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Kim Suozzi Venturist Charity Fund


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#1 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 25 August 2012 - 02:51 AM


The Society for Venturism has launched its Cryonics Charity Fund for Kim Suozzi, a 23rd year old woman who is dying of brain cancer. Please read about her story and the fund here: http://venturist.info/kim-suozzi-charity.html

I donated $200.00 to the fund, all donations go to Kim's suspension and will be refunded if she is not suspended for any reason (or you can choose to leave funds you donated for the next Cryonics Charity Fund recipient). The donations are tax deductible, you will be given a receipt.

Her own fundraising efforts have stalled since she initially started them, it is my hope that the cryonics community will come together to raise what is needed for her suspension. Large or small, if we all donate it can be done--she does not have much time left and has already lived beyond expectations for her condition.


Shannon Vyff

Society for Venturism Director, LongeCity Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation Advisor, contributing author to The Scientific Conquest of Death, author of the cryonics family adventure 21st Century Kids, Alcor and Cryonics Institute Member
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#2 Odestoteles

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Posted 25 August 2012 - 05:19 AM

Many thanks for setting this up. I just donated $60.

#3 dblch

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Posted 25 August 2012 - 09:05 PM

Hey everyone.

I'd like to introduce myself and thank Shannon for posting here.

I'm Kim Suozzi, a 23-year-old brain cancer patient in my second progression of disease. As you may know, I'm trying to raise money through the Society for Venturism and have been receiving help from Shannon as well as others in the cryonics community. I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has helped support me in any way possible; you have given me comfort that my last wish is reasonable and may be attainable and I couldn't do it without the cryo community.

Also, several people have made helpful suggestions about alternative treatments, supplements, dietary regimens, and clinical trial options in addition to what I'm already pursuing with my care. I am always open to suggestions and new ideas about what I could do differently. If you have something you'd like to share feel free to get into get into touch with me. Anything is appreciated!

Here's a video update I posted today:


Thanks again everyone, I hope to get to know some of you soon.

Edited by dblch, 25 August 2012 - 09:07 PM.

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#4 dblch

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Posted 25 August 2012 - 10:44 PM

Hi everyone, just wanted add some great news:

Life Extension (lef.org) has pledged to donate 10,000 to the preservation fund, and hoped that it might motivate others to help as well.

Thanks again, everybody!
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#5 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 26 August 2012 - 07:10 AM

Thank you Odestoteles for donating! Even just $20 dollars helps reach the goal. Right now the fund is nearly to 20K if the LEF pledge comes through so we still have a ways to go.

Kim you may be interested in learning that we have some highly knowledgeable members here in the area of supplements. It may be useful to share your supplement list and what you are currently taking--I've seen it and think it is quite impressive. I think many of our members would be interested in it and some would have useful suggestions.
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#6 Odestoteles

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Posted 26 August 2012 - 06:00 PM

SV: No problem! Actually, my newest $60 donation was in addition to an earlier (cumulative) $60 that went straight to Kim's PayPal.

#7 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 27 August 2012 - 02:56 AM

awesome! I'll get ahold of her, she is super busy--I saw her supplement list and I know many in our community will find it interesting, and even would have some great suggestions

#8 tham

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Posted 29 August 2012 - 03:38 PM

Noting this to be her charity fund thread, I've transferred my post to a new thread on glioblastoma.

Perhaps the moderators may wish to move my initial posts above as well, as there is no edit or delete option (which I had suggested in the feedback
section some time ago to be made available permanently).


---

MODERATION: split all these posts to here

Edited by caliban, 30 August 2012 - 08:12 PM.
split

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#9 ozymandias

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Posted 30 August 2012 - 10:43 PM

Long time lurker of the forum, signed up to say I donated $60. Sadly that's as much I can afford to give at this time :sad:. I have had this situation play out in my head when thinking of cryonics before. I really hope that she reaches her goal.

#10 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 31 August 2012 - 03:44 AM

Thank you ozymandias, all amounts help -in fact I'm proud to say that we are 27K !

#11 greekpsychonaut

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Posted 03 September 2012 - 11:36 PM

This made me tear up; I'll try to donate more when I have some funds.

#12 Brain_Ischemia

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Posted 04 September 2012 - 06:55 PM

Kim,

I can only attempt to fathom the out-of-body experience of seeing yourself suddenly thrust into a nightmarish parallel universe different from the one you dreamed for yourself, one in which you may not live as long you'd always expected. Nobody can help but wish it weren't so.

