Lorenzo's Oil Page #7

No will to live? He asserts it through us!

If you can't see that,

there's no place for you here!

Michaela, for God's sake,

she is your sister!

- And I think you're losing it, Michaela.

- Well, then, I think you should go.

Augusto, help her pack her bags.

I'm going back to our son.

You think I'm crazy

because I speak for our son?!

I am so sorry.

I never wanted this to happen.

How can I? How can I enjoy

anything when he enjoys nothing?

How can you talk to me about loving him

when you trivialise him into...

No! No!

- Mrs Odone!

- Get a tube.

Do you have the tube?

Don't nod, Nancy Jo. Say "yes".

My attention's on Lorenzo.

Darling, look at me. Listen to

Mommy's voice. We're gonna count.

One, two, three, four...

I'm sedating him as much as I dare.

I don't know what else to do.

How can he endure this

for so many hours?

Augusto...

I don't think he'll have to

endure it much longer.

Michaela, let me take him.

- You need rest.

- I'm fine.

I could use a cup of coffee, though.

Lorenzo... Lorenzo, listen to Mama.

Can you hear me, my darling?

If this is too much for you,

my sweetheart...

...well then you fly, you fly

as fast as you can to baby Jesus.

It's OK.

Mama and Papa will be OK.

I have rarely seen anything

like this boy's tenacity.

They have a bed available upstairs.

No, no, no. In a hospice, no.

It'd be easier. On everybody.

But I would not do honour to Lorenzo.

Michaela. Come.

- What?

- Come. Come on.

- Nurse.

- Yes.

Now, today we eat, moglie mia,

every last mouthful.

- I'm not hungry.

- No, no, no. You eat.

Sit.

Michaela, you sit. Sit.

From tomorrow morning,

the Odones need all their energies.

Now listen. We set out to

normalise Lorenzo's blood, right?

And with the oleic oil, we got it

half-right, but that was luck.

- It was rather more than luck.

- No, it was luck. Merely observation.

Rizzo observed something

in a test tube, right?

We tried it on Lorenzo.

Rizzo observed

a 50 per cent drop in fibroblasts.

We observed

a 50 per cent drop in Lorenzo.

Michaela, that is luck.

That is observation.

That is all it is.

It is not understanding.

And until we understand

why this work only halfway...

...how can we expect

to succeed all the way?

I need to understand, Michaela.

You need to understand.

So, tomorrow we go back to the library.

No, no, no. We review all the literature,

everything on fatty-acid metabolism...

...every word published in the last decade.

So, eat. You eat.

Whatever energy or time I have left

I want to spend with Lorenzo.

You will not have to leave him.

I will go to the library.

I make copies for you,

I bring it home for you.

Augusto, we are on our second mortgage.

You can't afford not to go to work.

Michaela, I will work.

I'll fit it in somehow.

Michaela, this is important. I need you.

I need you, Michaela.

So eat.

Brava! Bravissima! Bravissima!

Betty! Betty!

All these fatty-acid studies concentrate

on the middle of the chain...

...because the medium-chain saturates

are implicated in cholesterol.

So what do these researchers do?

Think cholesterol, cholesterol.

C12. C14, C-bloody-16!

- Augusto, what are you looking for?

- I am looking...

- ...for the long end of fatty-acid chains!

- All right. Write it down for me.

These researchers should be

doing something about this.

- Write it down.

- Long-chain fatty acids.

C18 through C26.

Saturated.

Monounsaturated, OK?

OK. Now I want you to go off to lunch.

Have yourself a good lunch

and I'm gonna see what I can do.

This is the best I could do

at short notice.

One article from a veterinary

science journal about pigs.

- But it's on your long-chain fats.

- Well, thank you, Betty.

Listen, I am very sorry about...

Oh, well, you're Italian.

...72, 73, 74...

That's it. 75, 76...

...77, 78...

Nice going, Mrs Odone.

That's it, my love. You know

only the strongest, bravest boy...

...only a very special person

like you is chosen to fight the boo-boo.

I'll give him a little water, OK? 20cc's?

Yes.

And, Nancy Jo, why don't you tell Lorenzo

what an excellent job he did?

An excellent job you did, Lorenzo.

Sometimes I wonder, my love, if people

realise how incredible you truly are.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

Is this a new hobby or a nervous tic?

No, this is a simple mind at work,

that's all.

See, each paperclip, Deirdre,

is two carbon atom, right?

- Oh, God!

- No, no, no.

Really is two carbon atom, all right?

So we have C2, C4, C6, you know?

Now, here's what I try to do.

I try to make a chain...

...a very long chain

of monounsaturated fats.

- This is the good guys, right?

- OK, what are these? The bad guys?

Yes. These here...

...is the bad guys, all right?

Now, Deirdre, what I'm trying to do...

I try to understand the relationship...

...between the good guys

and the bad guys.

So, OK, I am the enzyme, right?

And I reach out and grab a carbon atom

and I put it on my chain, right?

Here is my chain.

Now, here, you be

the bad-guy enzyme, OK?

No, no. Do this for me.

You be bad-guy enzyme, all right?

Take this, all right?

Now you reach out and grab a carbon

atom and put it on your bad-guy chain.

I had enough trouble

with the kitchen sink.

No, no. You just do this and

then I explain, OK? All right.

So let's each start now

making our chains.

OK? All right? Do another one.

That's good, Deirdre.

Good. We put another one on...

- Here's the stuff on enzyme complexes.

- Ah, thank you. Mille grazie.

- Prego.

- Prego! Very good.

- Now, did you make the extra copies?

- Oh, you bet.

- Thank you very much.

- For Michaela? How is she?

She's fine.

So here we are. We're making our chains

more or less the same rate, right?

That's as one would expect, right?

But, now, Deirdre, if we were enzymes...

...in the bodies of little rats

and little pigs and Lorenzo...

...then the faster I go,

the more you slow down.

Now, why would that be?

Why, the faster I go, would you slow

down, if we are both separate enzymes?

It means that there has to be

some kind of relationship going on.

We affect each other some way.

There's some kind of interplay.

But what is it?

What is it?

One, two...

...three, four...

...five, six...

...seven candles.

And Mommy will blow them out for you.

Make a wish.

Michaela! They are the same enzyme!

There is one enzyme for both chains.

It's the same bloody enzyme!

So if we keep the enzyme busy

making monounsaturates...

It distracts it from

elongating the saturates.

Right! So we have a way to trick nature.

Yes, it's a principle called

"competitive inhibition".

So, Gus, do you think

it's a reasonable hypothesis?

I think it's more. You've clarified

the biochemical pathway.

Augusto, I really want

to congratulate you.

This would explain why oleic acid

is only partly successful.

Yes, it's C18, you see.

It's too low down in the chain.

So we add a second barrier. We block

the bad guys further up the chain...

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