It is the most serious genetic disease. It’s recessive and chronic. It’s a disorder that affects many organs, mostly the lungs, pancreas, liver, kidneys and intestine. It’s due to the mutation in the CFTR gene that causes an overproduction of mucus. That leads to a respiratory infection, it blocks pancreas preventing the enzymes to reach the intestine. That’s why food cannot be digested and assimilated. Even if there are many different degrees of symptoms, the casting lung infection is the main cause of death.

The typical manifestation of this disease are:

• Difficulty of digestion 
• Difficulty of breathing and too much cough
• Overproduction of mucus
• Production of swet 
• Poor growth 
• Chronic diarrhea
• Emotional difficulties such as depression

Avarage CF incidence in Italy

Nowadays there are 6000 affected people in Italy. It is estimated that every 2500-3000 children born in Italy, 1 is struck by CF. Thanks to treatment progress, the living expectancy can overcome 36 years of life.

CF causes

CF appears in a child when both parents are carries. In Italy one out of 25/26 people is carrier. The two carrier parents have ove in four chance to give birth to a CF baby.

Claire Wineland

Claire Wineland, a youtuber affected by Cystic Fibrosis, tells her fight in front of the camera. “…so grateful for everything this month. I’m grateful for all the people who donated to help me get through transplant. I’m grateful for the doctors that’ll be scooping out these lungs and giving me some more life to work with. I’m grateful for the change to keep being a person. I’m grateful for my own had and for all the weird things in it. I’m just really overwhelmingly grateful for all of this. There is no passionate rant to be had here I am just happy and thought I would let you all know”. With this quotation Claire says bye to her followers before getting a lung transplant. The surgery was successful, but unfortunately a complication came into being that forever ended her life. In her youtube channel she always uses a direct and carefree language, daring to be ironic about her disease and death.

The story of Claire has inspired the film “Five Feet Apart”

Five Feet Apart

Stella is a Cystic Fibrosis patient who uses social media to cope illness and tries to live a normal life. She meets Will, another CF patient , who is at the hospital in order to get rid of his lungs infection (B. Cepacia). Little by little they fall in love. CF patient are kept  six feet apart to reduce the risk of the cross-infection at first Stella stick to the rules, but as soon his best friend Poe dies, she decides to live her life less strictly. There for she leaves the hospital with Will and grabs his hand, but with her gloves on. As they are working on a frozen lake, she gets to know that a lung transplant is available for her but she ignore it is suddenly she falls into the water and despite the risk of infection, will helps her with the mouth-to-mouth and she wakes up! An ambulance takes them back to the hospital. Will learns that Stella did not contract his infection. When Stella wakes up from the surgery, they must say goodbye.

Interview with my cousin Marco, who is fighting with CF

Marco is a 20-yer-old kid, tall and very thin, he’s got a beautiful and always smiling face, ready with jokes, but he i salso reserved and solitary.
Hi Marco, i’ve never asked you about your desease… do you feel like talking about it?

Me: When have you learnt to be affected by Cystic Fibrosis?

Marco: Good or bed, since i was a child i always knew about my desease, as i had to do specific checks for my health. I indeed realized what it was, when i was about 10/11 years old.

Me: How did you feel when you became aware of your desease?

Marco: Well, actually i don’t know because i was grown with what this desease concerns. There was not a real shock when i discovered my condition… it’s something i worked out little by little

Me: What are the CF symptoms and which are the treatments you need to receive?

Marco: The main symptoms are my intestinal difficulties such as severe stomachaches and breathing problems. For example when i get shortness of breath, when i walk faster or when i do some sports. Plus, i get easily sick as i catch colds or flu
As regards therapies, i have aerosol and also a kind of physical therapy called “autogenic drainage” which consist in a forced respiration, while opening my throat and pressing down my rib cage with my hands in order to squeeze my lungs and expel mucus. Obviously i have to take many medicines like antibiotics, vitamins and lactic ferments and so on…

Me: How did you describe your relationship to CF? do you hate it? Do you ignore it? Do you fight it?

