Exciting New Year’s Resolution…

As a fellow lover of the holidays, I’m writing you this personal letter to share some exciting news for the New Year. Most people establish New Year’s resolutions, but fall short of keeping them for whatever reason. So each year, I highlight an excellent book that helped my team improve our follow-through on achieving important goals. I wanted to share with you GETTING MORE. Author Diamond offers a revolutionary approach to negotiation, emphasizing emotional intelligence and understanding others’ perspectives over traditional logic and power tactics, to achieve more successful and mutually beneficial outcomes in both professional and personal settings. 

Some of your friends, neighbors, associates, or relatives may have a New Year’s resolution to make a move. Well – we can help them with that, help you and help the kids at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles at the same time.

Your referrals help the kids!

Go Serve Big!!! Investing In Our Southern Californian Kids

If you or a friend are thinking about selling, make sure to choose a real estate company you can trust! A real estate company with experience, proven results and a give-back philosophy!

For the month of January, anyone you know wanting to sell their house — I will guarantee the sale of their home for 100% of Market Value, or I’ll Pay the Difference.*

They outline the goals, I agree to deliver. If I don’t, I pay the penalty. Who do you know considering selling their home that would benefit from that kind of peace of mind? Just let me know, and we’ll give them a call!

AND REMEMBER… Your referrals help the Kids…

We are on a mission to raise $25,000 for CHLA. We do this by donating a portion of our income from homes we sell. As you know, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles does great work in helping kids fight through and survive serious life-threatening diseases like cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia and others. They also lead the way in helping kids come back from spinal cord injuries as well as early diagnosis of autism. Last year alone, Children’s helped over 1,000,000 kids right here in Los Angeles. BUT, Children’s relies on sponsorships and donations to provide their elite level of care, and to keep families’ expenses to a minimum. So YOUR REFERRALS REALLY DO HELP THE KIDS…

Who do you know considering buying or selling a home you could refer to my real estate sales team?

Not only will they benefit from our award-winning service, but you can rest assured we are also donating to a very worthy cause.

Go Serve Big!!! Investing in the Children of Los Angeles.

A Real Estate Company that Gives Back!

Children’s Hospital LA leads the way in serving kids one patient at a time.

We are still boldly on a mission to raise $25,000 for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and we are making progress! We donate to them a portion of our income from homes we sell. As you know, CHLA does AMAZING work in helping kids fight through and survive debilitating 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 to donations and sponsorships. We are proud to support the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles!

As in the attached story, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles provides the best pediatric medical care available anywhere in the country. To do that, CHLA needs donations to continue its leading-edge care. We proudly donate a portion of our income from real estate sales to CHLA to help them continue serving the needs of those who most need it in Los Angeles!

Who do you know considering buying or selling a home you could refer to our real estate sales team? Not only will they benefit from our award-winning real estate service, but a very worthy cause will also benefit as well. To refer anyone considering buying or selling a home, just give me a call or pass on my number. 213-880-9910.

Thank you in advance for your referrals!

You and your referrals mean more than ever to my team and me. As we move forward thru this winter, please know we are extremely thankful for you and you being a special part of our business.

Go Serve Big!!! — Corey Chambers

Your Home Sold Guaranteed!

P.S. I copied and pasted the story below from the CHLA website. It better tells the story of the work they are doing.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

As a leading charitable hospital, CHLA depends on sponsorships and donations to continue its leading-edge service. We proudly donate a portion of our income from real estate sales to CHLA to help them continue serving the needs of those who most need it in Los Angeles!

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 entar.com/refer 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

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Why I support Childrenʼs Hospital, Los Angeles

I grew up right here in the Greater Los Angeles Area, born in Los Angeles County at St. Francis Hospital. I remember when I first heard about a young person close to our family suffering from a painful disease and getting treated for that at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 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 healthcare professionals, most making their home right here in the Los Angeles area, 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 Los Angeles Area 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 Los Angeles 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, Broker

*seller and Corey must agree on price and time of possession. DRE#01889449

Afflicted with severe myocarditis as an infant, Sawyer beat the odds and got a second chance at life with a new heart.

