Mary-Lou's Best Hope for Life
Do you want to help MaryLou? My mother's hope is cryopreservation. She believes cryonics will work (always the optimist) and it might. MaryLou is looking at days before clinical death. I can't do this alone and all she can do is try to hold on until she can rest. She's had a long fight with cancer, heart disease, and cognitive decline; her doctors have given up. Cryonics is the only hope remaining. Asking for help only occurred to me a few days ago. MaryLou's best hope is you. We can do something good for Mary-Lou at around 36k but expert preservation help at legal death is about 80k. Every gift helps. Think of this as Mary_Lou's funeral wishes if you like. I think of this as a chance to have my mother back. I think of this as trying to save her life.
Cryonicists have a faith in humanity that most people don't seem to have. We believe that the future will be a better place; more caring and more capable. We believe that with our bodies restored to health and probably improved we can handle the future's challenges. Such beliefs are too complex for science at this time and come down to educated intuition. I can see why MaryLou is more sure of cryonics than I am even though she was less interested in the details. The science part involves a detailed understanding of the biology of human memory and how well information about a person's memory is preserved by cryopreservation. These science questions are not fully resolved but they are good science questions. If you have a taste for biosciences you can make educated guesses. You can educate yourself about cryonics or find a knowledgeable friend, and if you find the science part plausible, place a bet for or against humanity. If you don't have time for that now, I'm asking you to place a bet on MaryLou or me. She deserves a chance to live.
Cryopreservation stops the body from decaying indefinitely in the hope that doctors and scientists in the future will be able to repair our bodies. The process itself does some damage and we hope that can also be repaired. We also hope people will keep us suspended until we can be revived and that someone will care enough to do it in the future. The science part is what it is, and is unknown but plausible. I think we believe people will try to preserve and revive us because we know we would want to do that for other people. MaryLou especially probably thinks people will help because she would help.
MaryLou grew up in a rural town raised by my grandmother whose husband died when my mother was an infant. We both adored my grandmother (another amazing woman) and my mother hand-carried her mother through preservation just like I am trying to do for her. We were a small family but I can't imagine two better parents. My grandmother took care of things at home. MaryLou worked 16+ hours a day and provided for us but came home from work each evening to spend as much time as I wanted before returning to work. She never missed a phone call from me or an event. She never once failed to help with anything I ask, though her help was usually teaching me how to solve my own problems. Now she needs my help and yours.
Mary-Lou skipped grades, learned judo, and swam. Double majoring at a top college, she had perfect grades while working in a bank trust department, dating three guys a day, working in the psychology department, and buying her first home. She married the guy who she knew scored highest on IQ tests and I was born because someone thought poking a hole in the condom was funny. She continued doing what she was doing but with a happy baby on her knee and The Bettles on the radio. A few years later she left her husband with everything but me when he became jealous of the baby and dangerous.
From banking, she went into stock brokerage and was the top salesperson at several companies. At one ceremony in Italy, she was awarded fancy cufflinks. When the president of her company apologized she said "Don't apologize; I -earned- those cufflinks." When male coworkers asked her to get them coffee while she was meeting with a client she said "Excuse me, apparently these men don't know how to get their own coffee." She got them their coffee and then posted the largest trade of the month. She was always generous and helpful with her many friends, employees, and family. Not just in small ways but with whatever was needed in life (mentorship to move on to bigger jobs, leaving abusive relationships, medical problems, someone to talk to, loans, etc.).
In her early 30s, she was badly injured. She had a freak encounter that left her with a severe permanent injury to her neck and hands. Shortly after she left work to take care of her mother and treasured every minute. Most of her wealth was lost to ten businessmen who did not repay their loans. She lost one expensive home to fire for which the insurance company did not payout because of one overpriced improvement. Another home was embezzled in a small town with a stolen deed and an old boy's network. She did not realize how disabled she was in time to file her social security claim so she did not even have that. She never complained but she switched her focus from helping people with money to helping people with time. She informally adopted a few kids who needed a mother, kept helping hundreds of people with housing, advice, jobs, optimism, and caring. It's like a movie but I saw so much of what she did and never found anything untrue (though she was a storyteller), never found her to be unfair (though she was scrappy when mistreated). In business, she told me to always leave something on the table for the other guy, rather than seeking the best deal. Everyone needs a profit and it makes for repeat business. I was never the business person my mother was but I was about set to retire when I also became disabled (I'm slowly recovering). All Mary-Lou can do is hang in there, and as weird as it feels to me to ask for help, you all seem the biggest part of her best hope (and my hope to have her back again).
Imagine Mary-Lou young and healthy again. Imagine her once again helping others and making the world a better place with the wisdom of age and the energy of youth. Imagine how much she enjoyed her work and the things she did for people. She certainly knew how to enjoy life. Some of her work was playing golf and eating in the best restaurants. She saw most of the world and sampled most of its food. In recent years she loved her dog so much it made me a little jealous but she drove me where I needed to go when I was too ill to drive and helped me think through my difficult problems. Let's give Mary-Lou another chance at life; the world will be richer for it. If cryonics works, it will be amazing to share the future and if it doesn't we are just spending a little money on hope instead of some other expense. I love Mary-Lou dearly and I know a lot of other people do too.
There is no end to the good things I could say about Mary-Lou. No end to the stories. Hopefully, you get the picture by now. Hopefully, you will help. Thank you.
Technicalities: All money raised will go towards Mary-Lou's cryonics. The actual suspension at Cryonics Institue (cryonics.org) is 28k to 35k depending on how quickly they receive the funds before her legal death. Funeral home preparation and shipping are estimated at 8k. Expert help with better preservation at the time of death (Stand-By), increases the amount needed to about 80k. I'll get a better figure on that if we get past the most basic option. 80k is Alcor's (Alcor.org) cheapest option but includes standby. I have been with Alcor for about 20 years. Any funds not going towards Mary-Lou's suspension will be returned or can be set aside for some other person in desperate need of assistance with cryonics. I'm personally planning to put as much as about 15k into this and as long as it takes (which probably cost another 10k in expenses from not handling other things). More than that seems like it would put me at too great a risk of death in the next year. If cryonics were certain I would be okay with doing my own cryopreservation sooner to save MaryLou but it's only a possibility so we need to spread the risk. If everyone did cryonics it would be about 1% of the world's income but save several percent on the last few hopeless weeks of medical expenses.
