Corey Chambers SoCal Home Real Estate Newsletter September 2019

Corey Chambers SoCal Home Newsletter New Year 2018 Jimmy Kimmel and Baby Billy
Corey Chambers SoCal Home Newsletter September 2019

The SoCal Home  —  More Than Real Estate News

Labor Day News Letter
Labor Day September 2, 2019

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 would think the proper name would be Relax Day or Lazy Day or Off Day or Sleep-in Day, something other than Labor Day. Unfortunately, most celebrate Labor Day by doing just that – Laboring. Government employees and Bank’s typically close up shop on Labor Day, but according to recent studies the majority of Americans are laboring 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 a very special reason. Right now, 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 special program for those you know that 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, the older I get the faster the seasons move by. These “seasons of life” go by so fast, my hope is that 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

VIDEOS:    INTRO   |   COMPLETE

This is where you come in…

For the month of September, if you or anyone you know is considering making a move to a new home, we will Guarantee a minimum $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 because our long track record of selling homes and specialized knowledge allows us to negotiate the best deal on the best home for our best clients.  #realestate #newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE:  VOL 5, ISSUE 9  SEPTEMBER 2019

  •  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, 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 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 many times rob the life right out of young people.

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…

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids
Go Serve Big Your Referrals Help Kids!!!
Go Serve Big Your Referrals Help 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 home 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 direct as well 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

Go Serve Big in SoCal

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 on line 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 when I first heard about a young person close to our family suffering from a nasty disease and getting treated for that at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. It was then that I began to pay closer attention to the work they do at that hospital. Since then, I have learned that it is a collection of hard-working health care professionals, most making their home 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’s 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 their patients. And since their services survive on sponsorships and donations we are happy to contribute and proud to support them.

Sincerely,

 

 

213-880-9910

Go Serve Big!

Below is the story of a patient so young and so undaunted by his ailments that he compels us to want to face our adversities more bravely.

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‘A Rare Disease, But Not For Us’

Two doctors’ research into an obscure field changed this 3-year-old’s life

by Michael Y. Park

It was obvious there was a problem as soon as Oliver was born.

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids

Oliver’s birth in 2015 was already complicated—he was in a breech position and had to be delivered via a cesarean section. But they thought everything was still going to be OK until Oliver was out.
“All is going well until there’s a moment when the doctor says, ‘Hey, hang on, guys, it’s going to be a little longer. He’s stuck,’” says Oliver’s mother, Jennifer. “And then she said, ‘Call Peds,’ and the mood in the room completely shifted. We asked what was going on, and she said, ‘There’s a bump. He’s got a big bump.’”
“Once the team rushed in, that’s when panic set in,” Peter, Oliver’s father, added. “They said it was nothing they had seen before. ‘We’re not sure what it is.’ They threw out words like ‘tumor,’ ‘cyst,’ ‘cancer.’ That’s when we knew we were in trouble.”
What Oliver had was a 12-ounce mass under his arm that prevented it from going lower than a waving position. It was a lymphatic malformation: Instead of the usual clear, straw-colored lymphatic fluid draining through innumerable tiny channels, it was developing into large cysts. The vessels that were supposed to keep the fluid flowing instead ballooned and grew into a liquid-filled sac larger than a grapefruit.
The doctors at the delivery hospital quickly got in touch with the Vascular Anomalies Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Oliver’s family met with Dean Anselmo, MD.

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids

Dr. Anselmo is a Pediatric Surgeon and Co-director of the Vascular Anomalies Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which serves children with malformations of the veins, arteries, and lymphatic channels. He founded the Center, recognizing that the disorder wasn’t widely understood and that a dedicated team of specialists would be better able to devise treatments that could improve the lives of children with these rare, often disfiguring—and sometimes fatal—vascular issues. The specialty is still so obscure and little understood that there isn’t even a dedicated U.S. medical association.