Robert Ettinger once said, "If wishing doesn't work, try working."
To the extent that you can, you've wrested back a potential level of control over your fate that the vast majority of the human race doesn't realize it has. That's but one reason why you're very special.

I'm glad that your ambition and the will to fight have not gone unnoticed.

Hope...not a false hope, but one predicated on knowledge...hope should be cherished, treasured.
I said this before, but I'd like to say it again; It is my sincere hope that you will one day open your eyes from within a cancer-free body, and that those eyes will behold a future in which you can continue to grow and learn and experience.
It's an abiding hope that I'll carry with me until, one way or another, my body fails me too (and it surely will).

You won't be alone.

Edited by Taurus Londoño, 04 September 2012 - 06:55 PM.


#13 Mind

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Posted 04 September 2012 - 07:02 PM

Does anyone have some information on the mechanics of the funding situation? Will the Venturists maintain the fund (interest bearing, hopefully) until a cryonic suspension becomes necessary? If there is a miraculous recovery for Kim, will the fund be maintained for a future charity situation, or will money be returned to the donors?

#14 Brain_Ischemia

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Posted 04 September 2012 - 07:58 PM

I'd like to think that any money raised specifically by the Venturists on behalf of Kim be used exclusively for her cryopreservation, however distant (hopefully) that might be. I realize that the target is cryopreservation by CI, but I'm crossing my fingers that she's able to take advantage of Alcor's M-22 protocol... I understand that the Venturists have maintained a charity fund and that any amount over would back to fund future cases, no?

#15 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 06 September 2012 - 04:03 AM

I'm Society for Venturism Director, this case will be handled as our last charity case for William O'Rights. If Kim is not preserved (from dying in a manner than prevents cryopreservation, or any reason such as her changing her mind) then the donors are asked if they want their donation back, or if they would like to leave it in the Venturist Cryonics Charity Fund for the next recipient. We did that after Marce Johnson was unable to be preserved (due to family friction) and some chose a refund, some chose to transfer their donation to William. The Venturists maintain the fund, and they maintained one for nearly a decade for Marce, the one for William was a shorter one, since he didn't have as much time to live from lung cancer compared to Marce's slow decline from Alzheimer's. There is no time-frame per se, we transfer the funds when the person contracts--that is what we did in the case of James Swayze -who is still alive (he became a paraplegic at a young age and was unable to get life insurance, hold a job or even due to regulations save disability payments--his was the Society for Venturism's first case).

The funds are invested until they are used, I will ask for details.

#16 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 06 September 2012 - 04:10 AM

The fund is doing very well and at this point we are pretty sure she will be able to contract as a fully funded member next week, we will be making an announcement after we hear from her what she is wantig to do. I don't have our exact recent figure, but we have been raising funds quickly and were quite close just a few days ago.

#17 mikeb80

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Posted 17 September 2012 - 05:06 AM

Good news! :)
I'll wait for the next update!

#18 Lazarus Long

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Posted 17 September 2012 - 01:05 PM

Kim's story has made it to Live Science.com and the general web through Yahoo.

http://news.yahoo.co...-162927813.html

Given the way things are changing it would be interesting to see a cryocase in a state that has legal euthanasia so that preservation could be initiated before legal death. I believe that would improve the odd's at revival.

#19 mikeb80

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Posted 17 September 2012 - 01:59 PM

I'm glad that mainstream media are talking about Kim and her story, because this means that cryonics is becoming an interesting subject for the general audience too...
but sadly the 80% of comments I'm reading on Yahoo news are... quite irritating.

A lot of misinformed people who knows NOTHING about science makes meaningless and untasty jokes about "frozen meat".
But the worst kind are the comments of the bigoted / moralists who call Kim selfish because she's trying to preserve her life.

For example an uneducated guy says she's
"denying others resources that would be better spent for the living".

Another idiot full of anger writes

"You can have her body incinerated for $300
and then do something USEFUL with the other $29,700."


and again, in his second comment

"Jesus, what an ego!
the human population increases by 1 MILLION people every month.
thinking that YOU need to be preserved for some reason is ABSURD!"


I accept different opinions and even criticism, but these Yahoo-lurkers have no respect at all for Kim.
Why they are so hostile?

