Corey Chambers Real Estate Newsletter September 2022 The SoCal Home

HAPPY LABOR DAY, EVERYONE!

 


The SoCal Home  —  More Than Real Estate News

Labor Day is All Wrong!

I always thought the powers that be in the U.S. got the name wrong – Labor Day. Since it’s a Holiday intended to be just that, a Holiday – I think the proper name would be Relax Day, Lazy Day, Off Day, or Sleep-in Day, something other than Labor Day. But, unfortunately, most celebrate Labor Day by doing just that – Laboring. Government employees and banks typically close on Labor Day, but according to recent studies, most Americans are labor on Labor Day. So to celebrate the month of September and the affection for Laboring, I have a special announcement to make: I will be Laboring, but for an extraordinary reason. Many would-be homeowners and home sellers are caught in a catch-22. They are nervous about moving or the opposite, desperate to make a move. This is why we have developed a unique program for those you know who are considering a move.

Just like the weather seasons come and seasons go, so do the seasons of life. I’m sure you have noticed, as I have, that the older I get, the faster the seasons move by. These “seasons of life” go by so fast. I hope you enjoy each one or at least grow from each one. Yes. Some of life’s seasons will be HOT, and others will be COLD, some high and some low. The lows we want to move by quickly, the highs we want to stay in forever sometimes. #coreychambers

This is where you come in…

For September, if you or anyone you know is considering making a move to a new home, we will GUARANTEE a minimum of $10,000 Savings for every $200,000 in sales price on the home purchase, or I will pay the difference*. You read it correctly – my labor saves you, and those you know considering making a move, a nice chunk of change. The reason why I can make such a special offer is simply that our long track record of selling homes and specialized knowledge allow us to negotiate the best deal on the best home for our best clients.  #realestate #newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE: 

  •  HAPPY LABOR DAY
  •  How Your Referrals Help Kids
  • And Much More   #realestate #newsletter

Even if YOU are not moving, you can still benefit

Each month in my special SoCal Home Newsletter, I ask, “Who do you know that may be considering a move?”

This is because YOUR referrals help the kids…

Anyone you know considering making a move or wanting to buy or sell their home, please refer them to me without hesitation. They will receive the guarantee I detailed above, and you can rest assured your referrals will help the kids at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

With a guarantee like this, you, your friends, neighbors, work associates, and family members who may be considering a move can now do so and avoid the uncertainties in the marketplace.

If you missed last month’s SoCal Home Newsletter, we are on a mission to raise $25,000 for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Helping Hands Fund, so we are donating a good portion of our income from home sales to them. As you know, Children’s does a tremendous job of helping kids fight through and survive nasty life-threatening diseases like Cancers, Leukemia, and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: stuff that often robs young people’s lives.

Kids under their care are 300% more likely to enter into remission IF they can get into the recovery center. But the Recovery Center survives on Sponsorships and Donations. So YOUR REFERRALS REALLY DO HELP THE KIDS…

Who do you know considering buying or selling a home you could refer to my real estate sales team?

Not only will they benefit from our award-winning service, but we donate a substantial portion of our income on every home sale to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Helping Hands Fund.

Your Referrals Really Do Help the Kids…

I want to make it easy to refer your friends, neighbors, associates, or family members considering making a move.

You can go to www.ReferralsHelpKids.com and enter their contact info online or forward the link to who you know considering a move.

Over the last two decades of helping thousands of families sell their homes and/or buy another, we have met some wonderful, loving, caring people. People like you! So your referrals, those you know considering a move, that we help – you can rest assured that not only will they get the award-winning service we are known for and the guarantee to back it up, but that a solid portion of the income we receive from the transaction will go toward a very worthy cause.

It’s easy to refer your friends, neighbors, associates, or family members considering making a move. Simply go to www.ReferralsHelpKids.com, or, of course, you can always call me directly at 213-880-9910.

I hope you and your family are well and this Independence Day brings you much joy and happiness. With all my appreciation.

Corey

Supporting_CHLA_logo

Corey Chambers, Broker Associate, Realty Source Inc 213-880-9910

P.S. We love honoring our past clients like you. Read all about that at www.ReferralsHelpKids.com

It’s easy to refer those you know considering buying or selling a home. You can go to www.ReferralsHelpKids.com and enter their contact info online or forward the link to who you know considering a move. You can also call me direct or pass my number on 213-880-9910.

