Lorenzo’s oil

First of all I‘d like to apologize for not writing earlier and leaving you all with the expectation of what next. It’s been 2 hectic months, specially this last month, a life changing month. It all changed on September the 20th, and I publicly thank that special person for entering my life and changing it forever. More on this to come on later posts but I assure you’ll be astonished with this story.

Now onto today’s topic. It was back on August 21st when all this unraveled. It was Sunday afternoon, I was scanning the tv guide for a movie, and I don’t know why I stopped on “Lorenzo’s oil”, in Spanish the direct translation is “Life’s oil”,. I didn’t know about this movie, never heard about it. Little I knew when I started watching it how I was going to feel, how touching it was going to be, what explosion of emotions I was going to have. Even today while writing this I have tears in my eyes, I can’t stop them. If you haven’t seen it I encourage you to watch it. For those who have, you already know what I‘m talking about. It’s a great true story, of courage, of love, of unselfishness, of hard work and dedication. Something we all have to learn about. It’s a “yes we can”, full of hope when everybody is telling you to subdue and accept it, when they tell you there’s nothing you can do. Well, that’s not true, there’s always something that can be done, and this true story is a proof of that.

While watching it and after I kept thinking on my condition, that something must be found, some breakthrough was around the corner. The next day my friend Steve sent me an sms, he was hearing the morning news while driving to work in Chicago. He told me there has been been a breakthrough in ALS, at my hospital. So I googled “ALS breakthrough” and there it was, the first result was what I was looking for. When opening the web page and reading the title I couldn’t stop crying with tears of joy. The day before it was just a dream but now it’s a reality. At home they didn’t know what was happening, they were trying to comfort me, but I really didn’t need comforting, I was elated with the news and I didn’t want to stop crying.

At first my thoughts went over the previous day, the movie, the emotions I felt and the dreams I had. Watching that movie on the date of the publishing of the paper in Nature wasn’t a coincidence at all. I could have switched channels and watched something else, but I felt I had to watch it. Then all my thoughts went to the people who made this possible. I felt so happy for them, it’s such a great feeling, such an accomplishment for all the hard work and dedication. And not just for the team of researchers, there’s a lot more people involved, from the nurses, to everyone at the Les Turner Foundation, and everyone in between. The whole team is exceptional, and you wouldn’t believe how many they are. I couldn’t stop crying with tears of joy for all of them and for all of us, the patients and families, although I know I might not benefit directly, a lot of people will. I can’t thank them enough for all their efforts and hard dedication, so a big THANK YOU goes to all of them. This is part of the team at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital:

Again, I feel extremely lucky, that team took very good care of me and my family, and I was able to participate in what they’ve accomplished with my little grain of salt, I donated blood and other fluids and tissue for study, that’s the least I' could do and I guess everyone would’ve done the same.

So going back to that day, the next thing I did was to write them a thank you email, I was exhilarated and had to write it as soon as possible. I leave you here the link to the news, it includes a short video: http://www.lesturnerals.org/finding-a-cure/les-turner-als-research-lab/research-breakthrough/

I hope it was an inspiring reading, it was a pleasure to write it and share it with you all. If you want to keep this research going consider donating to the Les Turner Foundation here.

I want to dedicate this post to my wife to be. She has encouraged me to continue with this blog, I‘ve been too lazy lately. She’s the best in my life, she’s my life.