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Plano child fights odds
Photo by Ronnie Baker / staff photo
As Kaiden began healing he also began playing. Each car is representative of a thought and a hope that Kaiden would soon be cancer-, radiation- and chemo-free. His smile is big and his joy is even bigger as he plays on the floor surrounded by tiny toy cars.
By Marthe Stinton, mstinton@acnpapers.com
Kaiden Brennfoerder was a happy little 2-and-a-half-year-old. He, like many children his age, loved playing with his toy cars. But on the morning of March 25, Brian and Amy Brennfoerder discovered that he may be faced with a few challenges.
“On Thursday morning, Amy found him having a massive seizure in his bed,” Brian said. “We couldn’t get it to stop and didn’t know how long it had been going on, so we called 911.”
When the paramedics arrived, they also couldn’t get the seizure to cease and transported Kaiden to Children’s Medical Center in Plano. Both parents waited in suspense as doctors and nurses surrounded their small son.
After the discovery, Kaiden was transported to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, where he was placed in the Intensive Care Unit and an MRI was ordered.
“That’s when we found out that he had a mass the size of a golf ball in the front-left part of his brain,” Amy said. “That was on March 25, and by March 29 he was undergoing brain surgery to remove the mass. The doctor said he couldn’t guarantee it but, with his experience, thought the mass would be cancerous.”
In those four days, Kaiden had so many medications to suppress the seizures that he was still unresponsive.
“We knew the seizure had lasted for a long time and, depending on how long seizures last, they can do a lot of brain damage,” Brian said. “So for days we didn’t know if he had brain damage or if it was just the medication.”
The mass was located in the upper-left part of his brain near the surface. Brian said they were thankful that it was on the surface and not wrapped around any vital parts of the brain, which made it easily accessible.
“It just unfolded so fast that we just felt like we were getting hit over and over,” Amy said. “When the surgeon came back after the surgery he told us he was sure he had gotten it all, but it looked cancerous. They sent it to biopsy and it was.”
After surgery, it was clear that the cloudiness his parents had seen was a short-lived side effect of the anti-seizure medication.
His surgeon was able to remove the entire tumor and diagnosed him with a rare brain cancer called a supratentorial peripheral neuroectodermal tumor, or PNET. According to Brian, these types of tumors are usually located in the back of the brain, making Kaiden’s case even more special.
“Normally they would do radiation right away but since he was so young they started him on chemo,” Brian said. “It was four cycles of chemo once per week. During each month-long cycle he was admitted to the hospital for an IV of chemo. Kaiden had to stay there until all the chemo cleared from his system. So half of about every week we spent at the hospital for about four months.”
Although his chemotherapy was cumulative, which allowed his body to bounce back before the next treatment, Kaiden’s parents watched as their little boy lost his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.
It was then that Amy received a card that would change it all.
“My friend had sent us a get-well card and I called her back to thank her for it,” Amy said. “During the conversation she asked if I had heard of proton therapy and told me they had a center in Oklahoma City where she lived. So when I got home I told Brian about it, we researched it and read some really good reviews.”
Brian and Amy spoke to Kaiden’s oncologist about the new treatment.
“She said it was every bit as good as traditional radiation with the potential of having less side affects,” Brian said. “Our oncologist said, clinically, she wasn’t able to recommend it because there wasn’t the proof in studies that it did what they thought it did. She said they haven’t been doing it with children’s cancers for long enough to have the documentation to prove it was as affective, but she was convinced, personally, that their claims were true.”
According to ProCure.com, where Kaiden was treated, proton therapy is an effective form of radiation therapy for many types of tumors. It destroys cancer cells by preventing them from dividing and growing, just like standard X-ray radiation.
Proton therapy is different from X-ray radiation in that less healthy tissue is damaged during treatment. This is because protons release more of their cancer-destroying energy directly in the tumor and less in surrounding healthy tissue.
This is an important benefit particularly when tumors are located near critical organs or structures such as the brain, where Kaiden’s was located. With standard X-ray radiation, more energy is released as X-rays travel through the patient's body on their way to the tumor, both before and after the tumor site, damaging healthy tissue along the path, the site said.
“We felt that whatever side effects he was going to have, he would have to live with for the rest of his life,” Amy said. “So if we could minimize the side effects we were going to take that option.”
Brian agreed.
“Radiation can just destroy the potential, and there is no way of knowing how he would have been,” Brian said. “We knew if he went through traditional radiation and suffered from side effects we would always wonder how much of that would be because of radiation.”
Kaiden received proton therapy five days a week for six weeks. He is now receiving maintenance chemo, which is an oral dose that he gets at home for the next four months. Kaiden is still going to the hospital once a week for checkups and is developing as expected for his age.
During his initial treatment, support poured in for the family. As more and more loved ones found out about Kaiden, monetary donations came in and Amy and Brian were soon flooded with questions regarding what types of toys Kaiden liked. The answer? Cars — and that’s exactly what he got.
Buckets and buckets full of small cars were brought to the family, and as Kaiden began healing he also began playing. Each car is representative of a thought and a hope that Kaiden would soon be cancer-, radiation- and chemo-free.
Today, the only trace of the golf-ball sized tumor is a scar that reaches across his head and small bald spot that will soon be covered in hair. His smile is big and his joy is even bigger as he lies on the floor surrounded by tiny toy cars.
Amy and Brian have set up a blog to update Kaiden’s team of followers. For information about Kaiden or to learn how to help, visit www.caringbridge.org/visit/kaidenbrennfoerder.
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