This week may be the last week I write to you. In my last letter to you, you may have noticed that I seemed depressed and not like myself. I wasn’t completely truthful in that letter. I’m not just having a bad day, I’m diseased with an incurable, fatal disease. It all started about week after I left the United States, and you. In the airport, in museums, and just walking through the streets of England I would feel lost and confused, forgetting where I had come from and where I was going. Along with losing some of my mental skills, every so often I would trip over my own feet or drop my travel bag, a sign of me slowly losing coordination. Every hour or so, my hands, legs, and feet would begin to tingle and burn. After about a week of suffering with these symptoms I went to a doctor, a primary care provider only, and discussed how I’d been feeling. He suggested I get some more sleep and possibly change my diet. The first thought was that it was just me getting used to another country, time zone, and food. After a few spinal taps and neurological examinations, I was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or human Mad Cow Disease. …show more content…
In both my body and your’s there are these things called prions which occur normally in humans but when folded incorrectly, they are harmful to the body. These incorrectly folded prions then go on and alter other normal prions by actually changing the structure of the prion’s alpha helical regions into beta pleated sheets. If these altered prions are in your brain, they build up in your neurons and cluster together with each other eventually causing neuron loss and other brain damage. This continued brain damage and neuron loss leads to holes in the brain giving it the consistency of a
She tells her husband that she thinks “‘[they’d] better get to California because [she doesn’t know] whether [she’ll] ever make it again.’ ” Using an anecdote, she proves her point that once one suffers from MS, there is no way to “prevent or predict the damage”. She makes readers feel pity towards her as she uses a remorseful tone to convey her emotion towards the un predictableness of the disease. She then told the story of a friend who also had MS and explains how he questioned God about why he has to be cursed with this horrid disease. She responds to him by saying, “Why not?”
I was in the hospital and had suffered from encephalopathy, which is a brain disease that alters brain function or structure. Apparently, an entire week had passed since I was hospitalized and it was quite obvious that I suffered from amnesia. During this week of amnesia my brain wasn’t functional and I was not mentally there. Apart from brain problems in that week I lost 15 pounds and was barely able to walk. As I took my first steps out of the bed, my legs couldn’t support my body’s weight and it was a grueling experience walking twenty or so steps to the restroom. My mother supported me because of my weakness. At this time I couldn’t do anything without assistance and I had trouble writing or thinking clearly. After a couple days of this pattern I was transferred to another hospital that was specialized in therapy and I sure did need it. Indeed, knew I had a long and
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a rare and fatal human neurodegenerative condition falling under the category of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) because of having characteristic of spongy degeneration of the brain that it causes and its ability to be transmitted. First it was described in the United Kingdom in March 1996 and it has been connected with exposure to a TSE of cattle known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) sometimes called Classical BSE, having been reported first in 1986 in the United Kingdom.
The word encephalitis is derived from two Greek words. Enkephalos, which means brain, and itis, which means inflammation. Encephalitis was defined by Sir John Burton Cleland, a pathologist and naturalist. When he defined it, it was named ‘Australian X disease’.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes rapid degeneration of the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of tissue surrounding the brain). It is closely related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or “mad cow disease” in its pathology. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is often called the human version of BSE and is therefore assumed that it has crossed the species barrier from cattle to man. In the early stages of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it is found that patients have a failing memory, behaviour changes, impaired coordination and vision problems. As the disease progresses into the later stages, the mental deterioration becomes severe. The patients experience uncontrollable movements, blindness, and weakness and
Throughout history, a woman's role is to be an obedient and respectful wife. Her main obligation is to support, serve, and live for her husband and children. In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Susan Glaspell's Trifles, two different women make a decision to take matters into their own hands by doing what they want to do, no matter what the outcome may be and in spite of what society thinks. These two women come from different homes and lead very different lives yet, these two women share similar situations--both are victims, both are seeking individuality, and initially, both women end up alone. There are many ways that Nora and
Creutzfedlt-Jakob Disease(CJD) is a rare, non-treatable, and fatal brain disorder caused by a prion, a pathogen that is smaller than a virus. The causative agent of Creutzfedlt-Jakob Disease is very difficult, almost impossible to destory. The casusative agent is a clear watery fluid that fills the space between the arachnoid membrane and the pia mater. Per year, Creutzfedlt-Jakob Disease effects one in every one million people worldwide, in the United States there are around 300 cases. There are 3 catagories of Creutzfedlt-Jakob Disease; The most common being sporadic CJD(the disease appears even though the person has no common risk factors for CJD), Hereditary CJD, and the least common acquired CJD(caused by exposure to the brain or nervous
Generally, a sponge is equated with the soaking or consumption of liquids. Nevertheless, this is not representative of this disease or its effects on the human brain. This progressive and debilitating disease maintains many unknowns, and patient outlook is equivalent to lethal injection. Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s Disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative, invariably fatal brain disorder, derived from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy caused by prions. Prions occur in a normal state, which are harmless proteins found in the body’s cells, and also in an infectious form that causes disease. Harmless forms of prion proteins have the same sequence of amino acids, but the infectious forms of protein have a different folded shape than normal proteins.
