Blaine Wilson
All proceeds go to Blaine Wilson.
Earlier this week, Jeremy Sullivan and John Merchant came to Facebook with a video to invite the community to come together to help a local family, and fellow Foley High School alumni, Brett & Deidra Wilson along with their two children Blaine and Ava. I’d like to give you a bit of history of the Wilson Family’s life and what has led to the most recent snowballed events. Blaine is a 15 year old sophomore at Elberta High School, yet this year Blaine has not been able to properly do and enjoy the things that most sophomore kids would be doing. Blaine is a warrior, fighting an epic battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, the worst form of MD. Blaine was diagnosed in 2008 and his mother immediately went to researching clinical trials to enlist Blaine, to give him the most favorable prognosis possible and the best quality of life. He indeed was accepted into a trial. I don’t know how much you all know about clinical trials and how they work, but it goes like this…. a specific number of patients are approved for the trial and a portion of them get the trial medicine and a portion of them get what is called a placebo medication. A placebo is a substance that has no therapeutic effect, and is used as a “control” in testing new drugs. The patients are not told whether they receive the placebo or the actual trial medicine at the time. This is how the medical field studies and develops new medications. In 2014, the Wilson’s were able to find out that Blaine had only received a placebo during that trial, however he was able to receive the meds by that time because the FDA had approved it. A port was placed and this began the journey of 125+ trips to Gulf Breeze, FL for treatment, biopsies and port placements. Multiple surgeries ensued during this time. Recently, Blaine was in need of a new port and one was placed in October. Unfortunately it was not placed correctly and it physically came out this Christmas while he was at home. Blaine spent this Christmas in the hospital and has just been released home. As you can imagine, he is feeling frustrated and upset at the disruption in his holiday time. In addition to this, Blaine has been forced to miss a lot of school since 2012. Not only has he missed school, but he has missed out of a lot of valuable time just being a kid. Yet he remains a fighter.
Along with the most recent events and unexpected surgeries, his parents have also had to purchase a van with a lift, as Blaine is in a wheelchair full time now. This alone has been a tremendous help to them and Blaine has loved getting to ride shotgun in the new van. What a blessing something like this is. Yet, imagine the weight of all of these events at once… the disease process itself (DMD is a terminal illness), the unexpected complications, 9 surgeries, nearly 300 infusions total, missed school, missed work for parents, purchase of expensive equipment and vehicle to accommodate. This has been a stressful time for the Wilson’s and knowing what I know of both Brett and Deidra, they have likely waited longer than the should have to let our community help out to the magnitude that I know we can. I think we are all like that on some level or another…. we tell ourselves we can’t ask for help, that we will “figure it out”, that it will “work out” some way or another. But when times like these are upon us, it snowballs and then we realize, that yes, we in fact do need the support of our friends and community. This is what Jeremy and John have taken note of and so graciously stepped up to rally our South Baldwin family together to help this family get through this phase of life. Brett and Deidra have dedicated their lives to their children and are relentless in their efforts to ensure the best quality of life for Blaine. Please consider helping them out through this fund and please share with fellow community members.
Please bless this family with your generosity and prayers!
Emily Burke
Good times Foley High School classmate.
