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Brady Schroeder regained his health — and sense of smell — with a powerful new drug.
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Just Breathe A new hope for cystic fibrosis patients By Heather Caro
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THCF Medical Clinics
New Spokane Clinic Conveniently Located off 3rd Ave.
225 East 3rd Ave. Spokane WA 99202
1.800.723.0188 www.thc-foundation.org
ike most new mothers, Coeur d’Alene resident Rebecca Schroeder remembers feeling in awe of her baby boy when he was born in the summer of 2007. In the days following his birth, she recalls counting Brady’s tiny toes and smoothing his blond hair. But at his twoweek follow-up appointment, her baby was already showing signs that something was terribly wrong. “That’s when I first heard the words ‘failure to thrive,’” says Schroeder as she numbly recalls Brady’s steady weight loss, shrill cries and a nurse repeating a heel-stick screening test for a disease called cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis, Rebecca and her husband Brock would learn, is a rare but fatal genetic disease affecting around 35,000 Americans (70,000 worldwide). Due to a dysfunctional protein, people with CF produce thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs, obstructs the pancreas and decreases the body’s ability to absorb food. CF patients often lead lives punctuated by lengthy hospital stays and strict medication regimes. And despite advances, their average life
expectancy is still only in the mid-30s. A confirmation call from the pediatrician’s office quickly launched the young family into a whirlwind of doctor’s appointments, testing and consults, including a prescription for pancreatic enzymes that had to be force-fed to Brady with every meal, and that he would need to take for the rest of his life. “That was overwhelming,” recalls Rebecca. “And that’s one of the minor things now.” By the time Brady was 2, old enough to graduate to a fitted “shaker” vest that mechanically loosens stubborn secretions in the lungs, he no longer protested the necessary medical treatments. In fact, he had been holding his nebulizer on his own during treatments since he was 9 months old. Still, despite diligent compliance with his medical regimen, by the age of 4, Brady had endured multiple surgeries to remove his tonsils and adenoids, and to clear away the aggressively growing nasal polyps that took away his sense of smell and threatened to break the fragile bones in his skull. Soon he was cycling on three-week bursts of pred-
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5/22/13 1:22 PM