Time machine dream

Oooo, I'm a bit groggy. Just got up. I woke up this morning thinking abut the advances medicine has made over the last 40 or 50 years. I imagined what it would have been like to treat a small boy my age when I was growing up in the early sixties and what it will be like to treat a small boy like me 50 years later. I will soon be tending to someone like me.

I think of research I've recently read and the things we knew back in the day. Every once in a while I'll come across articles from the 70's and the 80's and the 90's and then the post-century mark. And, of course, even after I'm out of school, I'll be studying articles in 2014 and beyond. I remember even in high school - in the advanced biology class I took - how we really didn't even understand mitosis, and now every molecule has a function and a name. We understand how alkylation affects genetic outcomes, and the entire genome has been sequenced. We know which parts of that genome are common to us all and which parts contain the variation that makes us so unique. We're beginning to home in on the genetic source of so many differences between us and so many causes of disruption in our phenotypic lives.

So, I'm reminded again of the incredible gift of being able to have this second life, if it's not a second chance at this life. With new clear sinuses, good sleep, exercise, and good food, I feel like I can live this long again. It feels like it might just be glorious.