Life is truly Amazing - The Miracle (one of many)

Life is truly Amazing - The Miracle

Have you ever considered how amazing life really is, if it was not “man’s” pettiness it would be a wonderful world to live in?  God created everything for a purpose, a reason, and then he created mankind, giving mankind free will, what a mess up that was.  God placed humans on this earth to be caretakers.  When God has enough and ends this world as we know it, will he create something to replace his failures (mankind).  Or will everything live in harmony, the animals and insects, the fish and birds?   Does this earth need “caretakers”?  Its man that has destroyed the delicate balance, that God has created.

I am fascinated how we are created, from the female egg and the male sperm, to fertilization, to the nine months of development, till birth…. A true miracle, the creation of new life!!

The female egg (Ovum)

Did you know that you already existed before your mother was even born?  That you were in your mother, while your mother was still in your grandmother’s womb?  The production of a woman’s egg happens entirely in-utero and stops before her birth.  The woman has about 7 million immature eggs when she is in her mother’s womb, and this number will drop to 700,000 by the time your mother reaches puberty.

Some eggs will lie dormant for years or even decades before they begin to mature, while others will degenerate and never develop. For eggs to complete their journey to ovulation, they receive a signal to begin their final maturation process about 150 days before they would be released from the ovary.

At the beginning of any given cycle, there are generally about 12 eggs that have started to grow, and as ovulation nears, preference is given to one of those eggs, as it receives the final push to maturity and is then released from the ovary.  The mature egg will go into the fallopian tube where it lives from 12 to 24 hours.  The mature egg has only a lifespan of about a day. 

Once ovulation occurs, there is a big hormonal shift that takes place, progesterone production is revved up, and the release of any future eggs is halted. Therefore, it is not possible for a woman to ovulate on Monday, and ovulate again on Saturday.

Multiple ovulations can happen, the release of two or more mature eggs are released.  A woman can release two or more eggs at least once a year.

Did you know that the woman’s egg is the biggest cell in the woman body?  It’s about the size of a grain of sand and is actually visible to the naked eye? That means the woman’s egg is about 4 times bigger than a skin cell, 26 times bigger than a red blood cell and 16 times bigger than a sperm!!

Scientists have discovered a new type of stem-cell in the human ovary that may point to the possibility of new eggs continually being formed throughout a woman’s reproductive years.

The sperm (Spermatozoon)

The sperm is necessary for creating a baby.  Just because the woman carries the baby for nine months, it does not mean that the sperm does not have an equally important role for creating a healthy child.

Men are constantly making new sperm (about 1,500 every second).  Sperm can stay alive inside a woman’s uterus and fallopian tubes anywhere from 1 to 5 days.  The lifespan of the sperm is dependent on the sperm’s health, but also on the woman’s cervical fluid, which can nourish the sperm during its wait.  

What a man eats daily plays a very important role in the health of their sperm.

Drinking more than 3 cups of coffee per day can reduce sperm concentration and sperm count, and lower the quality of the sperm.

Vitamin C improves the quality of sperm, and protects the sperm from DNA damage.  Vitamin C also improves the sperm motile but preventing the sperm from clumping together. Consumption of fresh fruit gave sperm a boost in speed and agility.

DHA found in Omega-3 essential fatty acid play a critical role in proper formation of sperm.  A round-headed sperm can become a healthy, cone shaped head, full of important egg-opening enzymes once again, when DHA levels are increased. DHA also plays a role in sperm motility. An increase in DHA levels was shown to play a role in the fluidity for sperm tail bending and flexing required for forward movement of sperm.

Men need to climax regularly for healthy sperm.

Men’s sperm can be damaged by wireless devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones, especially laptop computers using Wi Fi.  Men should avoid holding laptops directly on their laps, and keep cell phones away from pant pockets.

Considering the size of sperm, they have a great journey to meet up with the female egg in the fallopian tube. One can imagine the incredible energy that must be used for this journey. That is only half the battle for a sperm to create life though. Once to the egg, also known as the ova, they work to penetrate it. Whipping their tails frantically seems like it would be very tiring, but that is where progesterone comes in. Sperm gets a boost of energy from a burst of female progesterone, which encourages sperm to whip their tails more passionately. This helps a sperm to penetrate the egg.

Sperm can melt the surface of the female egg. They do this by releasing enzymes from a portion of the head known as the acrosome, to dissolve the outer membrane of the egg. This helps the sperm to burrow through the egg wall. The sperm plasma then fuses with the plasma membrane of the egg. At this time the sperm head disconnects from the tail and conception of a new life occurs.

Sperm look very different than any other cell in a man’s body. It is true they are shaped that way to help them get where they need to go, but they are also shaped that way because they only carry half as much DNA as other cells in the male body. Because of this the immune system sees them as a foreign invader. Specialized cells in the testicles protect sperm cells, creating a barrier from immune system cells which would otherwise attack and harm them. It is common for this barrier to be broken and sperm to be damaged in as many as 70% off all vasectomy patients.

