BIO 101 - Presentations

Our first presenter up was Christine, she was born with a condition called Nystagmus. It is the involunteery movement of the eyes and it somehow seems to be related to the environment shes in. Sometimes the eyes will moves around under stress but several things have helped her. Christine says that when her head is tilted at a certain angle, that it helps her focus and see better. This condition reduces her vision slightly but it's not like shes blind. Glasses has also helped made her eyes better. Another thing she tried to make better of the condition was to use acupuncture. This is done but putting tiny needles in her eye brow area. This condition is said to be perminat and is common in people who are albinos. Nystagmus happens in 1/several thaosand children.

The second presenter which I found to be pretty entertaining was Ed. He was born with mild autism syndrom. 1/166 people are born with it but back when Ed was born, it was estimated that 1/2000 children are born with autism. Autism is a condition where your brain is 8% bigger. The conditions that go with autism might be having a slow response towards things and limited speech. However I was amazed when Ed said he read the last Harry Potter book in about 9 hours, that had to do with his faster processing of information. Autism comes with weak social skills but in a mild case like Ed's, he can do pretty well. One incident he told us about was when he was hiding under the bus in Kindergarden because some kid bullied him. He also said that kids with autism are often more affected by negattive remarks and is damaged by it.

The last presenter was a girl who was born with Congenital Heart Disease. Her name was Jenna. She says that 1% or 8/1000 has her type of heart disease at birth. She was born in September 19th of 1984 and just 2 days later, she had her first heart surgery. Jenna called herself a blue baby and even showed us a picture of it. Technically she was that color because not enough oxygen was allowed in her body, therefore turning purple/blue. He oxygen level was 39 when the norm should have been near 100. Her heart was missing critical vessels that allowed blood to correctly transfer to the heart and some heart tissue was simply not present. The doctors had to use the veins in her arm to repair the heart. Several procedures was done including the recent one of replacing a calciumated tissue of the heart. She is due for another surgery soon. Dispite her condition, she is very happy about being able to still do the things she does, she still parties and eats anything she wants. She looks really healthy for someone with these problems and I wish her the best of luck with her health.