The Giving Back and Paying It Forward Real Estate Newsletter

Thank You! The month of November brings about an extra opportunity to say Thank You for being a valuable part of our business. As most begin to prepare for the Holiday season, plan Thanksgiving get-togethers and the like, it’s easy to become wrapped up in all that we have to do to ensure a fun, joyful time for all we are responsible for — while overlooking all that we have to be thankful for. Gratitude, though, is a contagious attitude!

Unfortunately, many homeowners are desperate to exit their current homes. Actually, loathing this time of year adds to the frustration of not being settled for the Holidays. You may know someone or a family that fits this description.

Here is where you and I can HELP!

AND remember… YOUR referrals help the kids.

Therefore, our Mission is to Go Serve Big!!! Serve you, serve those you refer to us and of course, serve a great cause.

As a result of working with many families over the years, we have developed a unique program to help homeowners wanting to make a move and Sell Fast, For Top Dollar, and with the Least Hassle!

For November, we will guarantee, in writing, the sale of a California home for 100% of Market Value, or I Will Pay the Difference.

I know there is some risk on my part to make such an incredible guarantee like that. Still, we sell just about every home we list for the market value price, sometimes even more. So there is no reason for area homeowners, your friends, and your family to fret about selling right now.

This is where you can help!

If you or anyone you know is considering making a move, we offer them a FREE Consultation. We will show them in this No Obligation to Move Consultation how they can make their move. Thus, allowing them to get what they want and do it with the least hassle.

Just like we are thankful for you and your business, I am confident your referrals will be thanking you for steering them in the right direction on getting their home sold!!!

AND remember… Your referrals help the kids.

#CHLA #referralshelpkids

Your Referrals Help the Kids. For every referral I receive, I donate a portion to the Children’s Hospital. With your referrals, you are helping Children’s Hospital ensure that critical life-saving care is available to every child they treat. http://www.ReferralsHelpKids.com

Your referrals help kids! We are still boldly on a mission to raise $25,000 for Children’s Hospital this year, and we are getting close! We do this by donating to them a portion of our income from homes we sell. As you know, Children’s Hospital does AMAZING work in helping kids fight through and survive life-threatening diseases like cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, and others. They also lead the way in many other fields.

They can provide this care and keep patient costs to a minimum due in large part to Donations and Sponsorships. We are proud to be an official sponsor of Children’s!

Why I support Children’s Hospital

Corey Chambers serving the community thanks to your help. I grew up in California, born in a county hospital. When I first heard about a young person close to our family suffering from a serious disease and getting treated for that at Children’s Hospital. 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, 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 California native, I take pride in supporting in a way that I can do 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 shares a 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 Chambers

*seller and Corey must agree on price and time of possession. Broker, CalDRE#01889449

A real estate company with experience, proven results, and a give-back philosophy! 

Over the years of helping many families sell their homes 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 helping the kids.

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 someone you know considering a move. 

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

Patient Story: Gene Therapy Saves Greigh From a Paralyzing Muscle Disease

The 3-year-old was CHLA’s first patient identified with spinal muscular atrophy by California’s Newborn Screening Program, setting him on a remarkable path to a normal childhood. |  By Jeff Weinstock

At 10 months old, Greigh did the one thing he was not supposed to do—walk. Born with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a neuromuscular disease that devastates the body’s ability to move, he was doomed to spend his life in a wheelchair.

Then what was he doing walking? For that, we must back up to events before he was born.

In June 2020, the California Newborn Screening Program expanded to include testing for SMA; 13 months earlier, a gene therapy was approved that could stop the disorder in its tracks.

It was a most fortunate timeline for Greigh, born 2 ½ months after screening of newborns for SMA was introduced. His blood sample flagged the presence of a mutated survival motor neuron (SMN)1 gene, tipping off doctors that he had the disease. A week later, he and his family were in the office of Children’s Hospital neurologist Leigh Maria Ramos-Platt, MD, as CHLA’s first patient with spinal muscular atrophy to have been identified through newborn screening.

Because he was screened at birth, Greigh had hardly a trace of symptoms when he came back positive for SMA. By appearances, “he was a perfect baby,” Dr. Ramos-Platt says. “But knowing the history of spinal muscular atrophy, knowing how tightly that genotype can predict what can happen in the future, there was no option but to treat. If we didn’t, at some point he would lose even the ability to sit.”

‘You have to get it done. There’s no other way’

The red voicemail indicator on her phone signaled to Greigh’s mother, Brittany, that there was a problem. There had to be, since the number attached to it belonged to the pediatrician’s office. She knew that an unscheduled call a week after she had returned home with her newborn son was less of a phone call and more of a siren.

“I knew it meant something,” Brittany says. “When you get a call, that means something’s wrong.”

When the doctor said he was referring Greigh to a neurologist, Brittany sensed “this was not just something he was allergic to. It was something more serious than that.”

Indeed it was. A congenital neuromuscular disorder that occurs in only 1 in 10,000 kids, spinal muscular atrophy attacks the body’s anterior horn cells. Once those cells are stricken, the motor nerves associated with them degenerate, as do all the muscles that those nerves supply—meaning the capacity to walk, sit, breathe, speak, and conduct virtually any movement collapses.

