The News-Leader By Donna Baxter
Man, boy both plan to go to China for umbilical cord stem cell treatments.
Ten-year-old Austin Anderson and Carl Stevens, 57, have never met, but they share more than their blindness. Both have hope that umbilical cord stem cell treatment available only in China will give them their vision.
The treatment is expensive, but both families are willing make a month-long trip and spend more than $40,000 to help their loved ones see.
"For 10 years, there was no hope, but now there is," said Kimberly May of Bolivar, mother of Austin, who was born blind.
Stevens, who lives in the southeast Christian County community of Garrison, lost his vision four years ago during a battle with strep B pneumonia.
Doctors in the United States have given neither of them any hope of recovery.
Umbilical cord stem cell treatments are limited in the United States because of FDA regulations and other processes, according to Kirshner Ross-Vaden, vice-president of foreign patient relations for Beike Biotechnology, the company that provides stem cells for treatment at 11 hospitals in China and one in Thailand.
Both families have expressed their opposition to abortion and use of embryonic stem cells from aborted babies, but the Chinese technology uses only cells from the umbilical cord blood of live born babies.
Ross-Vaden said the company uses umbilical cord stem cells only, three subsets, geared to neural tissue.
"We transplant up to 15 million cells by two delivery methods — one is intravenous and the other via lumbar puncture into the cerebral spinal fluid," she said.
Chinese doctors have treated several people, including Rylea Barlett, 6, of Webb City, and 19-month-old Cameron Petersen of Port Charlotte, Florida both with positive results, their parents report.
Dawn Barlett reported that her daughter responded to light one week after initial treatment and can now see freckles on someone's face.
Cameron began to stand on his own and crawl toward objects by the third treatment — things he'd never done before.
Austin Anderson
Austin was diagnosed at 3 months old with optic nerve hypoplasia, a birth defect that prevents him from even seeing light.
His mother remembers holding him and sobbing for days after the bad news.
"I kept crying, 'He's my baby. Why couldn't it have been me instead of him?'"
Austin's maternal grandmother, Awanda Lightwine of Monett, said she noticed one day that the baby did not react to the sun shining directly in his eyes. When she shaded his face, she saw his pupils were dilated.
"This baby can't see," she said.
Austin's parents rushed him to the doctor, where a CAT scan also revealed a pituitary defect that causes growth delay, septo optic dysplasia. He now takes daily steroid shots and hormone pills for his growth delay.
If he could see, Lightwine said, it might draw him out of the autism that also surfaced as he got older.
His grandmother describes Austin as a "such a sweetie."
"I can't imagine what it would like to be blind and autistic. His family loves him to death and we're willing to go to the ends of the earth to help him," Lightwine said.
His other grandmother, "Mee Mee" Debbie McGinnis of Bolivar, said she fixes his favorite foods with as many calories as possible on weekends when he comes home from the Missouri School for the Blind in St. Louis.
"I pile the butter on the mashed potatoes ... he's so light ... he needs to have some muscle when he goes for his surgery."
May, 33, a single mother of three, has set a goal to take Austin to China by March — if she can raise the money.
"If we don't have the money then, we'll wait to go whenever we do have it."
May said Austin's eye doctor Scott Atkinson has "an open mind" about the treatment.
"If there's any hope, this is going to have to be it," she said.
Friends, co-workers and family members have several fundraisers in the works to help raise the $25,000 cost of the treatment plus $15,000- $20,000 for travel and living expenses in China.
Four children with Austin Anderson's diagnosis have been treated to date, with a fifth scheduled for December.
Carl Stevens
Stevens thought he just had the flu when he didn't feel well for several days in January 2004.
"I kept getting sicker and sicker until I finally decided I'd better go to the doctor," he recalled.
After receiving fluids, his oxygen level was still too low, so he was taken by ambulance to Cox South hospital. There he was told he needed oxygen for about 48 hours and then could go home.
Instead, Stevens' condition plummeted and the medical team induced a coma to keep him still.
At one point, his kidneys shut down; 18 days later, Carl said, "I woke up and I was blind."
He had developed septic shock and toxic shock syndrome, his wife, Vickie, said. The infection spread into his blood and he was given about one-half of one percent chance to survive.
Carl recalled: "When I woke up from that coma, the first thing I remember was the kidney doctor saying to me, 'I've been here 30 years and you're the sickest patient I've ever had that lived.'"
