Two months ago, 23-year-old Kim Suozzi started a discussion on Reddit. In it, she explained that she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and, though she was enrolled in a Dana-Farber clinical trial at the time, she had been told that she had less than 6 months to live. Barring some miracle in the trial, she felt that she needed to come to terms with her death, and asked the Reddit community for recommendations on things she should do before the end of her life. Some of the recommendations were obvious ("MDMA"), some were sweet ("Consider creating something that you can leave behind."), and some comments came from people who'd known and lost someone who'd had the same tumor.

Kim had been diagnosed with the tumor at the age of 21, shortly before she would have graduated with a degree in Neuroscience. An initial surgery seemed to be immediately successful, but shortly afterward the tumor returned and began growing. The Dana-Farber trial seemed to work well at first, but the tumor began growing again. Currently, Suozzi is taking radiation therapy to "buy [herself some] time". She is losing function on the right side of her body, cannot use her hand or arm, and is walking with a limp. In time, the tumor will cut off her air supply.

A few weeks ago, Kim returned to Reddit with another query. Her discussion had caused her to seriously consider the idea of freezing herself cryogenically, and hoped that commenters could help her achieve that dream. As she put it in an edit to the post, she said, "I'm trying to be preserved because I've done everything else in my power to help me extend my life. I've looked at essentially every diet, supplement, clinical trial, and 'miracle treatment' out there. This is the last thing I can possibly do to fight for another chance, and if does happen to work, it will be incredible."

Being cryogenically frozen costs a lot of money and many are skeptical about its ability. It can run upwards of $35,000 including transportation. But so far, she is well on her way. As of the end of August, Suozzi had raised $27,000. A large chunk of that comes from the Life Extension Foundation, which donated $10,000 to the cause. Independent of that, her efforts on Reddit have netted her $2,100.

She says on her Reddit post, "I am aware of the problems with the current state of cryonics, but I have the hope that technology might come up with a solution in the future. No one knows what technology will be available in 50 years."

According to the Cryonics Institute's website, "Cryonics is a technique intended to hopefully save lives and greatly extend lifespan. It involves cooling legally-dead people to liquid nitrogen temperature where physical decay essentially stops, in the hope that future technologically advanced scientific procedures will someday be able to revive them and restore them to youth and good health. A person held in such a state is said to be a 'cryopreserved patient', because we do not regard the cryopreserved person as being really 'dead'."

A video-blog from Suozzi is posted below. If you would like to donate, please click here.

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