“When I first started in pediatric surgery, there was really almost no data or literature about sclerotherapy for vascular malformations, so a lot of these kids underwent multiple disfiguring surgeries,” he says. “I’m actively hoping for treatments that take me, the surgeon, out of the picture. We’ve changed the paradigm for a lot of these things.”
Initially, the center started with Dr. Anselmo, a plastic surgeon, and an interventional radiologist, but the strides they’ve made in the field have added to the composition of the team, which now also includes a dermatologist, hematologist-oncologist and a number of other professionals who’ve combined their expertise to devise the best ways to help their tiny patients.
“I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t had to do a tremendous amount of recruitment,” Dr. Anselmo says. “We got Dr. Minnelly Luu, our dermatologist, to join the clinic simply because she has expertise in the area and wanted to be a part of the team.”
The Vascular Anomalies Center has studied the effectiveness of doxycycline, an antibiotic, in treating malformations; published several papers on various surgeries for lymphatic anomalies; and helped shed light on when surgery is and isn’t the best option for kids with the condition. They’ve uncovered a lymphatic disorder that was often mistaken for but distinct from another and come up with a treatment for lymphatic leak syndrome, a defect in the all-encompassing part of the immune system that helps circulate and regenerate various fluids the body needs to survive.
But one of the most successful treatments the Vascular Anomalies team settled on for the majority of lymphatic malformation cases is a multi-stage approach that involves draining the fluid from abnormal vessels and lymphatics and injecting them with a sclerosant, a scarring agent, before having a surgeon treat any excess skin and residual malformation. It turned out to be a much less traumatic and more effective method than going in and cutting out the tissue to treat certain anomalies—like the one Oliver was born with.
“It was on the order of 1 in 5,000 to 10,000 births—this is a rare disease, but not for us,” says Dr. Anselmo. “We’re now one of the largest multidisciplinary vascular clinics in the western United States, and we see kids not just from Southern California but the Middle East, South America, and Asia. These are such rare diseases not really understood by the general medical community that it requires a specialized clinic. It was kind of fortunate that Oliver was born in a city where a vascular anomalies clinic exists. If he were out in some other state where kids don’t have access, then oftentimes these patients are given the wrong diagnosis, and the treatments that are done can cause harm to these kids.”

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids

Oliver’s first and most important procedure took place in February 2016.
“It was the most unbelievable experience—as parents, obviously excruciating for us—but the level of care and kindness literally from that woman down at the Starbucks who smiles at you and knows the pain you’re in, to the woman who cleans the room, to the nurses and doctors,” Jennifer said.
Chadi Zeinati, MD, Director of Interventional Radiology at CHLA, drained the fluid from Oliver’s cyst and then injected the solution that would shrink the large cysts and prevent them from ballooning again. And it worked.
“Since this was such a large malformation, I decided to place a drain in it to help keep it deflated after the sclerosant was injected,” says Dr. Zeinati. “This allowed me to treat the problem multiple times with only one, minimally invasive procedure.”
“Oliver responded remarkably well, and his malformation diminished dramatically,” Dr. Anselmo says, adding that the Center sees about a 95% success rate with sclerotherapy for lymphatic malformations.
But it wasn’t a walk in the park.
“Sclerotherapy is very painful,” Jennifer said. “We were holding Oliver, and he was not having a good day at that point, and this doctor we’d never met comes over and gave me a hug, saying, ‘You looked like you needed a hug.’ That’s the kind of people we met [at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles].”
That kindness later inspired Jennifer to start the #WeAreLucky campaign to raise money for other families of children treated at CHLA.

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids

There were still a couple more treatments to go, including home visits and plastic surgery for his skin, but Oliver is on track to make a complete recovery.
“The point to take home is that these vascular malformations, the type Oliver had, cannot be entirely managed by one type of physician alone,” Dr. Anselmo says. “It needs to be a team effort. And now he’s a happy, healthy little boy with no residual component of this left, and the likelihood of recurrence is exceedingly low.”
“Multidisciplinary clinics are key to running and managing complex disease processes properly,” says Dr. Zeinati. “They speed up the work-up and management of these patients who may have been bounced around for years from one doctor to another. As the treatment algorithm improves in this ever-changing field, genetic mapping of these diseases and research into targeted medical therapy will hopefully be the future.”