Vickie remembered his doctor said Carl's blindness was caused by ischemic optic neuropathy.
"When the nurse told me he had a vision problem ... it was just one more knockdown after we thought we'd gotten through ...," she said, her voice trailing off.
But then she heard a harpist playing "Amazing Grace" down the hall from Carl's hospital room. Vickie remembered the lyrics, "I was blind but now I see."
"I believe this was our sign... He's going to see again this side of heaven," she said.
Carl — who'll be the first patient treated in China for his diagnosis and the second adult to be treated for an optic nerve disorder ?leaves for Hangzhou City on Christmas night from Houston, Texas, with his brother-in-law, Paul Clevenger. After a 27-hour flight, they will check into Hangzhou Hospital on Dec. 28.
Vickie cannot go because she is undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.
Carl walks almost three miles a day and lifts weights to keep him self in top condition, he said.
He has a talking computer from Services for the Blind to conduct his business raising Pomeranian dogs and has learned some Braille. He also does housework and helps with the cooking, Vickie said.
Carl's health and physical condition are among reasons the hospital in China accepted him for treatment, Vicki said. And because he has had vision, his nerve receptors know how to receive all those messages. Patients who have never had vision ?like Austin — must develop those receptors and learn, she added.
After Carl returns home from China, he will require follow-up treatments five days a week for months, an added cost of $15,000-$20,000.
Gene Ridings, pastor of the Stevens family's church, Chadwick First Baptist, said Carl and Vickie have been an inspiration to the church and community.
"Their lives are certainly a testimony," he said. "We're praying for another miracle because just him sitting here is a miracle in itself.
"I believe God works through medicine and doctors and the talents he has given these people. We believe God's working through the people of Chadwick and other places and he's going to help Carl get his miracle through prayer."
Carl said he has often been asked how he kept his faith.
With tears in his eyes and his voice quivering, he said, "I can't imagine how anybody could go through what I've gone through — let alone what other people have — without believing in God."
Vickie said she was thankful for the children who have already been to China for the treatments. Stories about their success have been encouraging.
Ridings said, "If we'll give the Lord half a chance, he'll lift us up ... I'm looking forward to going deer hunting next season with Carl."
Carl is planning to watch his daughter graduate from Forsyth High School in May.
Man, boy both plan to go to China for umbilical cord stem cell treatments.
Ten-year-old Austin Anderson and Carl Stevens, 57, have never met, but they share more than their blindness. Both have hope that umbilical cord stem cell treatment available only in China will give them their vision.
The treatment is expensive, but both families are willing make a month-long trip and spend more than $40,000 to help their loved ones see.
"For 10 years, there was no hope, but now there is," said Kimberly May of Bolivar, mother of Austin, who was born blind.
Stevens, who lives in the southeast Christian County community of Garrison, lost his vision four years ago during a battle with strep B pneumonia.
Doctors in the United States have given neither of them any hope of recovery.
Umbilical cord stem cell treatments are limited in the United States because of FDA regulations and other processes, according to Kirshner Ross-Vaden, vice-president of foreign patient relations for Beike Biotechnology, the company that provides stem cells for treatment at 11 hospitals in China and one in Thailand.
Both families have expressed their opposition to abortion and use of embryonic stem cells from aborted babies, but the Chinese technology uses only cells from the umbilical cord blood of live born babies.
Ross-Vaden said the company uses umbilical cord stem cells only, three subsets, geared to neural tissue.
"We transplant up to 15 million cells by two delivery methods — one is intravenous and the other via lumbar puncture into the cerebral spinal fluid," she said.
Chinese doctors have treated several people, including Rylea Barlett, 6, of Webb City, and 19-month-old Cameron Petersen of Port Charlotte, Florida both with positive results, their parents report.
Dawn Barlett reported that her daughter responded to light one week after initial treatment and can now see freckles on someone's face.
Cameron began to stand on his own and crawl toward objects by the third treatment — things he'd never done before.
Austin Anderson
Austin was diagnosed at 3 months old with optic nerve hypoplasia, a birth defect that prevents him from even seeing light.
His mother remembers holding him and sobbing for days after the bad news.
"I kept crying, 'He's my baby. Why couldn't it have been me instead of him?'"
Austin's maternal grandmother, Awanda Lightwine of Monett, said she noticed one day that the baby did not react to the sun shining directly in his eyes. When she shaded his face, she saw his pupils were dilated.
"This baby can't see," she said.