The testicles are about 7 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the body. Healthier sperm need to stay cooler than the rest of the body. The testicles work much like a refrigerator, creating a heat exchange from incoming and outgoing blood vessels.

Conception

Conception is possible if sperm is already present in the fallopian tubes when the egg is released, or if a woman has sex while the egg is alive, causing sperm to swim up through the uterus and into the fallopian tube. Sperm can reach the egg in as little as 30 minutes. If conception is successful, the newly fertilized egg will travel out of the fallopian tube and implant into the uterus 6 to 10 days later. This means that sex up to 5 days prior to ovulation can actually result in pregnancy!

If the egg is not fertilized, it will simply dissolve and pass out with the menstrual flow.

When 2 eggs are released and both are fertilized, this produces fraternal twins. Identical twins are produced when a single embryo splits into two.

When discussing fertilization, the egg is often portrayed as a passive player in the drama of conception, waiting patiently for the first sperm to arrive and burst in. But research has shown that the egg has a much bigger role than previously thought, and that she is in fact quite picky! 

Although we usually think of the sperm doing all the hard work of fertilization, penetrating the docile egg, it is now believed that the egg actually chooses who she lets in or not.

The egg appears to give preference to sperm with intact DNA, producing a compound that softens the outer layer of the egg to allow specific sperm to enter. These studies also suggest that the egg may even actively bind sperm to its surface, thereby not giving the sperm any choice in the matter, trapping the sperm it has chosen. Once a sperm has made its way in, the outer layer of the egg hardens, which prevents entry to any other suitors.

Implantation, the attachment of the fertilized egg to the uterus, happens on average about 9 days after ovulation/fertilization (between 6 and 12 days) and is required for the foetus to continue to grow.

Fertilization results in the creation of a zygote. The zygote begins the process of cleavage or cellular replication, resulting in a morula or ball of cells. At 3 days post-conception a solid ball of 16 cells is present. This blastomere begins to separate into two parts: the trophoblast or outer layer of cells, which will form the placenta, and an inner cell mass or embryoblast, which will begin to differentiate and evolve into the embryo, and a cavity forms within the cell mass. When the cavity is recognizable, the structure of the developing embryo is called a blastocyst. The blastocyst will then implant into the endometrium lining.

The embryo: Twelve days after conception, placental blood circulation and hormone production begins, often detectable in the pregnant woman’s urine by a home pregnancy test. The embryonic stage is where differentiation begins: the creation of cell types that become blood cells, kidney and nerve cells. By 5 weeks the heart has begun to beat and the central nervous system to form, plus tiny buds appear which will be the arms and legs of the now peanut-shaped embryo.

Over the next few weeks up to week 10, fingers and toes form, but may still be webbed. The brain and lungs, elbows and toes, eyelids, ears, facial features and all essential bodily organs have begun to form. Around the end of the first trimester, the baby can make a fist and the head makes up about half of the baby’s size.



The embryo becomes a fetus in the 10th week


The second trimester is week 13 – 27 and the third trimester is from week 28 to birth. In the second trimester, during weeks 15 to 18, fetal movements begin. In weeks 19 – 21, the baby can hear and you may feel fluttering in your lower abdomen. At week 22, you will begin to feel the baby moving and a fetal heartbeat can be heard with a stethoscope. The baby develops a startle reflex at about week 26 and rapid brain development occurs as you move into the third trimester. In that final trimester, the nervous and respiratory systems develop, bones begin to form and fingernails and hair grow.

Life is a miracle, don’t let it slip away,

Open your heart to others, give of yourself each day.

See the beauty in everyone, regardless of where they’ve been,

Some have a difficult journey, and really need a friend.

Share your gifts and talents, listen with your heart.

Do the things you dream about, but don’t have time to start.

Pick a bouquet of flowers, show someone that you care.

Be gracious and forgiving, life is never fair.

Hold on to your courage, you may need it down the road,

We all have a cross to bear, it could be a heavy load.

If you practice all these things, no matter where you roam,

You may find both sun and rain, but you’ll never feel alone.

The boy who inspired Lorenzo's Oil

This is a remarkable story, of parents that never gave up on their son, after he was diagnosed with ALD, which is very rare and only affects 1 out of 45.000 people.  There was not very much known about it, and it attracted little money for research. What the doctors did know was that it was fatal and incurable, and that Lorenzo would probably not live more than two more years. His parents, did everything in their power to find a cure for their son.





                                   

                                                                                                 

Mr. Odone and his wife began noticing changes in their son when he was about 4. A high-spirited and precocious boy who spoke three languages, Lorenzo had suddenly begun slurring his speech, stumbling and having temper tantrums at school.

Doctors first ascribed the symptoms to a tropical disease, possibly contracted in Comoros, off the coast of Mozambique, where Mr. Odone had taken his family while working on a project for the bank. They had recently returned to Washington, where the World Bank has its headquarters.