Thanksgiving was a little extra special two and a half years later for Drs. Anselmo and Zeinati, not because of the food and company—which were, by all accounts, excellent—but because of how ordinary it was. Specifically, how ordinary the scene was on the living room floor, where their hosts’ children were playing as the adults chatted. And specifically, because of how ordinary that one 3-year-old child—the middle boy—was as he played. You would never have been able to tell that Oliver had been incapable of lowering his arm below his shoulder.
“Oliver’s a cute little guy, really funny,” Dr. Anselmo says. “Like a typical 3-year-old. He’s really into garbage trucks.”
Dr. Anselmo now counts Oliver’s family as close friends, and, as they broke bread, guests went around the table recounting what they felt thankful for. Every one of them said they were thankful for Drs. Anselmo and Zeinati.
“Had it been 20 or 40 years earlier, we’d be writing a much different story about Oliver today,” Peter says. “And I thank my stars every day that these guys exist, that they took an interest in the field, and that they’re able to conduct this research and perform. It wasn’t a lifesaving procedure, but it was life-altering, and the trajectory of my son’s life is not only different but so much better because of what they do.”

How you can help

Refer your friends, neighbors, associates or family members considering making a move:  www.ReferralsHelpKids.com or call Corey 213-880-9910

Article and photos courtesy Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Your Referrals Help Kids
Your Referrals Help Kids

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

* Corey and buyer / seller must agree on price and time of possession.

Corey Chambers SoCal Home August Real Estate Newsletter 2019

YOUR REFERRALS HELP THE KIDS!
YOUR REFERRALS HELP THE KIDS!

Boy…it Hot
And Not Just Outside!

You don’t have to be a weather person to predict the weather this time of year. We all know… it’s the hottest time of the year. But that’s not all that’s hot. The economy is red hot too. By all measures the best economy in 20 years or so.   |   NEWSLETTER PDF

This is GOOD for most reading this, but there will be some exceptions. There always are. An example could be someone will sell a house and make out great, meaning a buyer pays a bit more than they would have not too long ago. And in some areas, the opposite happens. Seller does not make out that great, but the buyer does.  Most homeowners who do NOT have to sell of course know this and will hold back on buying or selling. That will, of course, impact supply and demand. Results right now?

RED HOT Opportunities!

If you or a friend are thinking about selling, make sure to choose a real estate company you can trust!

Benefiting

Corey Chambers Team raising $25,000 for CHLA

 

 

 

 

A Real Estate Company That Gives Back!

Corey Chambers Your Home Sold GUARANTEED or I'll Buy It* 888-240-2500
Corey Chambers Your Home Sold GUARANTEED or I’ll Buy It* 888-240-2500

How does this impact you? Well, it is a HOT time to invest in real estate. Single-family, multi-family, even farmland. If you didn’t get the memo, here is a special clause from our Buyer and Seller Agreements of our VIP Client Program enabling past clients of ours to create additional wealth through real estate. VIP CLIENT PROGRAM: Seller ___ does OR ___ does not wish to participate in Broker’s VIP Client Real Estate Investor Program (REIP), whereby Seller will receive notices of free real estate investor training and notices of real estate investment opportunities by mail, email or phone at times when investment opportunities arise. Seller may opt-out of The REIP at any time. Seller is never obligated to invest in real estate. So, if you or anyone you know like the idea of making money in real estate using other people’s money, please contact us right away… while these HOT investment opportunities are available. Making gains in assets and wealth are nice! I especially like it because it allows me the opportunity to GIVE more. How about you? 

 

Go Serve Big
Your Referrals Help Kids!

As you probably know, we donate a portion of our income to some AMAZING, worthy causes! Like Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, one of the country’s leading non-profit children’s hospitals. This year we are on a mission to raise $25,000 for CHLA. Their work in helping kids fight through and survive nasty debilitating diseases like cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia as well as their work in early diagnosis of autism and spinal cord injuries is second to none! And as the leading not for profit hospital in our area, you probably know they need sponsorships and donations to continue their leading-edge care and keep family’s expenses to a minimum. We are committed to donating a portion of our income from home sales to this very worthy cause. So, YOUR REFERRALS really do HELP THE KIDS… Who do you know considering buying or selling a home, or investing in real estate you could refer to my team? Not only will they benefit from our award-winning service, but the kids at CHLA will benefit as well. Just give me a call or pass my number on to anyone you know considering buying or selling. 

