That's an excellent explanation, Greg. We've heard Dr. Young report on this line of research and treatment at patient conferences and it sounds more and more promising.
One way we've heard telomeres described is that they are like the tips of shoelaces, called aglets, that keep the rest of your shoelace from unraveling.
As long as your aglet lasts it keeps the string of your shoelace from becoming frayed. But if your aglet is lost the ends of the string are exposed and can start to unravel.
In the analogy your chromosome is the shoelace. The genes that matter (the string) are protected by the telomere (aglet) on the end, which contains filler. It takes the beating so your important genes don't have to. People with short telomeres are more likely to end up with bad chromosomes after call division.
When aglets wear out you replace the shoelace. With telomeres you coax them into growing as they are supposed to do normally.
I hope you make it into the trial.