Austin's parents rushed him to the doctor, where a CAT scan also revealed a pituitary defect that causes growth delay, septo optic dysplasia. He now takes daily steroid shots and hormone pills for his growth delay.
If he could see, Lightwine said, it might draw him out of the autism that also surfaced as he got older.
His grandmother describes Austin as a "such a sweetie."
"I can't imagine what it would like to be blind and autistic. His family loves him to death and we're willing to go to the ends of the earth to help him," Lightwine said.
His other grandmother, "Mee Mee" Debbie McGinnis of Bolivar, said she fixes his favorite foods with as many calories as possible on weekends when he comes home from the Missouri School for the Blind in St. Louis.
"I pile the butter on the mashed potatoes ... he's so light ... he needs to have some muscle when he goes for his surgery."
May, 33, a single mother of three, has set a goal to take Austin to China by March — if she can raise the money.
"If we don't have the money then, we'll wait to go whenever we do have it."
May said Austin's eye doctor Scott Atkinson has "an open mind" about the treatment.
"If there's any hope, this is going to have to be it," she said.
Friends, co-workers and family members have several fundraisers in the works to help raise the $25,000 cost of the treatment plus $15,000- $20,000 for travel and living expenses in China.
Four children with Austin Anderson's diagnosis have been treated to date, with a fifth scheduled for December.
Carl Stevens
Stevens thought he just had the flu when he didn't feel well for several days in January 2004.
"I kept getting sicker and sicker until I finally decided I'd better go to the doctor," he recalled.
After receiving fluids, his oxygen level was still too low, so he was taken by ambulance to Cox South hospital. There he was told he needed oxygen for about 48 hours and then could go home.
Instead, Stevens' condition plummeted and the medical team induced a coma to keep him still.
At one point, his kidneys shut down; 18 days later, Carl said, "I woke up and I was blind."
He had developed septic shock and toxic shock syndrome, his wife, Vickie, said. The infection spread into his blood and he was given about one-half of one percent chance to survive.
Carl recalled: "When I woke up from that coma, the first thing I remember was the kidney doctor saying to me, 'I've been here 30 years and you're the sickest patient I've ever had that lived.'"
Vickie remembered his doctor said Carl's blindness was caused by ischemic optic neuropathy.
"When the nurse told me he had a vision problem ... it was just one more knockdown after we thought we'd gotten through ...," she said, her voice trailing off.
But then she heard a harpist playing "Amazing Grace" down the hall from Carl's hospital room. Vickie remembered the lyrics, "I was blind but now I see."
"I believe this was our sign... He's going to see again this side of heaven," she said.
Carl — who'll be the first patient treated in China for his diagnosis and the second adult to be treated for an optic nerve disorder ?leaves for Hangzhou City on Christmas night from Houston, Texas, with his brother-in-law, Paul Clevenger. After a 27-hour flight, they will check into Hangzhou Hospital on Dec. 28.
Vickie cannot go because she is undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.
Carl walks almost three miles a day and lifts weights to keep him self in top condition, he said.
He has a talking computer from Services for the Blind to conduct his business raising Pomeranian dogs and has learned some Braille. He also does housework and helps with the cooking, Vickie said.
Carl's health and physical condition are among reasons the hospital in China accepted him for treatment, Vicki said. And because he has had vision, his nerve receptors know how to receive all those messages. Patients who have never had vision ?like Austin — must develop those receptors and learn, she added.
After Carl returns home from China, he will require follow-up treatments five days a week for months, an added cost of $15,000-$20,000.
Gene Ridings, pastor of the Stevens family's church, Chadwick First Baptist, said Carl and Vickie have been an inspiration to the church and community.
"Their lives are certainly a testimony," he said. "We're praying for another miracle because just him sitting here is a miracle in itself.
"I believe God works through medicine and doctors and the talents he has given these people. We believe God's working through the people of Chadwick and other places and he's going to help Carl get his miracle through prayer."
Carl said he has often been asked how he kept his faith.
With tears in his eyes and his voice quivering, he said, "I can't imagine how anybody could go through what I've gone through — let alone what other people have — without believing in God."
Vickie said she was thankful for the children who have already been to China for the treatments. Stories about their success have been encouraging.
Ridings said, "If we'll give the Lord half a chance, he'll lift us up ... I'm looking forward to going deer hunting next season with Carl."
Carl is planning to watch his daughter graduate from Forsyth High School in May.
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