Marco: I do not hate it because it’s not a person, it’s something i have in my body and i have to deal with it. Ican’t ignore it because symptoms are always there, even if i don’t do anything! It would be wrong if i ognore it because that would mean to feel even worse. I fight it every day by therapies. That’s it!

Me: have you ever thought about the positive aspects of CF?

Marco: Knowing me, i’m a very lazy person, so actually CF helps me to be more active. In fact i go to the gym since 1 year already and i have a hard work out. All that it’s something positive because it helps to start stepping me up!

Me: What is your typical daily routine?

Marco: I wake up early in the morning; after breakfast i have my aerosol for about 20 minutes; after that, i go on with my physical therapy which takes about 30/40 minutes. In total i spend an hour an half. Next, i study or i go out for some errands. Later, i have my lunch and than i go to the gym. At night i have my physical therapy and aerosol again.

Me: What do you do to keep the right weight?

Marco: First of all i eat a lot, trying to do it even if i don’t feel like; i try to eat many times a day, especially at lunch and dinner, i eat a big quantity of food that i like the most, in order to be faster since i’m very slow at eating!

Me: how much CF has influenced your life?

Marco: Of course a lot! Everytime i do something i have to put out with  collateral difficulties like:

• When i go out i have to pay attention to charge my oxygen and i have to be careful not to stay without it or at list to make sure there is a place to charge it
• Everytime i make commitment, i have to take into account the time necessary to the therapies 
• When i go to sleep at friend’s home, i have to remember al the stuff for the therapies

So there are many constraints, it’s only a matter of handling them!

Me: How are your relationship with your friends, relatives and school? How far has CF influenced them?

Marco: Actually my relationships are great. Being sick, has never affected them in a negative way. But instead, I was always supported by my relatives and friends. In this respect, I count myself lucky and grateful.

Me: Are there things you really would like to do but you can’t?

Marco: Actually there is nothing i can’t do as a normal person. Things are only more difficult for me. For example i like to go for excursion in the mountains buti t is too much complicated both for the breathing effort and for the oxygen handing.

Me: What’s your secret drem or your future project?

Marco: Now, my plains are obviously to finish university and then to work in the word of cinema.

Me: What are your hobbies?

Marco: I like cinema very much, in particular i prefer horror films, science fiction and western

Me: Do you trust the research to treat your desease? 

Marco: Kind of yes… there are always new medicina products in commerce but I don’t believe in an ultimate drug to heal CF…

DAI RESPIRO ALLA RICERCA (give breath to the research), is the slogan sponsored by the CF research centers in order to raise awareness in people to donate their contribution. The focus is to develop research projects with the aim to find solutions to this disease. Moreover the research stands to provide CF patients to live a normal life.

Una tua donazione oggi, può cambiare il domani di molte persone (your donation today, can change the future of many people)

-> https://www.fibrosicisticaricerca.it/dona-ora/

By now the social networks are completely part of our life, sometimes have positive influences and sometimes have negative influences. Today is pratically impossibe imagine a life without Whatsapp, Facebook, Insatagram ecc… just because they have became a real addiction both for our guys that for more adult people.

By now it’s a rece for who have got more followers and more likes, sometimes people with an account with lower numbers are bullied or excluded. Some month ago our english teacher bought us to see a show talking about this argoment: 2 guys addicted to their phones and social networks; their parents given the situation that the guys created in house, decide to send them in a campus without phones, laptops, ipads… At first the guys were desperate but than they understand that they can live easly without.

Oliver twist was born in 1830, a few minutes before his mother died. He lived in a workhause directed by Mr Bumble, here the boys live very badly and suffer from hunger. So Oliver comes forward to ask for more food but is locked up in a dark room. One day Mr Sowerberry went to Mr Bumble to ask him if he had a boy to have him work in his coffins shop. In the morning to wake up Oliver is Mr Claypole, the owner of the shop, during the day Mr Clayope insinuates that Oliver’s mother had been a thief so he starts beating him … the next day Oliver ran away to London where he meets Jack Dawkins who offers him a place to sleep but it also makes it enter a band of thieves with Fagin and Bill Sikes.

