2076-12-31 Just Getting Started

Despite a few odd surprises, the summed effect of my rejuvenation therapies has been exhilarating.

What we know is really very, very little compared to what we still have to know.—Fabiola Gianotti

I leaned against the window, feeling the hum of the motors as I looked down from the airship at the rolling foothills of western Maine. There was barely a dusting of snow despite being well into winter. We were passing over the bare branches of deciduous forest, and I noted two moose—probably a cow and her yearling—stepping across a brook. When I had first come up here with Al Nadeau eighty-five years ago, this had all been evergreens. The treelines had migrated north with the change in climate. So much change in one lifetime. I was lucky to see it.

As I approached my late sixties, I found that I was getting tired more easily. I had already survived my first cardiac incident (that is another story) at the same age as had my maternal grandfather. I had been on a number of medications since, and my cardiologists assured me that I would be on them for life. I had taken to afternoon naps of increasing length. My stamina was not what I was used to, and I found my working stints shortening.

Finally, I was appalled to find myself nodding off over crucial experiments. This, I told myself, would not do. Senescence was not in my plans, not for many years yet. Both my parents and all four of my grandparents had lived into their eighties, some of them without modern medical care. I had decades to go, and I planned for longer than that. I did not plan to spend those decades in an elder care facility.

As was my habit on confronting a new problem, I dove into the literature. There was an enormous amount of it, as cardiac disease was one of the leading killers in the most developed nations, and the majority of the population had a personal interest in avoiding agonizing death by heart attack. I can attest that it is not pleasant.

At the time, the preponderance of therapies were immediate surgical intervention, postsurgical care, then maintenance medications, usually for life. Each of these options was more or less mature, and there was a large corps of experienced cardiologists and specialists to provide the most popular therapies.

What struck me was that there seemed to be little published on the approach of fixing whatever was wrong with bodies that made them build up plaque, throw clots, and generally clog up crucial systems. Furthermore, I learned that most of my symptoms were in a group common to post-recovery cardiac patients. We apparently aged more rapidly after even a mild cardiac incident.

That sent my search on a new path. If my obvious symptoms were tied to aging, what else might be going on in my body?

I cast my research net wider and included my connections to, shall we say, less public institutions. There have always been researchers, clinicians, and institutions willing to ignore or bypass government and peer group regulations in the interests of science, profit, or personal agenda. In my experience, there is often an acceleration of research results when the principal investigator has some skin in the game.

With persistence, I found several clandestine clinics whose reputations for results were above the norm and whose bona fides were exemplary. Their fees were exorbitant but not undeservedly so. Fortunately for my financial liquidity, I had something worth bartering: a track record of improving processes. I negotiated, cautiously, a quid pro quo that gave me access to top tier treatments without emptying my bank accounts.

To satisfy my clients’ paranoia, I was given gradual access to the secrets of the clinic’s process, with my continued respiration dependent on my making improvements that were worth the risk of the secrets’ leaking.

Fortunately, my genius did not desert me. In each case, I was able to encode their process into my computer simulations, refine and improve the process in my simulations, and provide the clinic with a streamlined edition of my simulation software that they would be able to use in refining and personalizing their process in the future. They were, without exception, ecstatic at my results.

I was, in turn, very happy with the results of my treatment at each of the clinics. My original problem of early onset senescence was halted. Ensuing outpatient therapies have, over time, incrementally turned back my biological clock, one system at a time.

We negotiated an ongoing relationship in which I would consult at need and make use of their services likewise. It has proven mutually beneficial for several decades now.

Most of the clinics I consulted for have since become completely legal and above-board. It is nice to be able to dispense with the cutouts and subterfuge when I go in for a checkup, or to tweak the latest generation of simulation software.

While the therapies have been successful overall, my body has on occasion gone a bit overboard. I recall one time when I had begun a supposedly well-tested regimen that included some growth stimulants. This was a gene therapy, so it was all my own body, just a few tweaks to the instructions at the cellular level.

Not long into the therapy, I felt great. I had more energy, I was in better spirits, I needed less sleep but was sleeping more soundly, and my appetite had improved.

Some time later, there was a shift in the weather, so I went to pull out some seasonal clothing I had not worn for the better part of a year.

The trouser cuffs hit me at the lower shin. My shirt cuffs did not reach my wrists. What was going on? Had all my clothing shrunk?

I measured my height. I was several centimeters taller than I had ever been in my life. This was not simply restoring the joints and connective tissues; this was real growth. I had not noticed the growing pains, as they were apparently masked by the normal aches and pains of age. I felt better, not worse.

Fortunately, we got the excess growth stopped before it began to affect my facial bones or inner ears. One of the new therapies turned out to be a trigger for HGH and related substances. It was harmless and useful in small amounts, but after that incident we were careful to locate and use the off switch once the therapy had had its desired effects.

I needed a new wardrobe anyway.

Despite a few such odd surprises, the summed effect of my rejuvenation therapies has been exhilarating. The treatments for brain plasticity have been wonderful, and I do not feel that I have lost anything of my more than a century of personal experience and learning. Granted, much of the science that I learned in my youth is no longer valid, but as I have sustained a lifelong habit of learning, I do not feel that I am ossified or superannuated just yet.

My body, under the influence of a variety of therapies, appears to be in an ongoing process of rebuilding itself. I am perhaps not as fit as I was at twenty, but I am better versed in using my body and would not hesitate to take on my younger self in almost any physical contest. Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill, but mature fitness and long-honed skills are an even more formidable combination. Not that I am averse to treachery when called for.

I have so much more work to do. I feel like I am just getting started.