Tuesday, January 22, 2008

What's in a name? - Pt. II

While I do like Ann of the Jungle's idea of renaming Down syndrome something like Lejeune syndrome after the man who discovered the gene that causes the condition, I'm leaning more toward this approach:

Next time I'm at the checkout at the grocery store and the clerk brings up Ian's facial features, I'll quietly let him or her know that - with the use of DNA polymorphisms spanning from the the most centromeric D21S13 locus to the most telomeric COL6A1 gene - we have determined that morphologic nondisjunctions caused an extra chromosome 21 in each of Ian's cells.

7 comments:

terri said...

That'll learn 'em. Can you clip one of those hidden cameras to your shirt and post the confused facial responses to your trisomy 21explanation? I'd love to see that. And I'll bet if you posted it with a nominal charge to view it you'd take care of that whole bankrupcy thing in no time.

beans said...

hehe-that's funny!

Tom said...

Terri: The funny part would be me trying to remember how to say all of that.

Bean: :)

Kim Ayres said...

That ought to do it - quite how you remember it I hav no idea

Anonymous said...

what irritate? the frequency of the comments? the kind of comments? that people comment at all?

please further me in my life skills sensitivity training. :> (said kiddingly, totally serious.)

Tom said...

Kim: Index cards...

Elsie: Most comments are just fine, depending on my mood at the moment. :) I was just being a bit silly.

Lollardfish said...

This is interesting for me to read. For me, I have the problem that people don't realize Nico has an extra chromosome. Mostly this is just fine, but there becomes a point in almost any actual conversation about my son when it becomes relevant. I'm still working on how to tell people. Mostly, it's "Nicholas has Down Syndrome and ..." I breathlessly rush on to my actual point before someone can say something that pisses me off or upsets me - or they just get distracted.

Anyway, I'm enjoying reading backwards into this blog.