Sarah Battise
BIO100
Milestone Paper
11/15/12
Part I / Trisomy 21
It was
early February in 1997 but I remember it like it was yesterday, my sister
announced that her and her husband were going to have their first child. The
whole family was overjoyed and excited about their future. A tiny miracle had
already begun and gone through major transformations.
Fast
forward to September 22, 1997 and my sweet nephew was born. The labor went well
and there were no complications but it was clear that this sweet boy was not
like the rest of the babies in the
nursery. The bridge of his nose was flat and wide, his fingers were stubby, he
had an eyelid fold and he was very lethargic. This miracle that we had been
waiting and preparing for, our sweet boy was born with down syndrome.
The
first thing that runs through a parents mind when something is wrong with their
child is, “what did I do wrong?” In this instance, mother nature had plans that
were decided months before we even knew he would be born. Down syndrome occurs
when the individual has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the normal two
copies. In most instances, it’s the mother’s egg that contains the two copies
of this chromosome instead of two, however, in 23% of the cases studied, the
sperm had the extra chromosome 21.
My
sister was a very young mother, however, the chance of a woman having a child
with down the eggs are stuck in a process phase called phase 1 of meiosis.
Since long periods of time may occur between the start and completion of
meiosis, there is a greater chance that nondisjunction will occur and that is
what happens to create a chromosome abnormality.
Regardless
of his differences, my little nephew is just another very special member of this
family. He struggles with a lot of things and he will not get to experience
life and most of us know it, however, I believe he is happier than most of us.
He is always happy and he has even shown many of us the true meaning of love
and happiness.
Sources:
Board, A.D.A.M.
Editorial. "Trisomy 21." Down Syndrome. U.S. National Library
of Medicine, 18 Nov. 0000. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001992/>.
Mader, Sylvia S.,
Michael Windelspecht, and Lynn Preston. Essentials of Biology. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 150-51. Print.
Part II
The class seems to be going better for me. I feel as though
things are going more smoothly and I am able to understand and keep up with the
material. Things have gotten more interesting since we’ve gotten past the cell
units. I see the importance of learning about the cells and their functions,
however, genes, reproduction and evolution have proven to be much more interesting.
