Augusto, Michaela, and Lorenzo Odone
Michaela Murphy Odone was the mother of ALD patient Lorenzo Odone. The story of her and her husband Augusto's fight to find a treatment for their son's potentially fatal disease was made into the film 1992 Lorenzo's Oil starring Susan Sarandon as Michaela and Nick Nolte as Augusto. Sarandon was nominated for an Acadamy Award for the role.
Michaela had an important role both in developing Lorenzo's Oil and in setting up the Myelin Project which promotes and carries out research on ALD and other similar disorders. She refused to accept that there was no treatment for her sons illness. Along with Augusto, she helped to develop a treatment regimen that included the oil. She also insisted on continuing to treat her son as a human being and not a 'vegetable', helping him devise a means of communicating with her and others through blinking of his eyes and wiggling of a finger.
A poem she wrote about Lorenzo was put to song by Phil Collins called "Lorenzo" and was featured on his 1996 CD, "Dance into the Light."
Michaela passed away in June of 2000 from lung Cancer.
See Also
Lorenzo's oil as a preventative treatment for ALD