Identifying and then acting on the disease early to spare those anterior horn cells is the only way to rescue a child from death or severe disability, Dr. Ramos-Platt says. “Once an anterior horn cell is lost, that’s it. It cannot come back. There is nothing to save.”

Dr. Ramos-Platt, Medical Director of CHLA’s Neuromuscular Disorders Center in the hospital’s Neurological Institute, presented Brittany and her husband, Gregory, with two possible therapies. One was a medication called Spinraza (nusinersen), which is injected into the fluid that surrounds the spinal cord every four months. The second was Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec), the gene therapy, delivered by a one-time intravenous infusion that carries a healthy copy of the SMN1 gene into the patient’s bloodstream to replace the defective one.

Brittany and her husband decided on the second option, Zolgensma. The one-time-only infusion appealed to the family, as did Dr. Ramos-Platt’s belief that it could salvage a normal, symptom-free life for Greigh. The gene replacement would keep the disease from advancing any further than it already had, which in Greigh’s case was hardly at all. The lone symptom he showed was a slight jerky movement of his tongue, and the substitute gene would keep it from getting any worse.

Tests predicted that Greigh would develop Type 2 SMA, a less dire form of the disease than Type 1, which untreated is usually fatal within 18-24 months of birth. Having Type 2 was small consolation. It isn’t lethal, but typically patients never walk. The new treatments, in tandem with newborn screening, have toppled those expectations.

At 5 weeks of age, on Oct. 13, 2020, Greigh received a dose of Zolgensma. The infusion itself is pressure packed: No do-overs permitted.

“We have to be very, very careful, and we have to know what we’re doing,” Dr. Ramos-Platt says. “We get this lifesaving vial and then it goes into an infusion. You cannot drop this thing, you cannot break it, because you only get one chance to give it.”

It’s a monumental effort to get from screening to infusion, she says, from wrangling with the insurance company for authorization to administering the medication without any mishaps.

“There’s a lot. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by how much, but when you look at a baby, you see that you have to get it done. There’s no other way.

“We’re hopeful that if we give the medication to patients before they become symptomatic, particularly those who are identified on the newborn screen, they can live a healthy, happy childhood with minimal, if any, detriment to their physical abilities.”

A confirmed success

That appears to be what has happened with Greigh. Brittany has kept a running document of his development. When he was 3 months old, two months after he received the infusion, she sent a video to Dr. Ramos-Platt that showed Greigh moving around “just like a 3-month-old should,” the doctor says.

In fact, he was doing more than he should have. When the milestone was raising his head, he was pushing his entire body up off the ground.

A video sent three months later displayed more of the same. Greigh was rolling over, chasing his 5-year-old brother, Gianni, and, most notably, laughing and screaming—loudly, one of the rare times a screaming baby is applauded.

“We were very happy to see that,” Dr. Ramos-Platt says. “When they can’t scream that loud, their lungs are weak. It tells us their disease is bad. Hearing babies scream with SMA, it’s a good thing.”

A video at 11 months showed Greigh walking. “Based on his predicted genetic type, he should have never been able to walk,” the doctor says.

At 14 months, he was pushing a chair that appeared to weigh twice as much as he did, confirming that he was a success story.

“That was really exciting to see,” Dr. Ramos-Platt says. “By that time, we knew this had worked.”

Just turned 3, Greigh looks, behaves and misbehaves like any other kid his age. “He’s as tall as a 3-year-old should be,” Brittany says. “He climbs, he argues with his brother—everything a normal 3-year-old would do. He’s very energetic, very strong. When I go to parent-teacher conferences, they’re like, ‘Oh, he’s completely fine. He’s actually pretty advanced for his age.’”

Brittany says the family wonders what exactly was in the vial Greigh received. “The running joke is that he was infused with superpowers.”

Born just in timeSo is he cured?

For the sake of answering with a pun, let’s say it’s a Greigh area. Dr. Ramos-Platt says it depends on your definition. Technically, no, since SMA can’t be eliminated, only disarmed. But medicine is a results-oriented business, so practically, yes. He certainly has flown past the designated targets.

“Our goal primarily was to keep Greigh from having to be permanently ventilated and to enable him to sit and sustain being able to sit,” Dr. Ramos-Platt says.

She can’t say absolutely that the disease has been incapacitated for good. The data on Zolgensma doesn’t stretch out far enough.

“I’m hopeful it’s been stopped, but I can’t be 100%. The gene therapy duration has only been studied for so many years. We don’t know if it’s going to last beyond 10-12 years. What I can see right now, it looks like it’s a cure.”

Brittany marvels at the coinciding of Greigh’s birth in September 2020 with the addition of SMA to California’s newborn screening panel the preceding June. “I can’t explain just how lucky I feel,” she says. “If, say, he had been born in May, we wouldn’t have known until it was too late, when he was showing symptoms of not moving, not rolling his head, not sitting up.”

She keeps the videos coming, to the delight of Dr. Ramos-Platt. “When I show them to the pharmacy staff who helped prepare the medication, they’re in tears because it’s just mind-blowing,” she says.

“For those of us who took care of patients with SMA, particularly Type 1, before these treatments were available, it was basically a death sentence you were giving to the family. I can’t believe we are living in an era where SMA does not have to kill kids anymore. It’s really miraculous.”

Learn more about the Neurological Institute at Children’s Hospital.

How You Can Help

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

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