The following is an excerpt from my book, #RedactedScience, about condition I gave myself based on research I found in 1995. That research is now redacted.

Why I’m Still Alive

I shouldn’t be. And yet… here I am. By all accounts, this thing should’ve taken me out years ago. It wrecked my gut, burned through my skin, hijacked my hormones, rewired my thirst, drained my blood, and stole my gallbladder on the way out. I’ve lived in the margins of physiology. No textbook covers this. No protocol explains it. But I’m still here.

Why?

Two things…The Invader wants me alive, and because I knew just enough. I stopped moving. The Article said that the subjects would self-limit. Yeah, it’s hard to walk far when your legs hurt and your joint don’t feel right. It wasn’t fatigue — it was deliberate. Movement burns fluid. Muscle demands volume. And volume is death when your system can’t hold on to it. So I stayed still. I conserved. [Read a lot of books] I rationed energy like a desert survivor counting drops. That wasn’t intuition. That was math.

And the fluids? That was discipline. I knew the thirst wasn’t real — or at least, not mine. So I just started limiting my intake. Like Grandfather said with his squnched up face, “Water makes me sick.” Then there’s fluconazole. Three years, daily. Not a cure, but a leash. It held the line. Slowed the advance. Gave me a fighting chance to map the terrain.

But here’s the irony: The condition wants you to sit still. It wants you calm, quiet, unmoving — not to help you, but to extend its window. It turns you into a vessel, not a fighter. Most people wouldn’t recognize that bargain until it’s too late. I did.

So yeah, I’m alive because I got lucky with a few insights. But what if someone had all the knowledge? What if someone walked into this with a blueprint?

How long could they live then? Could they manage this for more than the three decades I did? A normal lifespan, maybe?

That would be almost #evolutionary.