Coach balances baseball and family, raising son with CFC Syndrome
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n Christmas Day 2008, life threw Bryan Conger the biggest curve he’s ever experienced—son Jacoby. As Tarleton head baseball coach, Bryan knows a thing or two about curveballs, but Jacoby’s arrival surprised him and wife Melanie, even after deciding to have one more child after 10 years because of “how much we loved being parents.” Jacoby’s premature birth, inability to gain weight, sleeplessness and developmental issues affected not only Bryan and Melanie but siblings Maddux and Kaleigh as well. “We definitely weren’t expecting a Christmas baby,” Melanie says. “He was about six weeks early, so we weren’t really prepared. We had our traditional cinnamon rolls ready for the next morning, and we were prepared to have our final Christmas with just Kaleigh and Maddux.” At 5 a.m., that changed. The family headed to the hospital. Initially Jacoby failed to gain weight, never adding more than two ounces a week until an 11-ounce breakthrough in February. “He was labeled a failure to thrive for the first three months of his life,” Melanie recalls. “We tried everything to get him to eat. He would have milk pouring down his face, and we couldn’t understand why. They sent us to specialists for swallow studies.” Melanie also picked up on Jacoby’s slow development. “While visiting some friends with children when Jacoby was 3 months old, I noticed that one of the babies kept reaching out to grab her mom’s water bottle. I remember wondering why Jacoby didn’t try to grab mine. I wondered if there was something wrong with his vision, or if something more was going on.” At 7 months, Jacoby began having seizures. Even with medication, they became more frequent. Next stop was Cook Children’s Medical Center and a diagnosis of infantile spasms (IS).
When Life
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“We were told there’s only one drug in America to stop IS,” Melanie says. “Bryan and I agreed to stop the seizures.” Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) required daily injections for eight weeks. “I remember the first shot,” Melanie recalls. “It wasn’t easy—from the numbing to the injection to the screaming.” By day two, the seizures had stopped, but the injections continued as a daily ritual, turning Melanie into more of a nurse than mom. “ACTH affects immunity,” she explains. “That required us to take extra precautions against germs. We’d come home and take showers before even touching Jacoby.”