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The Results of Aging With and Without a Cure

Kasie Harold
UNC Charlotte

WITHOUT THE CURE

Karsyn Smith was born in Atlanta Georgia into a family composed of a loving mother,
father, and older brother. She grew up and was raised in the same upper middle class
neighborhood until she turned 18 and went off to college just a few hours away in South
Carolina. She was healthy and happy all throughout her childhood and young adulthood.
She went to a public school through all of grade school and made many friends and few
enemies.
Once she got to college all she knew was that her ambition could take her to the top and
allow her to become prestigious in whatever she did. She decided to become a doctor.
She wanted to be respected and feel smarter than the general public. She was not selfindulged, she just wanted to make the most of herself and her capacities to learn and
carry out. She went to college and graduated 8 years later with the best of grades and a
doctorate degree. She immediately got offered a job from her internship in South
Carolina and worked her way up to becoming the head gastric bypass surgeon at the
hospital. She loved this position because it allowed her to help people with their weight,
which was a major health factor in society. She like especially that her patients made the
conscious decision to get the surgery and she did not have to take the burden of deciding
for them.
After 3 years in her profession, Karsyn got married to another doctor working at the
hospital. Within a year, she had a baby girl and within two more years she had a second
daughter. Her career continued to progress and she decided to branch off from the
hospital to create her own establishment for her practice. At first she only had the

patients she had already been working with but over the years her patient base grew much
larger (Stoetzel, J., 1980). Two years after the birth of her youngest daughter, Karsyn
gave birth to a son. Even with three kids to raise she still focused heavily on her work,
but she hired other doctors to work for her in order to accommodate the growing amount
of patients.
Karsyn enjoyed spending time with her husband and kids and took many vacations to
visit her parents and brother. Her family and career were her two main priorities and she
did not put much time or thought into religion. She thought of herself as a Christian and
prayed when necessary but did not attend church. As she grew older she hit her peak in
her professionalism, much later than many of her friends who were not professionals,
which was typical (Stoetzel, J., 1980). She had reached the level of prestige she had
always strived for and realized that she was becoming bored. She took more time off to
spend with her kids, even though they were almost fully grown.
At age 65, both Karsyn and her husband decided to retire and enjoy the life that they
could afford based off how hard they worked. Karsyn was unhappy in her retirement
because she felt as if her prestige vanished. Just because she had gotten older people
were talking to her as if she was never smart enough to have been a surgeon, due to social
stereotypes about the old (Comfort, A., 1976). Her career and family had kept her
constantly busy and she had never before had serious health issues. Her boredom and
disappointment with her age, and newly restricted blood flow thanks to genes, led her to
depression, which can be expected to be more likely as people age (Older Adults and
Depression). By age 70, she also learned that she had Alzheimers, which only gets

worse with age (Alzheimers Disease and Dementia). The Alzheimers oddly helped
her to be happy again because she often forgot about her career and the prestige she once
cared so much about. She spent all of her time with her healthy husband who cared for
her and her kids visited often. She died at the age of 77 as a happy woman who could
only remember her husband in her kids.
IN A WORLD WITH THE CURE
Karsyn Smith was born in Atlanta Georgia into a family composed of a loving
mother, father, and older brother. She grew up and was raised in the same upper middle
class neighborhood until she turned 18 and went off to college just a few hours away in
South Carolina. She was healthy and happy all throughout her childhood and young
adulthood. She went to a public school through all of grade school and made many
friends and few enemies.
Once she got to college all she knew was that her ambition could take her to the top and
allow her to become prestigious in whatever she did. She decided to become a doctor.
She wanted to be respected and feel smarter than the general public. She was not selfindulged, she just wanted to make the most of herself and her capacities to learn and
carry out. She went to college and graduated 8 years later with the best of grades and a
doctorate degree. She immediately got offered a job from her internship in South
Carolina and worked her way up to becoming the head gastric bypass surgeon at the
hospital. She loved this position because it allowed her to help people with their weight,
which was a major health factor in society. She like especially that her patients made the
conscious decision to get the surgery and she did not have to take the burden of deciding

for them. After 3 years in her profession, Karsyn got married to another doctor working
at the hospital. Within a year, she had a baby girl and within two more years she had a
second daughter.
Just one year after she had her last kid the invention of the cure was released. She was
intrigued by it but afraid to get it herself because she did not know how she would feel
about looking the same when she died as she did right then (Magary, J., p.31). She
decided to stop doing bypass surgeries and start administering the cure to patients
illegally. She was proud that she was educated enough give the cure and loved that again,
the choice was up to her patients. She gave the cure to tons of people who came to her
hoping that it would help her decide if it was a good idea for her and her family.
Her husband and children tried to convince her to give them all the cure but she had her
reservations. Eventually she gave in and administered the cure to her family, except for
herself. She thought of devotion to working hard and helping others and realized that she
could make more of her life if she did not have to age for another day. A year after she
gave her family the cure, she gave it to herself. She was now going to be physically age
42 until the day she died.
For many years, life went on and Karsyn and her family enjoyed their seemingly eternal
youth, or rather, middle age. However, society began to change and as people grew more
opposed to the cure violence broke out. She felt helpless and was unable to protect her
kids from everything, especially the growing scarcity of resources. One day, her son was
killed because an anti cure terrorist found out that he had gotten the cure. Karsyn went
into a major depression and completely lost her ability to enjoy life (Older Adults and

Depression). The fact that she knew she could potentially live with this guilt for
hundreds of years pushed her over the edge and pushed her to commit suicide. She knew
that the cure had helped her avoid the high risk of dementia and Alzheimers which
increases with age (Alzheimers Disease and Dementia), but she would have taken the
most severe of these health issues over the depression she went through. She knew she
was leaving her husband and daughters behind but she knew they would be okay as long
as they did not fall into depression themselves. After being age 42 for just 10 years she
felt as if she had suffered a life of 100 years and finally gave in to inducing her own
death.

References
Alzheimer's Disease & Dementia. Alzheimer's Association.
Comfort, A. (1976). Age Prejudice in America. Scholarly Journals
Magary, Drew. 2011. The Postmortal: A novel. New York: Penguin Books.
Older Adults and Depression. National Institute of Mental Health
Stoetzel, J. (1980). Life Stage and Social Station: A Study of Age and Income
Differences in Diverse Profession. Scholarly Journals