Why I Support Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles

I grew up right here in Los Angeles. Born right nearby at St. Francis Hospital. I remember hearing about a young person close to our family suffering from a nasty disease and getting treated for that at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Then, I began to pay more immediate attention to their work at that hospital. Since then, I have learned that it is a collection of hard-working health care professionals, most making their homes right here in the Los Angeles area, all coming together for a common cause. That cause is to help young people overcome unfortunate health issues that life sometimes throws our way. Being a Los Angeles area, California native, I take pride in supporting in any way that I can the good work these people do at Children’s. My team rallies around our annual goal of raising money and donating portions of our income to help Children in their quest to heal young people when they need healing. My team and I are committed to providing outstanding results for buyers and sellers referred to us by our past clients. I have discovered that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles shares similar commitments to its patients. And since their services survive sponsorships and donations, we are happy to contribute and proud to support them.

Sincerely,

Corey Chambers 213-880-9910

Below is the story of a patient whose life was turned around by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Take a brief moment to consider what it must have been like to walk a mile in her shoes.

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MIBG Therapy Gives Delilah Renewed Hope

By Sara Jones

Araz Marachelian, MD, MS
Araz Marachelian, MD, MS

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is the only hospital in Southern California where patients can receive MIBG therapy, specialized targeted radiation therapy for neuroblastoma. 

Delilah has been fighting for her life since she was 4. The 7-year-old from Bakersfield has high-risk neuro-blastoma, a relatively rare and difficult-to-treat pediatric cancer affecting about 700 kids in the U.S. yearly.

Delilah’s disease is refractory, meaning her neuro-blastoma did not respond to traditional treatments—until a few months ago, when she decided to try something else.

In March, Delilah became the first child to receive MIBG therapy at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the only hospital in Southern California—and one of only a few in the Western United States—with the infrastructure and expertise to deliver this specialized targeted radiation therapy to children with high-risk neuroblastoma. Previously, the closest locations where patients like Delilah could receive MIBG therapy were San Francisco, Denver, and Houston.

“Delivering MIBG therapy at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles fills a huge need for kids in Southern California and beyond,” says Araz Marachelian, MD, MS, Medical Director of the Neuroblastoma MIBG Program in the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute. “For years, we have focused on other aspects of MIBG clinical care and research, particularly through our leadership in the New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy (NANT) consortium, but patients had to go to other institutions for the actual therapy. Now CHLA is a ‘one-stop shop,’ and families in the neuroblastoma community are really, really excited.”

Delilah’s mom, Samantha, agrees. “To not have to travel so far and to be at our home hospital where Delilah knows everybody—people she has developed a strong bond with—that extra comfort is such a blessing.”

An unexpected diagnosis

Looking back, Samantha can see the early signs: It was Christmas 2018, and Delilah complained about a tummy ache. Too many cupcakes, Samantha figured. Or, in typical toddler fashion, her daughter was just being picky and didn’t want to eat her food. The tummy aches seemed to come and go for the next couple of weeks, but Delilah didn’t have any other complaints—until Jan. 5, 2019, when she took a nasty fall off her bike.

“She said her leg hurt really bad,” says Samantha, “so her dad and I thought maybe she hurt it from the fall. No parent would know these things were because of cancer.”

That night, they took Delilah to the local emergency room. “They told us it was probably just growing pains and not to worry about it,” Samantha recalls. Two days later, they returned to the ER for X-rays, and still, there was no explanation for her leg pain.

Next, they tried to get answers from Delilah’s pediatrician. “We went back and forth for a couple of months before her doctor agreed to do blood work,” says Samantha. “When compared to old samples, Delilah’s blood counts were way off. The pediatrician told us it was probably leukemia.”

Delilah was admitted to a hospital just down the street from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles within days. “We were there for two or three weeks before they figured out that our daughter had stage 4 neuroblastoma. It was in 95% of her bone marrow, and they said she would have to fight for her life.”

‘Our whole lives changed’

It was a year before Delilah and her family would return to Bakersfield. “When they told us she had cancer, our whole lives changed,” Samantha says.

Delilah immediately started chemotherapy. Although not yet a patient at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Delilah got to know Dr. Marachelian, with whom her oncologist regularly consulted. Dr. Marachelian is world-renowned for her expertise in neuroblastoma.

Despite a very poor prognosis, Delilah underwent four rounds of chemo before her family decided to stop treatment and try homeopathic medicine instead. Samantha had just given birth to her third child—at the same hospital where her oldest was getting chemo—and it was time for a break.

