Season Extended

Biochemistry may be considered to be the scientific study of the chemistry of life. However, my biochemistry professor used to say that, "The more one studies biochemistry, the more one asks, not how is it we are alive but why aren't we dead." By this he meant that the further we probe into the complex interactions that keep us alive, the wonder of life is replaced by the amazement that something has not already gone wrong.

Indeed, to stay alive, some two million different proteins must be functioning properly. These proteins consist of chains of amino acids in a specific sequence that can be as short as 51 units (insulin) or as long as 26,926 (connectin). Now consider that in many of those two million proteins, a single amino acid in the wrong place in the sequence may be enough to kill you. On top of that, the level of these proteins must also be just right in relation to each other. To try to understand this, try picturing that you have to type words consisting of between 51 and 26,926 letters each in an exact sequence and then make sure that you type these words an exact number of times which is specific for each of the two million different words. And now try to imagine that you have to keep typing this with close to 100% accuracy again and again or it is game over!

Okay, enough with the science lesson. The point that I am trying to make is that it is a miracle that we are alive and a miracle that we stay alive and that is just from the aspect of our body function. Next we have to consider that we live in a dangerous world full of myriads of possible threats. Life could be snuffed out by natural phenomena, illness, contact with dangerous plants and animals, machinery, other humans etc........ Again, I think we ought to be thankful we are still alive.

In my last post, I kind of joked about being a Star Trek Redshirt (i.e. he who gets killed off in the very first episode). I must say that I am thankful that I have made it to my 47th year. There have been occasions that my season could have ended but God has chosen to extend my contract. I don't know why He has done so but I know He has set my Guardian Angel to protect me thus far. Sometimes, my own stupidity has kept my Guardian Angel busy.

Below are just some of the incidents that I remember which we may call my near death experiences or perhaps preferably, my life extention experiences.

1. The Glass Guilotine. When I was a toddler, I apparently smashed my hand through a pane glass door and a sheet of glass came crashing down that could have taken my head off but I escaped with a badly cut finger and a scar today to show for it.

2. The Rotting Gut. I had a bad stomach pain when I was 11 years old. I went to hospital for observation but the pain disappeared overnight. The doctor came in the morning and decided to discharge me, However, despite my best effort to get out of there like the wind, a more senior doctor came and decided that I should have some exploratory surgery. I protested that I was well but he insisted. He operated and saved me from a perforated appendix.

3. The Rock Landing. When I was about 12, I went for a school picnic at the foot of a dam. All of us were excited when the bus dropped us at the top of a small valley. To get to the bottom where we could picnic and swim, we had to negotiate a slope of about 30-40 degrees consisting of loose rocks. Overgrowing the rocks were some jungle creepers. In my enthusiasm, I grabbed hold of a couple of food hampers and made my way down. The hampers were not heavy but they were bulky and they inhibited my line of sight so that as I was making my way down, I caught my foot on a creeper vine and went flying into the air. I feared the worse. Yet, despite falling a vertical distance of more than twenty feet, I landed on my feet in the loose rocks, kept my balance, suffered no injury and even managed to catch my two food hampers. I think my Guardian Angel was particularly alert that day.

4. The Bicycle Incident. When I was 14, I stayed away from home for a month with family friends in the boondocks and I enjoyed the freedom and new experiences. I eventually became a very good bicycle rider but that was not so at the beginning. At the beginning, I was an idiot and a klutz. One early trip, I decided to cycle to a nearby village post office to mail some letters. The bicycle I used had a basket in the front and I placed my letters there. Before long, I was cycling along a pothole ridden single lane road that led to the village. Despite being a small country road, the vehicular traffic was heavy and often recklessly fast. I was happily cycling along when it all happened in a flash. The bicycle hit a pothole; the letters flew up and one fell out; without thinking, I bent into the traffic and grabbed at the letter. Next thing I heard was a loud horn and I felt the rush of a car passing less than an inch from my head.

5. The Gang Standoff. When I was 16, I regularly played basketball at my school which had two basketball courts side by side. One Saturday, as we were playing (and you could consider my gang of 10 to be mostly skinny nerds), we were suddenly approached by a gang of 10 ruffians. They were looking for a fight. They started pushing and intimidating us and nothing we said could placate them. Things got worse by the minute as some of them picked up long metal pipes from a nearby construction site. Others showed us that they were armed with hunting knives. Honestly, all I could do was pray and wait for the pain to start. Then at almost the point of no return, a well respected atheletic school prefect came by and at great risk to himself, intervened. So instead of fighting, we played each other in a rough and tough basketball game. We lost the game but won some respect from the other gang and parted on better terms. However, it could have been so easily been quite bloody.

This post is already too long and I haven't even told you how I survived beyond my teen years. I will have to continue in the next post. However, I would very much like to hear how you, dear readers, are survivors. I am sure you have similar or even more interesting stories of your own life extension experiences.