I am Down syndrome. I make you look different, feel different and act different. I’m a horrible mutation that follows you from birth to death and can’t fully be cured.
My life starts when my host’s life starts. Usually, the nucleus in a cell contains 46 chromosomes. 23 from your mother and 23 from your father. Down syndrome, which is me, is when a person has an extra copy of chromosome 21
for a total of 47 chromosomes. So that means I change up the way cells replicate themselves. Which changes the way the body functions because it unorganized the body. The human body is used to 23/23 chromosomes and can be divided equally because it’s an even number of chromosomes.
I don’t know why I choose to mutate cells but it’s most likely because the mother of the host was around 50 years of age. I prefer to mutate the cells of baby’s that have older mothers.
As my host was developing in the whom, she slowly started to develop the symptoms that come with me. When my host was born, her symptoms got stronger and were eyes that have an upward slant and white spots on the iris, small stature and short neck, flat nasal bridge and a protruding tongue.
I heard my host talking about her thoughts on having down syndrome. She said that “I think people will not like me. Look at me differently. Not treat me the same way as others.” I never knew I could be such a mean gene. As my host grew up, she learned to deal with me in her. She learned that there are a lot more people with her condition and it’s how she’s not the only one.
My host did not choose to have kids because she knows that her kids will have down syndrome as well. But it’s not true. Something I know about myself is that it’s not inherited. So even if no one in the family in the past had Down syndrome, she could still get it.
My host will live with me for her whole life, unless she get’s treatment but the treatment hardly ever works. I don’t want to die! Luckily I am not the cause of her death. She will die from another cause weather it’s naturally or an accident. So you just heard my life story. I live with people. Know how body’s of people work. This is the end of my life. I die when she dies.
Story by: Silvia Ivancin
S9
2014/11/24
Websites used:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/peopleplaces/downsyndrome/
http://www.ndss.org/
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/down-syndrome
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
https://www.mydoctor.ca/patient/healthwise/vi
Video about down syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVkbuooXo4#t=260