Perla Franco spent three days alone and near death in a Brazilian hospital before doctors showed up to deliver her baby boy.
She contracted a severe bacterial infection while waiting for them, Franco said, one that prevented oxygen from reaching her unborn son’s brain. He was rushed into the intensive care unit with brain lesions. That was in 2007. The resulting diagnosis arrived 2 ½ years later: Gabriel Machado had cerebral palsy.
Franco asked doctors about long-term treatments for her son.
One physician’s suggestion? Have another baby.
Umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells. Some scientists believe cord blood stem cell transfusions can help repair a patient’s brain tissue, motor function and speech. A second child would allow doctors to gather those cells at birth and preserve them for Gabriel’s treatment and, if needed, for the new baby.
Gabriel is 19 now, and lives in Lexington with his family. Last year, researchers at Duke University Medical Center offered him an experimental infusion of his sister’s umbilical cord cells. Insurance will not cover the procedure, so the family started a GoFundMe page asking the public to help them fund the $15,000 treatment.
Franco first emailed scientists at Duke University Medical Center in 2008 to ask whether Gabriel was eligible for treatment. He was not. Franco left her contact information anyway, hoping one day they would change their minds.
She gave birth to her daughter, Maria, in 2009. Doctors collected the baby’s cord blood as planned and stored it in two blood bags, one for each child.
“My faith told me Maria was born for a reason,” she said.
Franco moved to the United States with her children in 2015, the same year a seizure and coma left 8-year-old Gabriel non-verbal and legally blind. He relies on an electric wheelchair and robotic walker.
So, the family eventually moved to Lexington, drawn by the town’s accessibility and services for special needs children. Gabrie attends Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. His family describes him as a funny, music-and-dance-loving soccer fan. What he cannot say in words, they say, he communicates in smiles and laughter.
Last year, 17 years after her first message, Franco received the email she had been hoping for. Duke offered Gabriel a place in an expanded protocol program, an opportunity to receive the experimental treatment. Soon after, the family began testing in preparation for the procedure.
“I haven’t been waiting for nothing all these years,” said Franco. “I felt something good was going to happen.”
Cord blood stem cell transfusions must be done between people with compatible cell proteins. Full siblings have a 25% chance of a complete match.
Preliminary blood testing revealed that Maria and Gabriel were a 100% match.
“I feel proud that I can help him,” said Maria Machado, 17. “Even with just the possibility of having a back and forth conversation with him. Of seeing him walk.”
Donations to the GoFundMe page may make that possible.
“If people can help us, we would be eternally grateful,” said Franco.
Franco spends whatever time she can spare reading about the results of cord blood transfusions, searching for any news of families whose children underwent similar treatments. To protect patient privacy, Duke does not share information regarding the progress of their specific patients.
Scientists at Duke assured Gabriel’s family that there is no risk of regression, only improvement.
“There is nothing to lose,” said Mike Pafume, Gabriel and Maria’s stepfather.
Pafume said any success, however small, would be reason enough to share their story with other families facing similar diagnoses.
“We’d want to let them know hope is out there,” he said.
More than anything, Franco dreams of hearing Gabriel’s voice – and listening to her son tell his own story.
“We didn’t think that anything would happen after years of silence, but something’s happening,” said Maria. “Science is evolving every day. There is always hope.”