Brennan teaches us all about determination, dedication and devotion
Laura Perry
When 10-year-old Brennan Simkins spoke to the Kiwanis Club of Augusta last month about his battle with cancer, the kid was more mature than nearly all of the adults in the room. Brennan doesn’t have to stress about mortgage payments, the price of gas or how he can finagle a few extra vacation days, but what he does handle makes all of those dilemmas totally painless.
The day before he turned 7, Brennan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which affects various white blood cells. Pediatric AML is very rare — only about 500 American children are diagnosed with AML every year. Typically, AML is most commonly found in adults, while acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) is what may be found in children.
Brennan’s father, Turner, says that they knew something wasn’t right before they got to the hospital, but they had no clue how serious it was. The weekend before Brennan’s birthday, the Simkins family had been on vacation in Cashiers, North Carolina, and things with Brennan just hadn’t seemed right.
“He was pale and didn’t have any energy,” says Simkins. “It just seemed so wrong — he wasn’t himself. We all just had a really bad feeling about it.”
At an appointment with a pediatrician upon their return to Augusta, Brennan’s parents were told they needed to go down to the hospital at Georgia Health Sciences University for more tests.
Simkins says reality set in when he saw all the other patients.
“Brennan got admitted immediately and when I walked in and saw another little bald-headed kid and an IV pole — oh my gosh.”
For Brennan, the leukemia had effectively eaten his blood. With his ER arrival, the nurses went into emergency mode and gave him three units of blood. It all happened so quickly.
“I mean, he was dying. He wasn’t producing red blood cells and so they were even putting warming blankets on his hands. With the new blood, he automatically perked up. It was like the ultimate cup of coffee — he was himself again,” Simkins remembers.
With Brennan’s AML diagnosis, the Simkins got their crash course in leukemia. The source of Brennan’s AML is a chromosomal abnormality, but the family has gone from not knowing the differences between AML and ALL to seeing Brennan through four bone marrow transplants, trying to find the solution.
“The problem with this story is that it’s just so long and detailed,” says Simkins. “If you were to write a chronology, it’d take you months and months to get the series. You can’t talk about the transplants or how he was the first kid to ever do this successfully unless you know how it all started.”
So many people have had a part in his story. Brennan’s mother, Tara, says she recalls when Brennan used to get tons of get-well mail and well wishes while he lived at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
“One day while we were opening some cards in Memphis, Brennan asked me to read them to him,” Tara remembers. “I opened the first card. It read ‘Get Well Soon.’ Brennan looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Why do people keep telling me to get well soon? I am not sick, you know.’ Here he was with no hair, a feeding tube hooked up to administer nutrition — but don’t tell him he was sick.”
Brennan doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him.
“When he was on the verge of death,” Tara says, “the 36 hours leading up to being intubated and put on a ventilator in the ICU, retching every 20 minutes and gasping for air, he muttered to himself the entire time, ‘I can do this. I can do this.’ And then looking back, he told me a couple of months later that he wasn’t sure he would make it then, but he wasn’t going to give up.”
For the entire Simkins family, their lifestyle has changed — it’s not just Brennan that’s survived the four bone marrow transplants, it’s his whole family. They are a team. For Brennan and his older brother Nat and younger brother Christopher, they are a real band of brothers. In fact, watching HBO’s “Band of Brothers” World War II miniseries has become one of their favorite things to do.
Another brotherly bond for the Simkins family is with their life-long friends Stephen and Erin Chance of Atlanta. The Chances formed the Press On to Cure Childhood Cancer Fund in 2006 when their three-year-old son Patrick was first diagnosed with Stage IV neuroblastoma. Patrick died on his ninth birthday, early this year.
The Press On to Cure Childhood Cancer Fund (pressonfund.org) was the first named fund under Cure Childhood Cancer’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella. Press On invests in medical research focused on novel and less toxic therapies for the deadly pediatric cancers acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and neuroblastoma. Since 2006, Press On has raised more than $500,000 for funding basic, transitional and clinical research relating to these pediatric cancers. The ultimate goal is of achieving a greater cure rate, while mitigating the potentially devastating side effects of current therapies.
