Dear friends and family,
Thank you for visiting my One-to-One Fund.
the Bone Marrow & Cancer Foundation’s One-to-One Funds are designed to support patients through this difficult transplant journey. Thank you in advance for your support. All gifts are tax deductible.
Thank you.
Brandon, age 17, born with DOCK8 Deficiency
Brandon has been in and out of Hospitals his whole life. He has been diagnosed with DOCK8 Deficiency. Brandon has been gifted and involved in the Children’s Musical Theater of San Jose, for many years from a young age. At the age of 15 yrs. old he won 1st place in South Bay Teen Idol at the Addison Penzack JCC in Los Gatos, CA while keeping a humble spirit. Brandon has a passion for archery and when Brandon is feeling well he spends all of his free time on the range. He’s a happy, loving individual, always reaching out to others.
Medically speaking, Doctors say the only cure in battling Brandon’s disease would be a bone marrow transplant.
Brandon’s story:
Brandon was diagnosed with an immune deficiency at an early age, he has been in and out of the hospital his whole life, with chronic infections including bacteremia, pneumonias and Osteomyelitis, as well as other complications. Brandon was referred to Stanford Immunology, where they tried various treatments such as IVIG and subcutaneous injections of Immunoglobulin for many years. It was later through them that we found out the cause was an extremely rare immune deficiency, discovered by doctors at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, Maryland. Brandon and his family went to the NIH for formal diagnosis of DOCK8 deficiency and assessment in 2012, for Brandon, as well as his youngest sister, Mylie. We learned it is a degenerative disease, and the life expectancy for it is in the low/mid 20’s, due to complications from cancer or overwhelming infections. We also learned a bone marrow transplant could be a possible cure.
This past year has been an especially difficult one for Brandon, being hospitalized every few months has kept him from regular activities, and made it impossible to keep up with school work, pushing him into this difficult decision to go through with this transplant. We were unable to find a Bone marrow match for Brandon, so he will have what is called a Haploidentical marrow transplant. This is when marrow from a parent or sibling is used, as they are a half-match to the recipient. We will be doing his transplant within these next few months at the NIH in Maryland where they discovered DOCK8, and have the most knowledge and experience with transplants for this particular disease.
If you would like to help out Brandon and his family to offset/assist with Medical/travel/daily living expenses to alleviate the financial burden, this will help Brandon and his family focus on fighting the fight of his life!
The Loving Grandparents of Brandon Farmer,
Larry and Dianne Brady
For further information on DOCK8 deficiency, please visit this link; https://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/dock8/Pages/default.aspx
