> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theorencohen.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # This Isn't The Three-Month Issue I Planned - URL: https://theorencohen.com/this-isnt-the-three-month-issue-i-planned/ - Published: 2026-08-21T12:27:35.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-21T12:28:49.000Z - Description: Welcome to Oren's Nerdy Letter #12! - Author: Oren Cohen My aunt almost died this week. I didn't think I'd "celebrate" the three-month milestone of this newsletter with such somber news, but here we are. So today, I want to reflect on Life and Death, and tell you a little bit about my aunt. By the end, I'll also share a few nerdy things, don't worry, this is still called my nerdy letter. Let's dive in. ## My Aunt Was a Prominent Part of My Life I remember her old house, the one before she moved closer to us, very well. It was almost my second home. There was an entry way into the row of building entrances covered with bushes. It was like you almost entered a secluded secret area of the neighborhood. Her house was in the third entrance and I had to climb three floors by foot. There was no elevator. My Aunt's house always had a faint smell of cigarettes. Both she and her late husband were smokers. And not like once in a while or even daily. They smoked whole packs. I remember the schnitzel that she used to make me and my cousin when we would come back from school. I often stayed at her house. My cousin and I would watch movies, or just play board games and do homework. These memories are from my elementary school days. It's been over 25-30 years since. My uncle died almost three years ago. She wasn't the same since. Diabetes was hard on my uncle. It got complicated even further when he didn't really follow the advice he was given about his diet. They wanted to amputate his foot that became gangrenous, but he refused. Without this amputation, his system was overloaded with the septic shock that the gangrene caused, and he died a painful death. Since that day, my aunt was deeply depressed. For months she was grieving his loss, but she was healthy, even though she's celebrating 79 next week. Earlier this week, after months of battling lung cancer, presumably from the cigarettes she smoked for decades, her COPD seems to have gotten worse. That prompted a visit to the hospital. The news I got from my parents and cousin about her was that things were getting worse. On Monday, I came over to help with a BPAP machine. It was probably the only time in my adult life that I was ok with someone treating me like I'm a technician. If it helped my aunt, I was all in. On Tuesday, my father called me at 13:30, the middle of my workday, and told me to come to the hospital. We all came. We all said our goodbyes. She whispered things in my ear that I would never tell anybody. I promised to do what she asked. We went home thinking that she wasn't going to survive the night. But she did. She stayed up all the time, because she was anxious and delusional from the oxygen deprivation. Now, she's at home. Last I heard she had a mostly good night's sleep with an oxygen mask on her face. This is the thing that infuriates me the most. We are dying every day from car crashes, terrorism, wars, and medical complications. Many of these deaths could be prevented. My maternal grandmother died about 20 years ago when doctors made a mistake and gave her two medications that shouldn't go together and it crashed her system. Her death was preventable too. I don't know what the future holds for my aunt. I hope her COPD symptoms could be managed in the same way her lung cancer is. With my aunt in the hospital, I announced I was stopping streaming, but two days later, when I came back to it, I realized it's relieving my stress. ## I'm Half Way Through Mass Effect 2 The Mass Effect Series is really important to me. I started replaying it on my YouTube channel a few months ago, and it's been so fun to come back to these games, and relive all of the moments that made me fall in love with this series all over again. This week, I got to do the Collector's Ship mission which is halfway through the game. I still have a lot of loyalty missions to go through until I can do the suicide mission. And even then I still have some DLC to finish like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival before I import the save to ME3. My ulterior motive is to capture just gameplay on my PC itself. I want to create essays about Mass Effect at some point so capturing just the gameplay helps with clean b-roll. Outside of video games, I also bought a few new books today. ## New Fantasy Series Acquired Not much to say about this but there are six new books in my backpack now waiting for me to take them home to my packed shelf: The Poppy War trilogy and the Jade City trilogy. I heard good things on both but I won't judge them until I read them. And finally, I took some time to republish one of my popular guides. ## I Published My Dropout Beginner's Guide It's a guide I wrote about the service as a veteran viewer. I hope it helps anybody wanting to start with series like Dimension 20 and Game Changer. You can read it here: [Beginner’s Guide to Dropout.TVIf you’ve heard of Dropout and you don’t know where to start watching shows on the service, let me help you as a longtime Dropout subscriber. (Last Updated: Aug 2026)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2f/9d/2f9dd706-fe4e-4ea5-915c-baf010e8bd57/content/images/icon/favicon-ea02ed8e-f266-426e-9a4b-150b7d413b4f.ico)Oren CohenOren Cohen![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2f/9d/2f9dd706-fe4e-4ea5-915c-baf010e8bd57/content/images/thumbnail/61JRfmU-KXL-c2c7995b-f0fa-42c5-8598-f9b3c262522f.jpg)](https://theorencohen.com/beginners-guide-to-dropout-tv/) ## That's All For Today! Thanks for reading! What nerdy thing you did this week that you're proud of? Hit reply and let me know, or comment below if you're reading this online. See you soon, Oren