My number is 213-880-9910. You and your referrals mean more than ever to my team.  As we move forward through this red-hot summer, please know we are extremely thankful for you and you being a special part of our business. 

Corey Chambers

Corey

 

 

 

Your Home Sold Guaranteed 

P.S. When you read the story enclosed your heart will warm! Boy mine sure did. Check it out. 

A Real Estate Company that Gives Back! 

When you hear me say, “YOUR REFERRALS HELP THE KIDS!” they really do! 

Selling Your Home and Getting Top Dollar! 

Call me TODAY for a free consultation. 

Corey Chambers 213-880-9910

A real estate company with experience, proven results, and a give-back philosophy!  Over the last two decades of helping thousands of families sell their home and/or buy another, we have met some wonderful, loving, caring people.  People like you! So your referrals 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 will go toward a very worthy cause. Refer your friends, neighbors, associates or family members considering making a move: 

1 You can fill out the enclosed response card with someone you know considering a move and mail back to me.  

2 You can go to www.ReferralsHelpKids.com enter their contact info on-line or forward the link to someone you know considering a move. 

Of course, you can always call me direct as well at 213-880-9910. 

Why I support Childrenʼs Hospital, Los Angeles 

Children's Hospital Los Angeles
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

I grew up right here in the Greater Los Angeles Area, born in Los Angeles County at St. Francis Hospital. I remember when I first heard about a young person close to our family suffering from a nasty disease and getting treated for that at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. It was then that I began to pay closer attention to the work they do at that hospital. Since then, I have learned that it is a collection of hard-working health care professionals, most making their home 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 a way that I can the good work these people do at Children’s. My team rallies around our annual goal or
raising money and donating portions of our income to help Children’s 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 commitment to their patients. And since their services survive on sponsorships and donations, we are happy to contribute and proud to support them.
Sincerely,
Corey

 

 

Corey Chambers

 


YOUR REFERRALS HELP THE KIDS!
Story And Pictures Courtesy of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

The dawning of gene therapy at CHLA saved a 5-year-old girl from inevitable blindness.

You will have to grant a parental pardon to Heather for her momentary excessive permissiveness, allowing her 5-year-old daughter to race down the block after dark, free from her mother’s hand. It wasn’t just that the cool house on the street was all done up for Halloween, or that it belonged to Heather’s sister. It was the dark itself that was the thrill.

“I can see in the dark!” Monroe roared as she ran, in that delirious hiccup-giggle a 5-year-old can do. “I see the houses! I see the cars! I can see in the dark!”Only a month earlier, Heather would have had Monroe virtually clamped to her side. As an infant, Monroe would always turn away from the dark, fixing her eyes on the recessed lighting installed near the ceiling in the family’s living room. No amount of silly faces, animal impersonations or got-your-nose tricks could get her to engage in eye contact, or to look away from the sunbeams coming through a window.  For months Heather’s pediatrician told her nothing was out of the ordinary. Monroe was still “discovering” her eyes, she said. Over time she got a notion that autism was the source of Monroe’s symptoms, which grew to include multiple missed milestones that were consistent with the disorder. If you waved, Monroe didn’t wave back; she wouldn’t sit still, or look in the direction of a pointing finger.

The doctor referred Heather to a facility near her house in San Diego, where Monroe was given the standard circuit of tests and therapies. Heather was inclined to believe what she was told, even if it didn’t match what she witnessed at home. “The doctor had me convinced she was autistic,” she says. “I was like, ‘Well, then that’s it. That’s what it is.’” But after starting therapy Monroe began walking—and bumping right into walls. “We had a stair in our house—just one stair,” Heather says. “She would always miss it. She would always fall.”

