Profiles in Courage

Saying thanks and farewell to a friend

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment
Tom Howing

In this job you get to meet a lot of remarkable people, none more so than the patients who volunteer to take part in what are giant experiments. They are courageous pioneers, willing to be among the first people to ever try a new therapy, knowing that it may not help them and, potentially, might even harm them.

Tom Howing was one such person. I got to know Tom when we were putting together our 2017 Annual Report. Back in 2015 Tom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer that had spread throughout his body. He underwent surgery and chemotherapy. That worked for a while, but then the cancer returned. So, Tom had more surgery and chemotherapy. Again, it worked for a while but when the cancer returned again Tom was running out of options.

That’s when he learned about a clinical trial with a company called Forty Seven Inc. that was testing a new anti-cancer therapy that CIRM was supporting. Tom says he didn’t hesitate.

“When I was diagnosed with cancer I knew I had battle ahead of me. After the cancer came back again they recommended I try this CD47 clinical trial. I said absolutely, let’s give it a spin. I guess one is always a bit concerned whenever you put the adjective “experimental” in front of anything. But I’ve always been a very optimistic and positive person and have great trust and faith in my caregivers.”

Optimistic and positive are great ways to describe Tom. Happily, his optimism was rewarded. The therapy worked.

“Scans and blood tests came back showing that the cancer appears to be held in check. My energy level is fantastic. The treatment that I had is so much less aggressive than chemo, my quality of life is just outstanding.”

But after a year or so Tom had to drop out of the trial. He tried other therapies and they kept the cancer at bay. For a while. But it kept coming back. And eventually Tom ran out of options. And last week, he ran out of time.

Tom was a truly fine man. He was kind, caring, funny, gracious and always grateful for what he had. He talked often about his family and how the stem cell therapy helped him spend not just more time with them, but quality time.

He knew when he signed up for the therapy that there were no guarantees, but he wanted to try, saying that even if it didn’t help him that the researchers might learn something to help others down the line.

“The most important thing I would say is, I want people to know there is always hope and to stay positive.”

Tom ultimately lost his battle with cancer. But he never lost his spirit, his delight in his family and his desire to keep going as long as he could. In typical Tom fashion he preferred to put his concerns aside and cheer others along.

“To all those people who are putting in all the hours at the bench and microscope, it’s important for them to know that they are making a huge impact on the lives of real people and they should celebrate it and revel in it and take great pride in it.”

We consider ourselves fortunate to have known Tom and to have been with him on part of his journey. He touched our lives, as he touched the lives of so many others. Our thoughts and wishes go out to his family and friends. He will be remembered, because we never forget our friends.

A few years ago Tom came and talked to the CIRM Board. Here is the video of that event.

Stem Cells Profiles in Courage: Frank’s final gift

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frank-st-clair

Not every story has a happy ending. But they do all have something to teach us. In the case of Frank St. Clair the lesson was simple: live life fully and freely, love those around you, and never give up.

We were fortunate enough to get to know Frank as one of the people we profiled in our 2016 Annual Report. Frank was a patient in a clinical trial we are funding to test a new kind of bioengineered vein needed by people undergoing hemodialysis, the most common form of dialysis.

It was an all too brief friendship. Frank passed away on December 17th due to complications from heart disease. But in that time he touched us with his warmth, his kindness, his sense of humor and his generosity. Frank never gave up. He kept fighting to the end. His courage, and compassion for others is a reminder to us that we need to work as hard as we can, to bring treatments to those who need them most.

This is Frank’s story, in his own words:

“I have kidney disease. Had it about four years. When I first started dialysis I had a shunt in my chest.  I had to be careful with the shunt, especially at night, in case I pulled it out. It kept clogging up on me and I’d have to go in and get it reopened and that was a terrible thing.

One time when they were opening up the shunt in my chest I ran into the doctor and I got talking to him. He knew how miserable I was and he asked if I wanted to take part in this clinical trial. I said I did and they arranged for me to get this, the device. I just lucked out and was in the right place at the right time. Best move I ever made. Didn’t know anything about stem cells then, sure didn’t, I just knew I was miserable and if there was any way to make life better I just wanted to do it or try it.

And then I did this and it was like day and night.

Since I’ve done this my life has improved 100%. I can do a lot now that I couldn’t do before. My wife and I are so grateful that we can have this. Now we can go out to dinner and do anything we want. We could go out before but we had to always be careful because of the thing in my chest. But now I don’t even think about it. It’s like getting my life back.

