reconsider, the bag is technology after all of a kind, and it might buy enough time for a new solution to arise. We live in an unfair world, you should not be having to make this decision, every child knows that appearances are not the important thing, unfortunately as adults we unlearn that...

Go find some women who are not so shallow as to judge a man by his limits, get online dating, it's worked for some my friends.

Have you considered an "intestinal transplant"?

http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/digestive/crohns-...

As for the confidence issues, go out and meet people. From experience, shallow people are everywhere, so go past that find people who are not shallow.

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