Author Beata Sikorska writes a chapter on this disease in the book Neurodegenerative Diseases, she discusses how this rare disease is caused by an abnormal piece of protein (PrP) called a prion (Sikorska, 2012). A prion is an infectious particle made of proteins and the specific protein PrP is the human gene encoding expressed mostly in the nervous system. Proteins are made up by a string of amino acids that fold and form a 3-D shape; the shape the amino acids take gives these proteins it’s function. When a protein does not fold properly it does not function or can become destructive. The human body has specific mechanisms to protect itself from many different types of infections; one of these mechanisms is the blood brain barrier. This barrier blocks harmful substances from entering the brain while allowing necessary nutrients in this includes allowing PrP proteins to enter. Marie-Clare Porter describes the process of CJD in the British Journal of Anesthesia as a prion which is also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, are a group of neurodegenerative conditions that are transmissible, progressive and uniformly fatal (Porter, 2013). Once a prion enters the brain it can infect other normal proteins causing them to lose function and become destructive. As the affected brain cells continue to die they leave tiny sponge-like holes; these holes eventually lead to the signs and symptoms of CJD and are
To conceive an understanding behind the neurological science of brain function, assessing the possibilities of how and why come into question. Research conducted during post mortem investigations suggests the presence of neurofibrillary triangles (insoluble protein) and senile plaque (hard, wax-like, deposit surrounding brain protein) in the cerebral cortex resulting in degeneration of the tissue. Noted by Munoz and Feldman (2000) of the Canadian Medical Association, the presence of neurofibrillary triangles “signifies the failure of the neuron to properly maintain its cytoskeleton, which is required to support the extraordinarily complex branching shape of its numerous processes” (p.66) if overproduction and imbalanced dispersal of triangles occurs. Senile plaques, however, prove to be significantly harder to detect as the process for plaque build-up starts to take affect well into middle age adults. Components of senile plaques are
Morrie a great dancer, and loved his job as a sociology professor at Brandeis University, Was diagnosed with (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's disease,) (page 6 Morrie). This disease is a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system that slowly takes over your body. However most people would just look at the negative side but not Morrie, he did not see the negative only the positive. He says (Now that I am dying, I’ve become much interested in people) (page 27 Morrie).
This letter is my version of a fail-safe, in the event that I don’t get a chance to say goodbye, or hello again, because something went wrong. This is not my goodbye letter, and please don’t assume I’m dead because you’re reading it. I have every intention to return to school after break as my normal, oddball self, minus one medical problem. I just really hate loose ends, and maybe part of me, even though I tell myself I’m not, is afraid of this. I don’t want to leave the people I’ve grown so close to over these past few years, at least, not without some kind of goodbye, thank you, warning, or p.s. the treasure is hidden in blank. That would just be rude. So here goes nothing.
It has been considered to be one of the most mysterious diseases scientists are fighting so far. With no effective treatment or research on the disease, it has a 100% fatality rate, however fortunately for us, the disease is extremely rare with only 2 cases and deaths since 2008. The disease is caused by an abnormal and infectious protein in the brain called a prion. Normally, prions are used to help transmit messages between certain brain cells. They use “protein folding” which is beginning as a string of amino acids and folding themselves into a 3-D shape. However, CJD causes mistakes in the process, which causes misfolded prion proteins to spread, whereas a healthy person’s body easily recycles them. As more and more misfolded prion
I hope your well, as you may of guessed I myself am not doing very well, as a lot has happened to me in these long ten years. By the time you receive this letter, I would of been dead for some time now, I hope my attorney delivered this letter safely to you, and that you are doing well. I often wondered where that rebellious teen who tried to steal from me that night had ended up? I sure hope no grave robbers come to try and steal my pocket book, but lord knows I would kick them right in the “blue jean sitter” if a fool was ever to try. I’m sure you remember that encounter that we had in the middle of the night on the street corner ten years ago, If not, I did not do my job. Remember when I pulled you up and dragged you to my house around
Neurodegeneration simply refers to the progressive death of neurons. As the condition progresses, the neurons will lose both structure and function. Diseases that are neurodegenerative in nature are incurable and results in the death of neurons; the transmitting and receiving of nerve impulses is accomplished by neurons. The loss of neurons occurs in a plethora of diseases such as: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's. ALS specifically refers to the death of motor neurons (i.e. neurons responsible for controlling muscle movement) and ability to control your muscles gradually worsens over time (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and