I don’t notice it all. I don’t feel it at all. I hate to say it, but I can’t believe I’m on dialysis. I would like to have a kidney but I’ll be honest with you this is the next best thing.

When I go to the clinic there’s a lot of old people there and I just try to make them laugh, tell them jokes, I just can’t believe how good I feel and I want to make others feel good too.

I take the time to talk to them, and give them gum and that cheers them up. My wife has to keep me supplied with gum.

I’ve been married 45 years. We met in high school chorus. I didn’t care too much about singing but I went to chorus because I wanted to meet girls. That’s where I met Paula. Best move I ever made.

I sure don’t feel old. My wife and I are two people that love each other very dearly, that’s my blessing, with her help I couldn’t get old.

I’m a workaholic but until I got the Humacyte device I couldn’t work. I had to sell my business.

I used to be a private detective. It had its moments. My wife used to get mad because I got up at 2 or 3 in the morning to get someone who was in hiding. I had one guy, he was about 6’ 7”, big guy. I knocked at the door and said the name of the guy I was looking for, and asked if he was there. He asked why, so I told him why I was there and he said “It’s me,” and ran right over me and knocked me on the ground and ran away. But I managed to talk him into coming back.

We served a lot of papers on foreclosures and I hated that, and I would always try and help those people if I could.

One time I ran into an old lady, she was a nice woman, and her husband handled all the bills but he died and they had stock in Bernie Madoff’s company and when he went under it left her broke.  They had $1.7 million in a company that went bankrupt. She lost it all. She didn’t know what to do. When I went to serve her papers she hadn’t eaten in two days,  so I went and bought her and brought some groceries and made sure the electric bill got paid and then called her son and made sure she was taken care of.

My wife said we were going broke helping so many people, but I felt that if you help people it comes back to you and it has.

I volunteer at the VA, help out there when I can. Just trying to give back. Always have. I think if you can help someone you need to do it.

I feel damn lucky, really lucky, more ways than one. You have to understand I have lived 50 years longer than I should have; I could have died in Vietnam, so I would just say do not give up. Don’t give up. My wife wouldn’t let me give up, and things happen. If they are meant to be, of course. Something will happen and I’m telling you. The key is making people around you feel like they want to be around you.”

We are forever grateful to Frank for being willing to be part of a clinical trial that will, hopefully, improve the quality of life for many others. That is his legacy. Our thoughts and wishes go out to his wife Paula

Stem Cell Profiles in Courage: Karl’s Fight with Cancer

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Karl Trede

Karl Trede

When I think of a pioneer I have an image in my head of people heading west across the Americans plains in the 18th century, riding in a covered wagon pulled by weary oxen.

Karl Trede doesn’t fit that image at all. He is a trim, elegant man who has a ready smile and a fondness for Hawaiian shirts. But he is no less a pioneer for all that. That’s why we profiled him in our 2016 Annual Report.

In 2006 Karl was diagnosed with cancer of the throat. He underwent surgery to remove his vocal chords and thought he had beaten the cancer. A few years later, it came back. That was when Karl became the first person ever treated in a CIRM-funded clinical trial testing a new anti-tumor therapy targeting cancer stem cells that so far has helped hold the disease at bay.

Here is Karl’s story, in his own words:

“I had some follow-up tests and those showed spots in my lungs. Over the course of several years, they saw those spots grow, and we knew the cancer had spread to my lungs. I went to Stanford and was told there was no effective treatment for it, fortunately it was slow growing.

Then one day they said we have a new clinical trial we’re going to start would you be interested in being part of it.

I don’t believe I knew at the time that I was going to be the first one in the trial [now that’s what I call a pioneer] but I thought I’d give it a whirl and I said ‘Sure’. I wasn’t real concerned about being the first in a trial never tested in people before. I figured I was going to have to go someday so I guess if I was the first person and something really went wrong then they’d definitely learn something; so, to me, that was kind of worth my time.

Fortunately, I lasted 13 months, 72 treatments with absolutely no side effects. I consider myself really lucky to have been a part of it.

It was an experience for me, it was eye opening. I got an IV infusion, and the whole process was 4 hours once a week.