“We have family in Texas, so we decided to go there to try to get away from cancer for a little while,” she says. “Delilah wasn’t in remission, but the stuff we gave her kept cancer at bay.”

For about 10 months, Delilah was stable. Then things took a turn for the worse.

“When she started limping,” Samantha says, “we knew it was cancer. We hopped on a plane and returned to California, where we knew Delilah would get the best treatment for her neuroblastoma.”

Going ‘full force with treatment’

In January 2020, the family returned to Bakersfield. No longer tied to their old insurance, they made sure their new plan would allow Delilah “to see Dr. Marachelian and do every-thing at CHLA. And then we went full force with treatment.”

“Neuroblastoma is tough cancer,” says Dr. Marachelian. “We need to treat it in all different ways to be successful, so we have long-term survivors. For most cancers, one type of therapy will never be the cure because cancers are very smart. But combining treatments and using multimodality therapy can increase the chance of a cure.”

Dr. Marachelian started Delilah on immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Although she improved, she did not get into remission, so she combined immunotherapy with different chemotherapy. Delilah went through 25 rounds of combination therapy, effectively killing many of the neuroblastoma that hadn’t responded before. But after two years, Delilah’s tumor was showing its stubborn side. It seemed that the treatment was working less and less, and the few new spots of the disease that started popping up on her scans were more discouraging.

“As time goes on, neuroblastoma tumors get smarter and smarter, and they get more resistant to attack by certain therapies,” Dr. Marachelian points out.

Despite multiple setbacks, Delilah still had a lot of fights left in her.

Taking aim with MIBG therapy

“The plan was to do MIBG therapy here at CHLA,” Samantha says, “but if for some reason the room wasn’t ready, we would go to San Francisco.”

Unlike traditional radiation treatments, which focus on one or two tumor sites, MIBG therapy is given by IV infusion and can target tumor cells anywhere in the body. The radioactive compound 131I-metaiodobenzylguanidine, or MIBG, is taken up by the neuroblastoma cells and in high enough doses, kills them. After infusion, the patient has to stay in isolation in a specialized MIBG room until the radiation in the body reaches a safe level.

“One of the things that’s really important is that we can keep parents in the room with their child,” Dr. Marachelian says. “Some places that do MIBG can’t allow that because of radiation risk. But we got a big room with a lot of space and enough lead shielding to be very safe, and the child and parent can always see each other.”

Delilah received her first infusion on March 9 in a procedure that lasted less than two hours. After less than three days in isolation, she could go home.

Samantha says the MIBG therapy worked really well and “got almost everything. Just one little light spot kept popping up, so Dr. Marachelian wanted her to return to get the rest.”

On May 10, Delilah had a second MIBG treatment, and she feels better than she has in a long time. If things continue to go well, Dr. Marachelian hopes to start her on the maintenance phase of treatment soon.

“It’s exciting that Delilah had a great response to MIBG,” says Dr. Marachelian. “At one point, she was thought to have zero chance of survival because her tumor had not responded at all. She and her family are on a very different journey now, and it’s really exciting.”

Making big plans

Delilah already has big plans for when she is cancer-free, including an overnight camping trip and a “No More Cancer Party” for family and friends. “And we will go to the salon!” she exclaims.

Samantha admits life with three kids under 8 is a bit crazy, especially since she homeschools Delilah and her 5-year-old sister, Summer. Throw cancer and a global pandemic into the mix, which can be difficult to cope with, especially for a young girl fighting cancer.

“She just got a kitten, Honey, because we wanted her to have something to lean on,” her mom says. “All the treatment really messes with [kids’] emotions. She doesn’t like to feel angry, but sometimes she does. We are just trying to help her be OK again.”

—  Story and photos courtesy Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

How you can help:

Refer your friends, neighbors, associates or family members who are considering making a move:

www.ReferralsHelpKids.com or call Corey at 213-880-9910

Delilah

Copyright © This free information is provided courtesy of L.A. Loft Blog and LAcondoInfo.com with the information provided by Corey Chambers, Broker, BRE#01889449. We are not associated with the homeowner’s association or developer. For more information, contact (213) 880-9910 or visit CoreyChambers.com, Licensed in California. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. Properties are subject to prior sale or rental. This is not a solicitation if the buyer or seller is already under contract with another broker.