Let's get Brady to Mexico!!

Friends, family, and lovers of good causes. Here goes nothing.

I write to you humbly asking for help. We have an opportunity that could be incredibly life-changing for our family, but we can’t do it without you. Brady has been approved for a therapeutic neurological program that is not yet FDA-approved, so therefore not covered by insurance, meaning it’s cash pay. The amount due for this opportunity is $55k, which doesn’t include travel, lodging or food. Your eyes probably popped out of your head just now, as did mine when I first heard that figure. After speaking with the program’s developer personally and understanding how long & how much it has taken to get this program into practical use, the dollar figure seems appropriate. Still, it is so much money! So here I am begging you for some of yours.

For those of you who don't know about our Brady, let me give you a quick backstory on how we got where we are today. Brady’s birth was a difficult c-section; his head was lodged under my liver, and he was in the frank breech position. His first Apgar score was only 4, which means he wasn’t getting as much oxygen as he could have. His development was slow as a baby, but by age one he was doing everything but walking & talking, and he was the happiest little man. Brady started having seizures just before 14 months of age, and things quickly took a turn for the worse. He wouldn’t breathe during seizures, and in the very beginning he ended up on a ventilator for a week before he tried to breathe again. We repeatedly thought we were going to lose him. He was just a tiny baby, but the doctors threw so many meds at him desperately trying to get seizures to stop and prevent more bouts of apnea. Seizure meds didn't help him, and Brady’s little body didn’t metabolize them like it should, so he was a tiny zombie most of the time. One year, 3 PICU stays, and about 10 floor room stays later, we learned about cannabis to treat seizures and decided to pack up and move to Colorado from Kansas City. We weaned Brady off all the seizure meds. It was the best decision we’ve ever made, and we truly believe that if we had stayed the course in KC, he would have died. Still, the beginning of life in Colorado was rough because when we got here, Brady started seizing constantly. The doctors chalked it up to the altitude and sent us on our way. About two months later Brady spiked a fever, and we ultimately learned he had a bleeding ulcer. That had been the cause of the constant seizing since the move, but the damage was already done. All those seizures caused serious brain damage. He lost all development and couldn’t even hold his head up anymore. He was exclusively tube-fed. He had no smile, no expression, and we tried pharmaceuticals again with no luck. We finally found the strain of cannabis that helped to prevent his seizures, and we set off on our new journey to get Brady moving again. Around this time I was diagnosed with breast cancer, so now we had to deal with the issues surrounding chemo & the surgeries I needed on top of our new Brady. Life took a significant detour, but we powered through. Fast forward seven years, and Brady has head control, good trunk control, and communicates well with his Talker using his eyes, but he doesn’t sit unassisted, talk, crawl, walk, use his arms, etc. Development has been incredibly slow, and thanks to all those seizures, Brady now has the diagnosis of cerebral palsy.

After I learned about NeuroCytonix I immediately reached out asking for information. I had meetings with the administrator & the team’s pediatric neurologist, who made a case for Brady to the developer. I met with the developer, Dr. Trujillo, and he approved Brady for his program. It’s in Monterrey, Mexico, which is a super-hub for technology & medical innovation. It’s a 28-day program with no days off from treatment. Based on an FDA double-blind placebo study they recently completed, their success rate is 90%. They will be applying for Mexican FDA approval, followed by US FDA approval. It will take years for this to happen. As any parent of a special needs child knows, time is not always a luxury our kids have, so we can’t just wait & hope for FDA approval. The NeuroCytonix study was of 50 children in Mexico with CP. Half got the treatment and half got the placebo. The half that got the treatment have done so well that they are currently working to raise funds for the other half that didn’t get treatment. This isn’t to say the 25 kids that got the treatment are magically neurotypical, but abilities improved in 90% of those children. If we can get Brady even close to where he was before seizures began, we will be in incredible shape and will work his little tail off to keep the momentum going. The brain is an amazing thing with amazing capabilities, and I am a stubborn, hard-working mama who will stop at nothing to get her child everything he needs to thrive. But we don’t have $50k. We’ve thought about taking out a loan but adding more debt doesn’t make sense for us after all the money we’re spending on other therapies & treatments for Brady that insurance doesn’t cover. I’ve not been a big fan of crowdfunding in the past, but now I get it: when the opportunity of a lifetime approaches, you do what you can to make it a reality. I am also working on some side hustles to raise money, as I really have no idea how well this will be received. You might think I’m being selfish, or greedy asking for your help, but what parent wouldn’t do everything they can to improve their child's quality of life?

Let me share just a bit about the brilliant mind behind all of this:

Dr Trujillo’s mission is to “Cure the Incurable''. He got his Doctor of Science degree in Neurosciences and Molecular Virology at Harvard University. He was the first doctoral student at Harvard University to combine the studies of neuroscience and virology and the first Mexican in the history of Harvard to obtain a Doctor of Science degree in Medical Sciences. Dr. Trujillo founded the Pan-American Society of NeuroVirology. He has held several faculty positions at Harvard, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the NIH, and the University of Maryland. Dr Trujillo is the co-inventor of a patented medical device for the treatment of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and the prevention of cervical cancer. He has received numerous awards, professional titles, and honorary doctoral degrees from the NIH, Harvard University, and the Pan-American Society of Neurology. He is a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the Biophysical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There is so much more I could list about Dr Trujillo, but as far as I’m concerned the most impressive thing about this man is how relatable he is and how passionately he wants to “cure the incurable”. The fact that he is achieving this in our lifetime is such a blessing, and one way or another we will get Brady to his clinic.

NeuroCytonix isn't only helping kids with Cerebral Palsy. They are treating all sorts of brain injuries. One woman I spoke with took her daughter there in September and told me there were a few professional rugby players & one member of the Seattle Seahawks there getting treatment. She said she watched them change before her eyes. Concussion, TBI, Alzheimer's, Autism, Epilepsy, you name it, and they can probably help. They have only done the FDA study specifically for children with CP, so that's all they can say they've successfully treated, but it will eventually be so much more. Their machine repairs neurons and the damaged neuronal pathways caused by the various injuries the patient has sustained.

This request is a very humbling one for me; I don’t share a lot publicly about our life, but it seems now is my time to ask for help. If you can donate or share this with people who may be able to help, we will be forever indebted. This is such a lofty request and I have hesitated to share it for weeks, but I am putting my pride aside and asking for the only thing Brady needs that I can’t provide by myself. Thank you for reading.

To learn about the company & how they are healing brain injuries, check out https://www.neurocytonix.com

To learn more about Dr Trujillo and his incredible list of accomplishments, check out

https://www.neurocytonix.com/jrtrujillo