Tails From Rainbow Bridge: Human Research May Be Doing Some Good

Finally, humans have started using medical research to do something besides making daddy’s little soldier to stand up longer.

They have turned their attention to one of life’s most important endeavours.  Making our lives longer.  

Let me tell you about rapamycin.  When I was first informed about it, I thought it was a clever name for a Hasidic hip-hop artist, but it is a drug discovered on an island called Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, where primitive humans built big giant heads convenient for male dogs to pee on.  

The drug is created by a bacterium that is found in the soil of Rapa Nui.  The island’s indigenous people believed that the living and the dead had an ongoing relationship, even more sophisticated than today’s relationship of blogging from Rainbow Bridge.  The famous heads built at Easter Island were in tribute to the dead.

Is it any surprise that in this soil was found a drug that could not just create a relationship between the living and the dead, but hold off death itself.

Rapamycin is being referred to as a miracle drug because t has rejuvenation properties in dogs.  That is right, it’s a drug for us, an anti-Rainbow Bridge drug.

I usually find human research on dogs to be silly, but I am all for the Dog Aging Project, which is testing Rapamycin.  And they have found success.

Last year, a 13 year old dog named Sherman suffered a debilitating stroke.  He was unable to walk, or eat, without assistance.  He took Rapamycin for three days, and he was able to eat on his own.  He took it for four more days, and he was walking on his own.  Today he is acting like a dog half his age, happily playing in his yard with his brother Momo.

Momo was a year younger than Sherman and he was slowing down.  His parents decided to give him the drug.  He began playing like a youthful dog again.

Like all miracles there are complications. The side effects can be extremely painful making the quality of life much less than the quantity.  And the drug is still experimental.

But, if you are certain your dog is headed for the Bridge it might be worth the chance.

Someday, of course, researchers hope to make this drug available to humans.  We are part of that testing procedure.

But we have all dedicated our lives to make humans’ lives better, maybe we can make their lives longer too.

Longer time spent with us.