On what turned out to be her last appearance at the autism center, a staff member put Monroe in a dark, tent-like space, as Heather describes it, employing it as a calming safe zone. It was just the opposite. Monroe came scampering out toward the light, bawling.

That was enough. Unable to get through to her pediatrician, Heather found a new, more amenable one, who sent her to an ophthalmologist at the local children’s hospital. The ophthalmologist found that Monroe’s pupils would enlarge when encountering bright spaces and shrink in darker surroundings—the opposite of how they’re supposed to behave. He had her undergo an electroretinogram, a sophisticated vision test that checks the response of the light-detecting cells in the retina. All of Monroe’s mystifying behavior—walking into walls, glaring at the glow of the TV set, failing to respond to a wave—was about to be explained.

The test showed Monroe had Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA), a rare, inherited eye disease that disrupts the retina’s capacity to respond to light. Overall eyesight deteriorates, but the main impairment in children is to the rod photoreceptors, the part of the eye that’s called on in dim surroundings, leaving the LCA patient unable to see in the dark, or even in soft light.
A blood sample confirmed that Monroe had a mutation in the RPE65 gene, which governs the production of a protein that provides for healthy vision.  “I asked the doctor, ‘Well, what does this mean?’” Heather says. “He said, ‘Your daughter at some point is going to lose her vision.’”  He said the condition had no remedy but offered a vague, insinuated hope. “Maybe there will be something available at some point,” he told Heather, “but right now we have nothing.

”News of a breakthrough”
What Heather did not know was that a group of researchers had reached the final phase of a clinical trial on a drug that would soon land like a cannon shot across the medical field. The drug, called Luxturna, carries a healthy, functioning copy of the RPE65 gene in liquid form that gets injected below the patient’s retina. Once the replacement gene arrives, the retinal cells have what they need to produce the protein that enables normal vision. When the FDA approved the drug in December 2017, it represented a monumental breakthrough—the first federally approved therapy to replace a defective gene responsible for an inherited disease of any kind. The cryptic hint of optimism that her ophthalmologist seemed to suggest was transformed into genuine possibility.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Heather says. “I wanted Monroe to be the first one.”  She reached out to the drug’s developer, and the company worked with her on submitting all of the necessary records, getting insurance coverage—without insurance, the cost of the procedure was $425,000 per eye—and finding a doctor who could perform the procedure. The latter effort led Heather on a 98-mile drive north of her home, to see Aaron Nagiel, MD, an ophthalmologist at The Vision Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, one of a select group of physicians who had been trained and approved in the use of the new medication. He was open with Heather about the risks, but also about the realities. Monroe’s vision was certain to degenerate if nothing were done.

GO SERVE BIG!
GO SERVE BIG!
YOUR REFERRALS HELP THE KIDS!

“One of the biggest things I tell families is that we know the natural history of this condition, and it’s always a steady decline,” Dr. Nagiel says. “It’s not like some patients do OK and other patients do poorly. They all do poorly.” Monroe’s daytime vision was starting to fail, and she had already been designated legally blind. The results from the phase 3 clinical trial indicated that Luxturna could not provide perfect vision, but now three years out from treatment, those patients had reported enduring improvements, including the ability to see better in the dark, without any major side effects. “That’s as far out as we know,” Dr. Nagiel says.  He may not have had 20 years of data to lean on, but Dr. Nagiel could provide an assurance that he had done the procedure, called a vitrectomy, countless times. He just hadn’t done it for the purposes of conducting gene therapy. Virtually any time that eye surgery requires manipulating the retina, a vitrectomy is done. The technique involves making small incisions through the white part of the eye to clear out the vitreous gel inside. This instance would be no different, yet he couldn’t block out the magnitude of it.  “I didn’t sleep very well the night before the first surgery, in March,” he says.  Monroe was set to be the third CHLA patient to have the procedure. Her surgeries were scheduled a week apart, the left eye—the worse one—on Aug. 14, the right eye on Aug. 21. In the meantime, Heather set out to prepare for the worst-case scenario.  “I didn’t know if I’d wake up the next day and Monroe wouldn’t have her sight,” she says. “Whatever she wanted to do, we did. Time was ticking.” They made weekly trips to Disneyland, and regular outings to Monroe’s other favorite pastime: the racetrack. She couldn’t see the horses run, but she could hear them rumbling down the final stretch of track. She started calling them go-gos after hearing her mother and sister cheering “Go, go, go!” She would yell out, “Mama, the go-gos are coming! The go-go’s are coming!” “I just thought, if she loses her vision tomorrow,” Heather says, “at least I could say I did all that Monroe wanted.”
Tables turned

