Who was Brandon and why does Brandon's Battle Foundation do what we do?

The picture you see on the Home page is my son Brandon.  Brandon was a healthy, smart, handsome and loving son from his birth in December of 1994 to his dreadful diagnosis in December 2012.  You see, on December 17, 2012, Brandon was diagnosed with AML Leukemia.  It was very progressed so his treatments began the same evening as his diagnosis.  Brandon battled with many reactions to chemotherapy ….cardiomyopathy, liver failure, kidney failure, loss of control of digestive system, loss of vision, etc.  Even though some of these issues were temporary, we didn’t know how long any one of those conditions would function properly.  Brandon’s treatments required us to live in the children’s hospital for 30-35 days at a time.  Short visits home for about a week were allowed when his blood counts and immune system showed strong enough to tolerate visits with family and friends.  Many of our home visits still required IV meds and sometimes a feeding tube.  Life sucked for this 18 year old young man.  What is even worse is that after almost 4 years of fighting, Brandon lost his battle and left this earth to gain his wings in October 2016.

Living in the children’s hospital 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for an unknown number of weeks, time sometimes seemed to stand still. Which is why we do what we do.....Our foundation provides goody bags to the patients and caregivers that include toys, games, puzzles, books, notebooks, art materials, etc.  We try to give these young ones something to get their minds off of their disease if only for a short period of time.

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Founder Lisa Gettel's Dream

Chime Anytime

The idea behind the wind chimes is this….when a patient leaves the hospital with the hope and prayer that they have received their last ever chemo treatment, they get to ring a bell.  All too many times, patients never get to that part of their treatment.  Instead, their parents are facing funeral arrangements.  My dream is to provide wind chimes to these patients so they can “Chime Anytime”.  Whether it’s because they were able to get out of bed to brush their teeth, or maybe they were able to complete 7 minutes of physical therapy instead of the 5 minutes the day before.  Every child  deserves to “celebrate” every milestone, big or small.