Cryonics Procedures

Cryonics is the subject of my interest and the reason for this fundraiser. I have been afraid of death since I was 11, and my final wish is for my body to be cryogenically preserved.

I cannot afford enough insurance to cover the cost of full-body preservation on my limited disability income. This is a personal hope, not an established outcome. I do not know whether it will work, and I am not promising anyone a result.

Cryonic preservation is a series of steps that begins immediately after legal death. In general terms, it looks like this:

1. 01

   Stabilization

   After legal death is declared, a standby team begins cooling the body with ice and restores circulation and breathing artificially to slow cellular decline.

2. 02

   Cryoprotectant perfusion

   Blood is replaced with a cryoprotectant solution that reduces the formation of damaging ice crystals. When it works as intended, tissue turns into a glass-like state instead of freezing, a process called vitrification.

3. 03

   Deep cooling

   The body is cooled gradually over several days to about -196 °C, the temperature of liquid nitrogen.

4. 04

   Long-term storage

   The body is kept in a insulated metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen, where it remains at that temperature until a future that may or may not arrive.

Revival from preservation has never been done, and no one can say whether it will ever be possible. Cryonics is a bet on future science, and I am sharing the procedure so you understand what I am hoping for, not to promise an outcome.

I have high-grade dysplasia in Barrett’s esophagus. A specialist in Morgantown, West Virginia, is treating it with cryoablation.

Cryoablation uses extreme cold, liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide, delivered through an endoscope to freeze and kill precancerous cells in the lining of the esophagus. The freezing damages cell membranes and structures inside the cells, which triggers cell death (apoptosis) and allows the body to regenerate normal tissue.

In principle it is similar to freezing a wart, but it is performed under direct endoscopic visualization, using liquid nitrogen at temperatures down to -196 °C. My third treatment is planned for December 2026.