Afterward, Dr. Nagiel could only wait for Monroe’s response. Diagnostic tests wouldn’t be done for a few months. The proof would be in the patient’s feedback. On Aug. 19, five days after the surgery, Heather dropped the lid to a tube of ointment on the carpeted floor of her hotel room. It was a dark blueprint, not conducive to finding a tiny black cap. Heather was fishing around for it when Monroe told her to hang on a moment. She covered up her right eye, and using only her left, surgically treated eye, she nabbed the cap on the floor and handed it to her mother.  It was a hallelujah, aha and Eureka-I-have-found-it revelation all forged together. She cried out, “I found the cap! I can see! I can see!” Till that point, Heather was always picking up after Monroe, who would drop things and be unable to find them. “A Starburst,” she recalls as an example. “A pink Starburst. And we have a tan carpet.” The tables had turned in an ironic but exhilarating way. As Heather stifled her tears, Monroe turned into a human Roomba, cleaning things off the floor and delighting in her new vision. Hey, there’s the remote! The second surgery was only two days later, and now the anticipation for fixing the other eye grew. Another five days after the procedure, Monroe and her mother and sister went to Disneyland. As their boat sailed through the darkened “It’s a Small World,” Monroe began pointing out what she thought were new attractions—Jasmine and Aladdin; Lilo and Stitch.  Heather was happy to play along, but her elder daughter, Destiny, wouldn’t cooperate. “Monroe, you’re not right,” she told her. “Those have always been there. You just couldn’t see them.”

‘A very special thing’
In his office, Dr. Nagiel glances at his phone. It’s Heather. “She just texted me,” he says. He reads aloud: “This is Thursday at 7:30 at night. We were at a street fair and Monroe was walking around all by herself without any help. That would’ve never happened before.”
He receives a running ticker of updates from Heather and other LCA families testifying to sights newly seen: clouds, fireworks, birds flying overhead. The stories are more than gratifying; they serve as evidence of the treatment’s effectiveness, which is “in some ways a lot more meaningful than whatever number or quantitative data we could get,” Dr. Nagiel says. “You’ve seen that video of her running through the street?” he asks. “That’s just like … ” He waits for a word to cover the enormity of it. “It’s like biblical. It’s from the Old Testament, the improvements that these patients have.

“It’s a very special thing for me,” he says, noting that CHLA is one of only 10 institutions approved to perform the procedure, the only one in California, and has done more than any other site since the FDA moved the drug forward. “For all of the medicine this is the first gene-replacement therapy, and we’re the ones doing it.” He says vision tends to improve up to eight weeks after the surgery and then levels off. Monroe’s will probably stay where it is today. Earlier she had been complaining of headaches and problems seeing; a visit to CHLA showed that her improved eyesight was to blame. She had gone from 20-300 to 20-125 and her eyeglass prescription needed a reset.  A while back, she went to Movie Night at school. Heather thought of joining her but backed off. “I have to give her her wings,” she says. When the lights went down before the movie began, Monroe turned to her friend with concern. “I can’t see,” she whispered. The girl answered back, “I can’t see either.” Well, that was good to know. She felt relieved. Sometimes the dark is just the dark.

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Copyright © This free information provided courtesy L.A. Loft Blog and LAcondoInfo.com with the information provided by Corey Chambers, Realty Source Inc, BRE#01889449 We are not associated with the homeowner’s association or developer. For more information, contact (213) 880-9910 or visit LAcondoInfo.com  Licensed in California. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. Properties subject to prior sale or rental. This is not a solicitation if the buyer or seller is already under contract with another broker.  See this in PDF format:  Newsletter-1908