After two years of testing, though, doctors told the Odones that their son had ALD. Because it was so rare, affecting one in 45,000 people, “We were being told to go home and watch Lorenzo die,” Mr. Odone wrote in an essay published in 2011. “We couldn’t and didn’t.”

When he was diagnosed, Lorenzo's father Augusto was desperate.  "I was terrorised, I was shocked. Well, it's a death sentence.  "So I asked the doctor if I could read the medical papers. He said: 'Don't bother, you won't understand them'."

Undeterred, Augusto Odone spent night after night in the library scouring every single paper about his son's illness. He discovered that the brain damage seemed to be linked to a build up of dangerous fatty acids in the blood - long chain fatty acids.

He invited all the world experts to a conference to discuss the research, and it was at the conference that he first found a glimmer of hope.

An oil - oleic acid - was able to destroy these fatty acids.  Less than a year later Augusto and his wife Michaela had a treatment: a combination of oils that effectively reduced the long chain fatty acids in the blood. It was astonishing. Where the entire medical profession had failed, two ordinary parents had succeeded. 

Dr Hugo Moser, the world authority on ALD, remembers that early optimism.  "Lorenzo's oil lowered the fatty acids more effectively than any other medical approach that had been tried. We would be foolish not to give it very serious consideration." Augusto published his findings and Dr Moser started putting all of his young ALD patients on the oil.

For one family in Britain, news of the Odones' triumph couldn't have come at a better time.

The Stafford family had just discovered that their seven-year-old son Barry had just been diagnosed with ALD.  They flew over to America and Barry became the first British patient to be put on Lorenzo's oil.  Within weeks his long chain fatty acid levels had dropped to normal. 



Over the next few years, the movie Lorenzo's oil, starring Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte, was released.  It received huge acclaim, and Susan Sarandon was Oscar nominated for her role as Lorenzo's mother.  It showed a miracle cure but the reality was beginning to look very different.

Lorenzo himself was still alive, but was not getting better; and one by one, other children on the oil died.  Barry Stafford was getting worse and worse, and his mother Chris was upset at the hype round the film.  "Lovely film - but I did have a problem - it made it seem like a miracle cure, but it's not and I've proved that with Barry, " she said.

Seven years after being put on the oil, Barry died. The disease had caused massive brain damage and the oil didn't seem to be able to stop the progression.

Barry's fate was not unique. Other children were also dying, despite being on Lorenzo's oil.
Doctors all over the world stopped prescribing the oil.

Augusto Odone turned his formidable drive into another area of research - trying to regenerate the damaged nerves in the brain.

Dr Moser, however, was not prepared to give up. He decided to focus on boys who had the ALD gene but had not yet developed the symptoms.

Perhaps the oil could prevent the disease ever appearing. Boys like Barry's younger brother Glenn were put on the oil. 

From about the age of 8, Lorenzo was paralyzed and blind, unable to speak, dependent on a feeding tube and kept alive by round-the-clock nursing care and the nearly full-time ministrations of his parents. They talked to him constantly and insisted that visitors do likewise, though no one could be certain about his level of awareness. His parents believed that Lorenzo recognized their voices, loved music and enjoyed being alive.

After 10 years the results are finally through. And they are dramatic.

Of 120 boys in the trial 83 are still free of the disease. Lorenzo's Oil is showing a significant preventative effect.

According to Dr Moser taking the oil reduced the chance of getting the disease by half.

And Glenn Stafford, the first non-symptomatic patient to be out on the oil is now 21 years old and fully fit.

"If they hadn't caught the disease and put me on the oil then I don't think I would be here now," he said.

"So it's due to the oil that I'm here now."

So now there is real hope. Tests can identify boys with the gene, and the oil gives them a hugely improved chance of escaping the horrific disease.

And Augusto Odone? He's delighted with the findings. But he's still, 15 years on, looking for a cure for his son who lies at home, paralysed by the ALD.

Mr. Odone conceded, mainly in interviews he gave after his wife died in 2000, that he had sometimes wondered if that was enough of a life to justify the extraordinary lengths to which he and his wife had gone.

“Lorenzo never regained his faculties,” said Cristina Odone, one of Mr. Odone’s two children from a previous marriage, in a phone interview. But she added: “If you had ever walked into the room and seen how Lorenzo responded to the way my father and Michaela embraced him in life, wrapped him in love, you would see he was a living being who knew he was loved. That’s what they gave him, but it was very difficult.”

Lorenzo Odone, died of pneumonia in May 2008 at the age of 30, one day after his 30th birthday, having lived 22 years longer than doctors predicted.

Lorenzo's Oil  is a 1992 American drama film directed by George Miller. It is based on the true story of Augusto and Michaela Odone, two parents in a relentless search for a cure for their son Lorenzo's adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). The film was nominated for two Academy Awards. It was filmed primarily from September 1991 to February 1992 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The film had a limited release in North America on December 30, 1992, with a nationwide release two weeks later on January 15, 1993.