My genes don't fit.

The genes never really fit right. I knew that. Even as a kid I knew that there

was something not quite right about my genes. Sure. They looked like everyone

elses. Twisted pairs of G, C, T and A strung together making my genes unique to

me and only me, but still I knew something wasn't where it was supposed to be.

They just didn't feel right.

Oh sure, I tried to ignore it. I'd be in school and the other kids with the

gene for a southern drawl would make fun of my Yankee accent - until I learned

you could modify your own genetic sequence for a southern drawl by sheer force

of will if you wanted to hard enough. It wasn't long before I was ya'll-ing

with the rest of em and my memories of northern snows and funny talk becoming

more and more distant.

Having moved around alot, I knew that there was a wonderful variety of genetic

diversity to be seen all over the world and that nice as this particular spot

might be, there was surely going to be a new and even more interesting place

just around the corner, over the hill or around the bend. Growing up in the

60's I learned that the genes that made 'us' different from 'them' were

becoming fewer and fewer by the day. Some of the old timers of course clung to

their belief that the CGAT's would never ever mix or blend with the GCAT's no

matter what they said we had to do in Washington. It's nice to see that we have

been able to move on with our lives and blend with abandon (in most cases) with

little or no negative consequence.

Now in my 40's I realized that not only didn't my now well worn genes fit

anymore but that something was wrong with them. I still wasn't sure what it was

exactly. Tuck them this way or that, something was wrong... somthing was just

not right. That something was a twist in an enzyme that caused a fold to flip

this way instead of that which lead to something else, which led to something

else which led to emphysema. Well I'll be damned. Something that small wrong

for so long and only now...

I read somewhere that for a about $1000 dollars I can get my genes sequenced.

Too bad that you can't take a set of bad genes back to the store and exchange

them for a new set. Genes repaired while you wait. Get copies for your friends.

It's an intresting world we live in. That's for sure. Tonight I'll sleep and

tomorrow I will awaken. That's the plan at least. I'll still have my same old

genes and they and I will go about the businiess of living with lung disease.

I'll consider how lucky I am to live in the world we live in where we can talk

of genes and repairs and transplants and replacement therapies. I'll also

consider the costs of making ends meet on a fixed income and wonder how much

I'll be copaying next year or the year after that. I'll wonder if they will

come up with a pill for our disease. My nurse at the hospital said that her

other alpha patient told her that she'd heard that a pill was just around the

corner... 2 years away. She said that she was praying hard about it. I'm not

sure if she meant she was or the other patient was. Maybe both?

Prayer is good. A pill would certainly be nice.

I'll make a list for my wife of the stuff we need to get ready for the cub

scout celebration coming up this weekend and wonder how many of the people

there have genes that don't fit them; and if they know - or if they would even

want to.

But before the day gets too far ahead of me, I'll give myself a breathing

treatment, take my meds, I'll wonder why my genes don't fit and slowly,

steadily, I'll get on with my day.

Slow and steady wins the race. Besides, it's the only race in town.