Emotional Acapella Presentation: At CHAIM MEDICAL resource Retreat. Motty Ilowitz Shira Yingerlech

good evening shalom aleichem my name is hershel puritz i'm from lakewood i'm a father borah hashem of seven children and i'm here tonight to share with you a story that's actually taking place right now a story of a very very difficult nassaian de vista is showing his tremendous avo for my mishpochah i just returned from houston texas where i was with my mother for the past week and you'll be hearing a very interesting story [Music] [Applause] [Music] nicholas foreign [Music] i grew up in brooklyn new york my mother was a teacher in a bisianciv for high school girls for over 50 years she taught girls tanach and that was her passion in life recently after much effort my parents moved to lakewood it was a dream come true after all being next to their children when the moving truck arrived in lakewood he practically said nishmas and it was a murder kit kufa it was right after circus of this year my father was learning with a necklace my mother had just made three hundred kreplach for the whole mushbacher and it was huff-based other aleph and i realized something was not right with my mother [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] foreign is [Music] is [Music] is a [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Laughter] doctors foreign [Music] the human brain is mysterious and remarkable a central command center for the entire body it is the most amazing organ and yet least understood no computer has yet come close to matching the capabilities of the human brain this is a picture of our brain divided into four lobes on each side the right side is in charge of the left side of the body and vice versa the temporal lobes account for 22 percent of the overall brain's volume and are associated with hearing memory emotion some aspects of language face recognition and processing information what happens when a tumor invades the left temporal lobe it will push the delicate brain structures and cause chaos is the [Music] a [Music] is [Music] mm before getting over the initial shock we right away were referred by a local person to a doctor in boston that night thursday night was expected a very large snowstorm and the doctor in boston said if you get here drive through the night we can start working on things and having a surgery right after shabbos we loaded up the car we're ready to leave suddenly a person that we know from boston said you're coming from new jersey to boston to operate from boston we send people to new york you have to switch your plan quickly sent the mris to the new york doctor they researched it and we talked and decided to make a change and we're going to be treated now in new york after much deliberation that was the decision you can imagine there was a tremendous amount of confusion which way to go we had a surgery scheduled for the following friday but yet we were still not at ease i felt that we were davening at the brach of attack having to make such a difficult decision a decision that we have zero experience until a close friend of our family abruven wolf who is here tonight referred us to mrs khan mrs khan scheduled the call with shulam schlaflig to discuss a very interesting experimental treatment called gene therapy which is taking place in houston texas as soon as mrs kind of got the first call about a gbm case she makes sure all of us gets to work and we use all our resources we have a tumor board of over six people who are involved doing the research to get the best possible treatment gbm glibostomy multi-form it's a it's not a strep throat it's something which there's not much hope out there if there is any at all usually they say just surgery radiation chemo and that's the best treatment possible that's out there we don't settle for less and we were all communicating communicating together and trying to come up with the best option we found were able to find this trial in houston texas is gene therapy which they insert a gene viral vector modify gene that it should just connect to the tumor and the immune system will eventually eradicate it this could only be done during surgery when the brain is open and the doctor is in there he can insert this viral vector to get this gene therapy in there so of course this doctor dr basquinol in the past as a great surgeon so we're not compromising on the conventional care we're just adding on another treatment which we know the ordinary treatment we know its results this will be something new hopefully it will get us something further we sent out the scans to dr baskin he said she is eligible for this clinical trial and base hashem will start working on getting her there i was very not enthusiastic about this new idea i grew up in new york we all knew that new york city is the empire for medical treatment people come from all over the world we're going to houston texas i was not very very convinced at all when it comes to gbm it comes to cancer gbm specifically there's a strong passion and organization which starts from mrs khan but reynolds resonates all over throughout we have came to we came to a very strong conclusion mrs khan picked up on it that this is the best approach and she took the time to convince the family they should proceed with dr baskin mrs khan in our phone call was extremely firm very very passionate and she said the doctors will smile and they'll tell you that you're doing the best treatment for your mother but let me tell you don't settle for regular standard treatment you're dealing with a very vicious disease and you have to use every arsenal everything you can get your hands on you must explore she actually apologized after the conversation for being so hard but thank you mrs khan your passion actually broke us and convinced us that we cannot settle for the standard treatment this requires something much greater on wednesday march 2nd my mother was on her way to newark airport for a 5 p.m flight to houston texas with the malachim of high medical baglating here [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] so dr baskin being such a precise surgeon didn't want to rely on the mri that was done in the other facility he wanted to perform his own mri which is called a functional mri it's something which is rarely used most don't even know how to utilize it the patient is giving certain exercise during to do during the test and based on that he sees the communication of the cells dendrons which area is affected and which is not and it's about a 10 times stronger resolution of the brain on this scan after all the scans were redone in houston texas we had an appointment to meet the doctor 5 pm tuesday just 12 hours before the surgery was scheduled the doctor turns to us and says i'm sorry i know you left your family in new york to come to houston to get the gene therapy but i have to disappoint you during the scans we noticed that there was a second nodule another tumor on the other side of the brain and unfortunately you're not a good candidate for the gene therapy this clinical trial is limited to only one location of cancer and unfortunately you're not going to be eligible my mother looked at the doctor as a teacher her whole life who told her this was her moment this was her test she told the doctor this is the amish they're telling me that now is not the time for me to do this treatment this is what i'm accepting for the ibristor my mother asked the doctor what's your name he says david baskin she says what's your yiddish name he said my name is david ben simmer my mother said i will darwin for you david ben simmer that you should be masliyah and the surgery should go well and from then on in my family we all darwin of course from my mother we darwin for david bensimo the neurosurgeon who operated the surgery took place the following day aboard hashem everything went as planned after the surgery the doctor notified us that there is a plan to submit a request to the fda to allow a waiver for this gene therapy to be done even though there's a second location of cancer but that may take a few weeks every single week we had a conference call with high medical mrs khan shulam slafik dr baskin and my family trying to navigate trying to penetrate this very difficult government agency called the fda week after week we strategized everyone was trying pulling and pushing from all sides until barak hashem four weeks later we got a phone call from dr baskin's office the therapy was approved for your mother and surgery was scheduled for the following tuesday just four days before pesach this surgery was scheduled to take out any additional tumor that was remaining from the first surgery and of course to do the gene therapy as my mother was being wheeled into the second surgery dr baskin turns to my father and he says you know something interesting this is a very vicious tumor very vicious we've been doing mris every week and it's for some interesting reason it has not grown in iota during those five weeks my father's response to dr baskin was that there are many many people davening all over the world for david bensimma and for my mother tierzo basmirium and with that the operating doors closed and my mother was wheeled in [Music] a [Music] [Applause] me [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] i stand here tonight my mother is being treated with chemo and radiation i have a bakasha i have a request that the oil should please have my mother in mind in your feelings my mother needs it could please take her name she's currently in texas she still needs a grocery reform many of us were brought hashem home paisa by this durham but there were many many even walking in the hallways of the hospitals please have my mother in mind and they wish this will help him as ali and mrs khan should be able to deal only with gesundheit kimpetoren yeshikoya