Oliver, however, understands the real job of the boys when they steal the wallet from a gentleman’s pocket, but Mr. Brownlow notices this and blames Oliver, who tries to escape but is catchen by the police. He explained to the police what happened so they let him go away.

Mr Brownlow takes a liking to him and provides him with education by treating him kindly.
Oliver is kidnapped by Nancy who brings him back to Fagin who forces the protagonist to steal from the Maylies’ home.
But Fagin’s plain fails, in fact Oliver is injured by a bullet in his arm. The next day t Mrs. Maylie treat Oliver’s arm.

By now Oliver lived with them but Fagin wanted him to leave and let Monks help him.
Nancy warns Rose Maylie about Monks’ plain , to kill his half-brother (Oliver) to recive the heredity. Rose then contacts Mr. Brownlow and tells him what Nency told her. Sikes discovers Nancy’s betrayal and kills her. Fagin and Sikes are arrested while Sikes manages to escape. Oliver received his part of heredity and Oliver is officially adopted by Mr Brownlow.

On March 14th me an my classroom went to the ESA(European Space Agency).

We left in the morning by bus until we arrived at ESRIN in Frascati, where, before entering we were given a t-shirt, a hat and a “passport” that stamped us with a different stamp for every activity.

In the first activity we were divided into teams and made to identify meteorites or craters caused by meteorites, at each correct answer we gained points that would then determine the winner of the game.

In the second activity they explained to us the sizes of a rocket and how it is made, and after we made one in wood

In the third activity they explained the movement of all their satellites, and some missions to better observe climate change or for example to measure sea humidity or salinity, and at the end of “lesson” we launched some rockets into the sky.

Before the fourth activity we had lunch and when we finished we have done the last activity which was divided into three parts: – in the first one a volunteer explained to us the first mission on the moon and through a simulator each of us made a landing on the Moon – in the secondly they explained to us some water movements making us do an experiment – and finally in the third they divided us into groups making us make a base on the moon by hand.

It was a wonderful experience

There are many people who fight for their own dreams; i think that some of them, if they seriously undertake they can reach their intentions.

In my little way, in the past i hardly wished to gain a better mark in english and i got it! In VIP’s world we can find many examples of people who, out of nothing, they became popular and great in doing something, and they reached their own dreams.

At my age, young people are not sure of their future yet, in facts i’m still conflicted with myself on what i want to be . However i’ve got a little idea! Maybe i would like to become an interior designer. As my mother is an architect, it often happens to me to talk about different types of flats or hoses and i have seen a lot of them! In addition i’ve taken part in the choice of the decor of my next home, particularly of my bedroom. For this reason, i think that i like this type of job and i also think that i’m good at it! Probably after high school i will choose the architecture faculty with a specialisation in interior designer. I’m sure that if i choose this way, my mother will support me.

In Italy there are many environment problems like: toxic waste, acid rain, illegal waste disposal, oil spillage, deforestation, flooding (in some regions), air pollution (especially in the cities), water pollution, use of pesticides. The most serious among them are: the air pollution, the water pollution, the toxic waste and the use of pesticides which are the most dangerous for our health!! Recently I saw on TV the news talking about a bad flooding in north of Italy. The competent authorities took action to solve the many problems: cars floated in the streets, houses and shops were flooded and all the people where forced out.

There are many ways to avoid natural disasters. One of those is the recycling of industrial materials like: paper, plastic, glass and metals. It’s very important to recycle materials in order not to produce them too much because they generate air and water pollution. Very much fundamental is the use of renewable energies like: the wind, the sunlight, the tides, the rain, the geothermal heat…

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