Edited by mikeb80, 17 September 2012 - 02:25 PM.


#20 Lazarus Long

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Posted 17 September 2012 - 02:20 PM

I tend to ignore the comments because so many online comments in general are sub-par but you are correct to take note of the hostility toward Cryo AND that reflects on the hostility toward longevity science in general. Much is motivated by ignorance and some by fear but mostly a desperate desire to stop change and a resentment of resources not allocated in their own personal directions. We see this with space research too.

#21 Brain_Ischemia

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Posted 18 September 2012 - 02:15 AM

I agree that it's not worth engaging the dregs of pop-news articles (ie; the comments), but the remarks that mikeb80 quoted above are typical of the kind encountered by self-professed cryonicists. I *do* think it's incumbent upon cryonicists to be able to provide cool (calm), straightforward answers in a way that re-frames the criticisms into questions of broader context.

The main point is that cryopreservation is a type of *critical care medical intervention*; it is a form of long-term biomedical stabilization that is intended to *save lives*. Experimental, of course, but so were the earliest heart-lung machines, defibrillation devices, etc. These interventions began as bold, costly experiments that were not without risk, and in which expected (hoped for) results were far from guaranteed.

When people understand that cryonics is fundamentally the same *kind* of intervention, those thoughtless, knee-jerk criticisms become extremely difficult to rationalize.

A heart transplant costs roughly USD$600,000. The recipients do not typically have a life expectancy much beyond a decade or two. Of course, cost of care for virtually *all* human beings in the developed world increases drastically the closer they are to death; this will presumably be as true for me as it is for every single person within sight of this forum post. Life is precious, and so is the *time* spent living; society places an understandably high value upon that time (which is why such treatments exist in the first place).

Their comments are revealed as starkly unkind in this light.

The sum (relatively modest in medical care) that will be used to cryopreserve Kim will necessarily give her a better chance at life in the long-term than not only *essentially all other humans treated for potentially terminal disease today*, but also essentially all human beings alive anywhere right now.

It is my sincere belief that, on a long enough timescale, a person cryopreserved today will ultimately outlive all but a vanishingly small minority of people alive right now. A belief, yes, but a falsifiable one; the experiment will tell one way or another. As Ralph Merkle is fond of saying, it doesn't look too good for the control group.

Edited by Taurus Londoño, 18 September 2012 - 02:38 AM.


#22 Odestoteles

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Posted 22 September 2012 - 09:47 AM

"You can have her body incinerated for $300
and then do something USEFUL with the other $29,700."


"Jesus, what an ego!
the human population increases by 1 MILLION people every month.
thinking that YOU need to be preserved for some reason is ABSURD!"


What a horrible piece of s**t. When you lack basic, fundamental compassion for others, at least stop spreading your venom unto others. Despicable f*****g c**t.

#23 Logic

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Posted 26 September 2012 - 08:38 AM

Does anyone have any contact details for Kim?
I want to get Mebendazole to her so plz PM me if you do.

#24 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 27 September 2012 - 03:54 PM

you can email me at shannonvyff (at) yahoo (dot) com and I will forward it to her

#25 RighteousReason

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Posted 08 October 2012 - 08:17 AM

any updates on this? how much money has been raised, etc?

#26 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 19 January 2013 - 05:14 AM

Kim Suozzi passed away January 17th 2013 at age 23. The Society for Venturism, a cryonics advocacy and support group, had started a charity fund for her cryonic suspension in August of 2012 and through an overwhelming amount of support from the extreme life extension community enough funds were raised for her to be cryo preserved with Alcor. She had a successful standby and suspension and now is in stasis at Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Alcor CEO Max More announced today that Alcor will be publishing a brief summary of her suspension and details about her memorial in the next few days on the Alcor blog: http://www.alcor.org/blog/

The Society for Venturism is thankful to have helped fulfill her last wish to be cryo preserved in the hopes that she will be able to finish her life someday. Kim's boyfriend said, "Our hope is that technology will continue to progress to the point that Kim may have a real chance of living again in the future. Unfortunately, the development of the requisite technologies could be decades or centuries away. Since Kim is no longer with us to explore and innovate in the field of neuroscience, she is counting on all of us to push for the innovations she had hoped to see in her lifetime.

Until (or unless) the day comes that Kim can be brought back, remember her, celebrate her, and emulate her resilience, so we can create the future of her dreams.