But for Halloween, Brennan’s going to be pressing on your doorbell and you better hand over that candy — the kid’s got a ghillie suit on, so you won’t see him coming!You Might Also Like:
Press On
Brennan teaches us all about determination, dedication and devotion
Laura Perry
When 10-year-old Brennan Simkins spoke to the Kiwanis Club of Augusta last month about his battle with cancer, the kid was more mature than nearly all of the adults in the room. Brennan doesn’t have to stress about mortgage payments, the price of gas or how he can finagle a few extra vacation days, but what he does handle makes all of those dilemmas totally painless.
The day before he turned 7, Brennan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which affects various white blood cells. Pediatric AML is very rare — only about 500 American children are diagnosed with AML every year. Typically, AML is most commonly found in adults, while acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) is what may be found in children.
Brennan’s father, Turner, says that they knew something wasn’t right before they got to the hospital, but they had no clue how serious it was. The weekend before Brennan’s birthday, the Simkins family had been on vacation in Cashiers, North Carolina, and things with Brennan just hadn’t seemed right.
“He was pale and didn’t have any energy,” says Simkins. “It just seemed so wrong — he wasn’t himself. We all just had a really bad feeling about it.”
At an appointment with a pediatrician upon their return to Augusta, Brennan’s parents were told they needed to go down to the hospital at Georgia Health Sciences University for more tests.
Simkins says reality set in when he saw all the other patients.
“Brennan got admitted immediately and when I walked in and saw another little bald-headed kid and an IV pole — oh my gosh.”
For Brennan, the leukemia had effectively eaten his blood. With his ER arrival, the nurses went into emergency mode and gave him three units of blood. It all happened so quickly.
“I mean, he was dying. He wasn’t producing red blood cells and so they were even putting warming blankets on his hands. With the new blood, he automatically perked up. It was like the ultimate cup of coffee — he was himself again,” Simkins remembers.
With Brennan’s AML diagnosis, the Simkins got their crash course in leukemia. The source of Brennan’s AML is a chromosomal abnormality, but the family has gone from not knowing the differences between AML and ALL to seeing Brennan through four bone marrow transplants, trying to find the solution.
“The problem with this story is that it’s just so long and detailed,” says Simkins. “If you were to write a chronology, it’d take you months and months to get the series. You can’t talk about the transplants or how he was the first kid to ever do this successfully unless you know how it all started.”
So many people have had a part in his story. Brennan’s mother, Tara, says she recalls when Brennan used to get tons of get-well mail and well wishes while he lived at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
“One day while we were opening some cards in Memphis, Brennan asked me to read them to him,” Tara remembers. “I opened the first card. It read ‘Get Well Soon.’ Brennan looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Why do people keep telling me to get well soon? I am not sick, you know.’ Here he was with no hair, a feeding tube hooked up to administer nutrition — but don’t tell him he was sick.”
Brennan doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him.
“When he was on the verge of death,” Tara says, “the 36 hours leading up to being intubated and put on a ventilator in the ICU, retching every 20 minutes and gasping for air, he muttered to himself the entire time, ‘I can do this. I can do this.’ And then looking back, he told me a couple of months later that he wasn’t sure he would make it then, but he wasn’t going to give up.”
For the entire Simkins family, their lifestyle has changed — it’s not just Brennan that’s survived the four bone marrow transplants, it’s his whole family. They are a team. For Brennan and his older brother Nat and younger brother Christopher, they are a real band of brothers. In fact, watching HBO’s “Band of Brothers” World War II miniseries has become one of their favorite things to do.
Another brotherly bond for the Simkins family is with their life-long friends Stephen and Erin Chance of Atlanta. The Chances formed the Press On to Cure Childhood Cancer Fund in 2006 when their three-year-old son Patrick was first diagnosed with Stage IV neuroblastoma. Patrick died on his ninth birthday, early this year.
The Press On to Cure Childhood Cancer Fund (pressonfund.org) was the first named fund under Cure Childhood Cancer’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella. Press On invests in medical research focused on novel and less toxic therapies for the deadly pediatric cancers acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and neuroblastoma. Since 2006, Press On has raised more than $500,000 for funding basic, transitional and clinical research relating to these pediatric cancers. The ultimate goal is of achieving a greater cure rate, while mitigating the potentially devastating side effects of current therapies.
But for Halloween, Brennan’s going to be pressing on your doorbell and you better hand over that candy — the kid’s got a ghillie suit on, so you won’t see him coming!You Might Also Like:
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