Dr. Sikic (the Stanford doctor who oversees the clinical trial) made it a practice of staying in the room with me when I was getting my treatments because they’d never tried it in people, they’d tested it in mice, but hadn’t tested it in people and wanted to make sure they were safe and nothing bad happened.

The main goals of the trial were to define what the side effects were and what the right dose is and they got both of those. So I feel privileged to have been a part of this.

My wife and I (Vita) have four boys. They’re spread out now – two in the San Francisco Bay Area, one in Oregon and one in Nevada. But we like to get together a few times a year. They’re all good cooks, so when we have a family get together there’s a lot of cooking involved.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, in 2015, the boys decided they wanted to have a rib cook-off for up to around 30 people and I can proudly say that I kicked their ass on the rib cook-off. I have an electric cooker and I just cook ‘em slow and long. I do a cranberry sauce, just some home made bbq sauces

I’m a beef guy, I love a good steak, a good ribeye or prime rib, I make a pretty mean Oso bucco, I make a good spaghetti sauce, baked chicken with an asparagus mousse that is pretty good.

I just consider myself a lucky guy.”

Karl Trede with CIRM President Randy Mills at the 2016 December Board meeting.

Karl Trede with CIRM President Randy Mills at the 2016 December Board meeting.

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Stem Cell Profiles in Courage: Brenden Whittaker

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brenden-and-dog

Brenden Whittaker: Photo Colin McGuire

It’s not often you meet someone who says one of their favorite things in the world is mowing the lawn. But then, there aren’t many people in the world like Brenden Whittaker. In fact, as of this writing, he may be unique.

Brenden was born with severe chronic granulomatous disease (x-CGD), a rare genetic disorder that left him with an impaired immune system that was vulnerable to repeated bacterial and fungal infections. Over 22 years Brenden was in and out of the hospital hundreds of times, he almost died a couple of times, and lost parts of his lungs and liver.

Then he became the first person to take part in a clinical trial to treat x-CGD. UCLA researcher Don Kohn had developed a technique that removed Brenden’s blood stem cells, genetically re-engineered them to correct the mutation that caused the disease, and then returned those stem cells to Brenden. Over time they created a new blood system, and restored Brenden’s immune system.

He was cured.

We profiled Brenden for our 2016 Annual Report. Here’s an extended version of the interview we did with him, talking about his life before and after he was cured.

brenden_stories_of_hope

Brenden with a CIRM Game Ball – signed by everyone at CIRM

Brenden’s story:

I still think about it, my disease, every few days or so and it’s weird because in the past I was sick so often; before this year, I was sick consistently for about 5 years and going to doctor’s appointments 2 or 3 times a week and being in the hospital. So, it’s weird having a cough and not having to be rushed to the ER, not having to call someone every time the smallest thing pops up, and not having to worry about what it means.

It’s been good but it’s been weird to not have to do that.  It’s a nice problem to have.

What are you doing now that you didn’t do before?

Cutting the grass is something I couldn’t do before, that I’ve taken up now. Most people look at me as if I’m crazy when I say it, but I love cutting grass, and I wasn’t able to do it for 22 years of my life.

People will complain about having to pick up after their dog goes to the bathroom and now I can follow my dog outside and can pick up after her. It really is just the little things that people don’t think of. I find enjoyment in the small things, things I couldn’t do before but now I can and not have to worry about them.

The future

I was in the boy scouts growing up so I love camping, building fires, just being outdoors. I hiked on the Appalachian Trail. Now I’ll be able to do more of that.

I have a part time job at a golf course and I’m actually getting ready to go back to school full time in January. I want to get into pre-med, go to medical school and become a doctor. All the experience I’ve had has just made me more interested in being a doctor, I just want to be in a position where I can help people going through similar things, and going through all this just made me more interested in it.

Before the last few months I couldn’t schedule my work more than a week in advance because I didn’t know if I was going to be in the hospital or what was going on. Now my boss jokes that I’m giving him plans for the next month or two. It’s amazing how far ahead you can plan when you aren’t worried about being sick or having to go to the hospital.

I’d love to do some traveling. Right now most of my traveling consists of going to and from Boston (for medical check-ups), but I would love to go to Europe, go through France and Italy. That would be a real cool trip. I don’t need to see everything in the world but just going to other countries, seeing cities like London, Paris and Rome, seeing how people live in other cultures, that would be great.