Nobody is too young to make cryopreservation arrangements."


Kim knew about the next charity recipient that the Society for Venturism is taking on for 2013, a man struggling with ALS, Aaron Winborn. She wrote to him on 12-13-12 saying that she wanted to help promote his charity, and also hoped that people who supported her would support his case. She was hopeful that the Society for Venturism would be successful in gathering donations for further charity cases in the future. When she had written him she had apologized to him for not helping more, explaining that her condition had deteriorated. He had responded to her; "My condition as well is beginning to worsen; my breathing has declined considerably, and my FVC has reached 25%, far below the threshold of 35%, when respiratory failure is imminent and can happen at any time. My only option at this point is to opt for invasive mechanical ventilation, which may give me a 50% chance of surviving a year." Sadly Kim's health kept her from being able to help Aaron as much as she wanted, and also his own health has kept him from being as active as he would like.

Here is a link to Aaron's story that he submitted to the Society for Venturism November of 2012:
http://www.venturist...rn-charity.html
It includes a button where you can donate if you are able, every amount helps as this is the very beginning of the cryonics charity campaign for Aaron and it is not known how much time he has as his condition has deteriorated more rapidly than expected since November. The amount needed at minimum will be $32,000.00 for a $28,000.00 suspension at Cryonics Institute and transportation costs, so even small donations will help reach the goal.

Kim was very thankful for all the support she received, she told Aaron to keep his options open for Cryonics Institute or Alcor--he said that he hoped enough funds will be raised for a cryonics suspension with Cryonics Institute and that he should have a contract with him by this January. The Society for Venturism has started collecting funds for him and is working with him to have the funds ready for the cryonics organization he contracts with.

All funds collected go to the cryonics organization that the recipient has contracted with, and not to the individual directly. Left over funds, if there are any after a recipient is preserved, will go to help a future charity recipient.

Shannon Vyff
Society for Venturism Director, Alcor and Cryonics Institute Member, LongeCity Director

#27 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 02:18 AM

There has been quite a bit of media coverage of Kim's story, with much of it linking to an article that mention's Aaron's case, but alas we have not had an uptick in donations for Aaron. I'll be talking with he and his wife tomorrow and getting an update out. It is good that Kim's case is getting a lot of coverage as it is positive media for cryonics --the same sort of misperceptions come up in comments, but many who are interested in the idea will research it on their own. Anyone with time is welcome to dispel myths within comments ;)

http://www.huffingto...l?ir=Weird News

http://www.nbcnews.c...ation-1B8038221

http://fox2now.com/2...or-cancer-cure/

http://io9.com/59400...cally-preserved

http://www.giantfrea...-ill-woman.html



http://ieet.org/inde...re/Vyff20130121

http://www.heavy.com...g-for-cryonics/

http://legalpronews....ommercial code")+OR+%22written+instrument%22+OR+%22parol+evidence%22)

First Kurzweil A.I. ran the update, http://www.kurzweila...ary-17-at-alcor , then Io9, then I.E.E.T. -but many branches picked up the story from Io9's article
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#28 Mind

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 05:45 PM

So much for the huffington post being a place for open thought and "liberal opinions". Most of the comments about the Souzzi cryopreservation, from regular huffpo readers, are awful, mean, closed-minded, and quite ignorant.

Edited by Mind, 29 January 2013 - 06:20 PM.


#29 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 29 January 2013 - 04:41 AM

I've been thinking of an article I'd like to write about the hostility that cryoncis charity recipients face while they are trying to fulfill their dying wish. The comments under articles on-line after they pass away even are insesetive to their grieving family.

Here is the story for Aaron Winborn (including what his wife said his reaction had been after Kim had contacted him):
http://venturist.inf...rn-charity.html

#30 Mind

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Posted 29 January 2013 - 06:23 PM

I've been thinking of an article I'd like to write about the hostility that cryoncis charity recipients face while they are trying to fulfill their dying wish. The comments under articles on-line after they pass away even are insesetive to their grieving family.

Here is the story for Aaron Winborn (including what his wife said his reaction had been after Kim had contacted him):
http://venturist.inf...rn-charity.html


The article could highlight/collate some of the most negative comments. Maybe by showing huffpo readers how mean they are (by collecting the quotes and presenting them in sequence), they (commenters) might show some sensitivity in the future.




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