Brisan and Parker Stults | Living with Niemann-Pick Type C

Archive for the ‘Brisan’ Category

So far so good for today for Mr. Brisan. Pretty similar story to Parker’s surgery but today went very smooth per Dr. St. Peter. Brisan had his port-a-cath put in just like Parker did exactly two weeks ago today (April 7, 2010).

The morning started off well. He was such a trooper when they had to stick him for his IV to give him his DDVAP & blood platelets.

Brisan is currently resting and has really been asleep the whole time since post operation recovery. He had a small nose bleed after surgery when one of the nurses went to suction his nose out with all that snot! He moved and it got him!

Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts.  We are hoping that this makes the anxiety and a piece of our life slightly better with the infusions.

Easter was a pretty good day. Me and Jennifer went to church because we were apart of the 11 am service. The message was on Hope. At the beginning of the sermon they had put a picture up of us while one of the ladies from the drama team acted out our monologue about our story. She did a wonderful job and it was surreal to be hearing our story. I hope that it was able to make an impact.

The boys were at Gma's & Gpa's house while we attended church. Typically we go Saturday evening. We had a good lunch followed by hunting for the wabbit! Below is a video from the Easter Egg hunt we had in their back yard. The boys did a pretty good job “wondering” around! HA I think they had fun.

(In case you can't view this video on your email version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrhfcmcCEWQ)

Today I took Brisan to his Pre Admissions Testing appointment. I was pleased to see that all of the kinks had been worked out from Parker’s surgery last week. While we were there Brisan was talking a lot. Over about the past month Brisan has really not been talking unless he is mad about the TV or if he wants a cookie. So it was really good to see.

Speaking of Parker. Parker is doing well. He is wanting to move around more and more everyday. The only problem is that he does still have sutures in his stomach and he is still really sore. Try explaining that to Parker. He does not understand that he can not run around and fall on his port. We do have some concerns however about how he is walking. He is dragging his feet and turning both of them out really bad. We will see about more PT in the next few weeks if it does not get better.

Another big thing is we are trying to get the boys a Home Health nurse to come out a couple times a week for both Brisan and Parker. That would also open a bunch of doors for us to get the boys home OT and PT. Having that at home will also help us with the things that we are having major issues with, the stairs, feeding, bathing, teeth brushing, falling, speech, aggression just to mention a few. The more the help we can get to keep with going the better in our opinion.

A day late and a dollar short… maybe. No approval from the FDA took place this week. In other countries like the European Union, South Korea, Brazil, Russia, Australia and Canada, Zavesca has been approved for use in adult and pediatric patients suffering from this fatal disease called Niemann-Pick Type C.

Our understanding of the news that broke out a few days ago was that they want more testing done from pre-clinical and clinical studies to develop additional information.

Jean-Paul Clozel, M.D. and Chief Executive Officer of Actelion commented: “We remain committed to bringing an approved treatment to patients suffering from NP-C disease and in this spirit we will continue the dialogue with the FDA.”

It appears that Actelion is committed to finding the additional information needed to show the FDA that this could be one of the first FDA approved treatments for Niemann-Pick Type C.  Although this doesn't mean they will be cured, it could give someone like Brisan and Parker a few “extra” days living with NPC. As parents affected by this disease we are thankful that we currently have the opportunity to be apart of it even though Brisan and Parker aren't taking it. They will resume sometime in May this year.

That presents a different challenge for our family because we currently are on COBRA. It will be interesting what 12 months from now will look like especially if it isn't FDA approved because our future insurer might say H-E-double hockey sticks NO!

Here is a link to one of many articles: 

• Actelion receives FDA complete response letter for Zavesca (miglustat) for the treatment of Niemann-Pick type C disease

• FDA Does Not Approve Actelion’s Zavesca in US

• Actelion receives FDA complete response letter for Zavesca

Ding ding, round 2! Brisan and Parker started this week the 2 phrase of the N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) Drug Trial at the NIH. For the first week they have to ramp up on the drug again. Parker is at 9.5 ml x3 and Brisan is at 10ml x3. On the first phase it was 36ml x3 for Parker and 40ml x3 for Brisan.

As I posted originally on www.blog.bripardun.com, a diagram that I used from NNPDF's site to show how this crossover study is taking place. You can read more about it here: NAC Drug Trial. Essentially they are looking how they can reduce oxidative stress on the cells. The main issue they can't fix yet but if they can find little things to help the “side effects”, then that is  a very small win overall for NPC. We haven't seen any major changes in how they act. If there is they are very minor that they aren't completely noticeable.

Overall the drug is pretty safe. You can actually purchase it from any pharmacy. It doesn't taste bad either! We view this as an opportunity to help in the research of Niemann-Pick Type C!

Parker is just a funny kid! Below is a video we took while we were waiting on Dr. St. Peters to come into the room. He was being silly then as soon as I turned on the camera he stopped!

Overall March 24th is the date that they are going to due surgery. They aren't however going to do a fundo which is relieving for the time being. Now after the GT if he is aspirating or having things come back up, then it will validate if he is really having reflux. This is a completely safe guard (GT) since he loves to eat but he just isn't chewing his food like he needs to. I know we just hate seeing “stinky” or any of the boys go through these things.

During that surgery they will put a line in underneath his collar bone since Parker and Brisan both have had weekly infusions since November 09′. They are getting stuck way too much! This will make life a bit easier for everyone involved.

On another note please pray for Jonathan Fletcher of Independence, MO. He is a 5 year boy who is near his time due to a cancerous tumor inside the base of his brain stem. Pray that God takes away his pain and fears. Even more importantly pray for his parents. We don't want to imagine those feelings anytime soon.