Bradley: A Remarkable Recovery

Brad, and his doctor, Paul Fisher, M.D., are buddies. Brad regained his sight, which had been impaired by a brain tumor, after only two weeks of chemotherapy.

WINTER 2001 - Christmas morning 2000 was a wonderfully joyous occasion for Jill and Dan Baigent and their three children. But the next day, the Baigents' 7-year-old son, Bradley, told them something was terribly wrong.

"I couldn't see," Brad recalls. "It looked like there was a big black dot in front of me."

The Baigents quickly scheduled a visit to the family doctor.

"Our pediatrician told us nothing was wrong," says Jill, "and our ophthalmologist said, in so many words, that my son was faking."

Brad returned to his second grade class in Sunnyvale, California, but his complaints persisted.

"It was hard to do homework," he remembers. "I had to look out of the sides of my eyes, but I still couldn't see." Jill took her son to another ophthalmologist, who assured her that Brad's symptoms were real. On January 5, Brad was taken to Packard and placed under the care of neurologist Paul Fisher, M.D. A CAT scan revealed a golf ball-sized mass in Brad's brain.

"We asked Dr. Fisher if it was time to get scared, but he told us more tests needed to be done," remembers Jill.

"The first question from every parent is, ‘Why did my child get this?' With brain tumors, we just don't know," Fisher says.

A spinal tap revealed that a specific type of tumor called a germinoma had been growing in Brad's brain, putting pressure on his optic nerves. The good news was that some germinomas have a 95 percent survival rate following intensive chemotherapy and radiation. But even if Brad was cured, there was some question whether his vision would ever return to normal.

Brad's chemotherapy was scheduled to last three months, but within two weeks, something remarkable happened.

"It was January 22," Jill recalls. "We were taking a walk around the Hospital, and the staff was putting up heart decorations for Valentine's Day.‘Mom, that heart says, ‘Love,' and that one says ‘Kiss Me," Brad suddenly tells me."

Brad still lights up when he remembers that day: "I was reading the hearts. I said,‘Mom, I can read that! I can read that! I can read that!' It made me feel cool."

An MRI scan showed that Brad's tumor had indeed gone into remission, so Fisher stopped the chemotherapy several weeks ahead of schedule. Radiation treatment came next, but that also ended sooner than expected.

During his Hospital stay, Brad remembered a former kindergarten teacher who promised that any student who read 100 books could throw a pie in her face.

"I asked Dr. Fisher if I could throw a pie at him, when I was better," Brad says. Last August, he got to do just that. The pie was made of whipped cream, but Fisher didn't mind – and his young patient was thrilled.

Thanks to his remarkable recovery, Brad missed less than a month of school and is now in the third grade.

"We had really good care at Packard," says Jill. "We were lucky to be here."