Advice for others

I do think about the fact that when I was born one in a million kids were diagnosed with this disease and there weren’t any treatments. Many people only lived a few years. But to be diagnosed now you can have a normal life. That’s something all on its own. It’s almost impossible for me to fathom it’s happening, after all the years and doctor’s appointments and illnesses.

So, for people going through anything like this, I’d say just don’t give up. There are new advances being made every day and you have to keep fighting and keep getting through it, and some day it will all work out.

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Stem Cells Profile in Courage: Pat Furlong, Patient Advocate

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pat-furlong

Pat Furlong: Photo by Colin McGuire – http://www.colinmcguire.com

One of the true joys for me in helping put together this year’s Annual Report was getting to know the patients and patient advocates that we profiled in the report. These are some extraordinary individuals and the short profiles we posted only touch the surface of just how extraordinary.

So, over the next few weeks we are going to feature four of these people at greater length, allowing them, in their own words, to talk about what makes them tic, and how they keep going in the face of what is often heartbreak and tragedy.

We begin with Pat Furlong, a Patient Advocate and the Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), the largest nonprofit organization in the United States solely focused on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

DMD is the most common fatal, genetic childhood disorder, which affects approximately 1 out of every 3,500 boys each year worldwide. It’s a progressive muscle disorder that leads to loss of muscle function, meaning you lose your ability to walk, to use your arms, and ultimately to breathe. And because the heart is a muscle, that is often seriously affected. There is no cure, and treatment options are limited. At the time her sons were diagnosed life expectancy was in the teens.

Pat’s story:

“When my sons, Chris and Pat were diagnosed with DMD, at the ages of 4 and 6, there was nothing available for them. Doctors cared about them but they didn’t have the tools they needed, or the National Institutes of Health the money it needed to do research.

Doctors were faced with diagnosing a disease and saying “there’s nothing we can do”. And then parents like me, coming to them hearing there was nothing they could do, no hope, no help. When your son is diagnosed with something like this you are told go home and love them.

When I asked questions, I was often ignored or dismissed by some doctors.

When my sons were diagnosed with DMD I would drop them off at school and go walking and that would help me deal with the anger.

For me staying in this is to be able to say to Chris and Pat in the universe, when you were here I tried my very best and when you were gone I continued to try my best so that others would have advantages that you didn’t receive.

I haven’t stood back and said I can’t go on.

The family is all scarred, we all suffered this loss. It’s much more apparent when we are together, there are empty chairs, emptiness. If we go to a family gathering we wish Chris and Pat were here, could be married. Now there’s my husband and our two daughters. We have a granddaughter, who is wonderful, but still we are incomplete and we will live with that forever.

I am trained as a nurse and I find DMD equal parts fascinating disease, heartbreaking and painful. I try to emphasize the fascinating so I can keep going. There are frustrations; lack of money, the slow process of regulatory approval, but I have an incredible team of very smart people and we are passionate about change so that helps keep us going.

Your only interest can’t be DMD, it can’t be. For me it’s certainly a priority, but it’s not my only interest. I love to go to an art museum and see how creative people work. I love Cirque du Soleil because they do things with their muscles I can’t imagine. Going outside and seeing these things makes the world better.

I am interested in the expression of art, to see how people dress, to see how people are creative, I love creativity, I think the human spirit is pretty amazing and the creativity around it. I think we are all pretty amazing but sometimes we don’t say it enough.

I recently saw a woman on the subway with a pair of tennis shoes that said “you are beautiful” and people around her were looking at her shoes and smiling, just because of those shoes. We forget to interact, and that was such a simple way of doing that.

bucket-feet

 

I relax by doing yoga, 90-minute hot yoga, as often as I can. I’ve also done a number of half marathons, but I’m more a walker than a runner. I find getting outside or hot yoga makes me concentrate on what I’m doing so that I can’t think of anything else. I can put it down and think about nothing and whisper prayers to my sons and say am I doing the right thing, is there something I should be doing differently? It’s my time to think about them and meditate about what they think would be important.

You need to give your mind time to cope, so it’s putting your phone down and your computer away. It’s getting rid of those interruptions. To put the phone, the computer down and get in a hot room and do yoga, or run around outside, to look at a tree and think about the changing season, the universe, the sun. It’s an incredible break for the brain to be able to rest.

I think the disease has made us kinder people and more thoughtful. When Chris died, we found a notebook he kept. In it was written “the meaning of life is a life of meaning”. I think that’s where we have all landed, what we all strive for, a life of meaning.