10 Years Later, First CHLA Patient to Receive CAR T-Cell Therapy Remains Cancer-Free

by Caitlin Kryl

22-year-old Diego reflects on his family’s decision to enroll in the CHLA clinical trial that cured him of an aggressive form of leukemia.

In November 2015, 12-year-old Diego and his parents walked into Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, unaware they were about to make one of the most significant decisions of their lives.

After multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, followed by nearly a year in remission, Diego’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) had returned.

His care team at CHLA’s Cancer and Blood Disease Institute presented two options: more chemotherapy, which at this point had a low likelihood of success—or enrollment in a groundbreaking clinical trial for CAR T-cell therapy. 

If they said yes, Diego would become the first patient at CHLA, and one of only a handful of pediatric patients in the country, to receive this new treatment.

CAR T-cell therapy, or “CAR-T,” stands for Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy. It’s a one-time, personalized treatment that reprograms a person’s own T-cells (a type of white blood cell critical to immunity) to target and attack leukemia.

“It was scary,” Diego says. “But I had to do what I had to do to stay alive.”

Just weeks after receiving CAR T-cell therapy, Diego’s leukemia went into remission—and has stayed that way ever since.

CAR-T: A lifeline for hard-to-treat cancers

He didn’t understand it at the time, but Diego’s pivotal role in the CAR-T clinical trial at CHLA helped ensure future access to treatment for countless more young patients worldwide.

Final clinical trial results showed that 8 in 10 patients went into remission within three months of treatment. Nearly all had no detectable cancer. 

And just two years later, the therapy, called Kymriah, became the first-ever FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapy.

Today, CHLA has one of the largest CAR-T programs in the nation and is even advancing its own next-generation treatments.

“The trust Diego and his family placed in our team was instrumental in helping the CHLA CAR-T program become what it is today,” says Emily Hsieh, MD, attending physician in the Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Program.

The trust Diego and his family placed in our team was instrumental in helping the CHLA CAR-T program become what it is today. — Dr. Emily Hsieh

Facing acute lymphoblastic leukemia

When Diego was 12, tests revealed a high-risk form of blood cancer, ALL, in his bone marrow.

“As a kid, I didn’t understand what the doctors meant when they said ‘leukemia,’” he recalls, “But seeing my family members’ reactions, I knew something was wrong.”

After first-line chemotherapy at Diego’s local children’s hospital failed to make significant progress, doctors transferred him to CHLA for a more aggressive approach: A bone marrow transplant. This specialized treatment first destroys all diseased cells in the bone marrow, then transplants healthy stem cells from a matched donor—in Diego’s case, his 18-year-old brother.

But for reasons scientists are still investigating, bone marrow transplants don’t always result in long-term remission for patients with ALL. This was true for Diego.

“I had gone back to school, and everything had just started feeling normal again,” he recalls. That’s when he got the devastating news that the leukemia had returned. “Doctors explained that since the cancer came back even after a transplant, it was smarter, stronger, and more aggressive than before. We needed to act quickly.”

Supercharged cancer-killing cells

During CAR T-cell therapy, clinicians collect a blood sample, isolate T-cells, and, using bioengineering, “supercharge” them to recognize a specific marker on the surface of leukemia cells—in Diego’s case, his B-cells. After multiplying in a lab for several weeks, the cells are infused back into the patient through an IV.

Most of the time, patients need chemotherapy to clear space for the millions of new CAR T-cells. Since Diego had a bone marrow transplant so recently, his white blood cell count was low enough that no chemo was needed.

Risks and reality of CAR T-cell therapy

“I definitely had a lot of questions going into treatment,” Diego says. “I think what made it scariest was just hearing about all the potential reactions.”

While CAR-T offers remarkable outcomes, it carries risks, including infection, low blood counts, and neurological effects. The most serious is cytokine release syndrome (CRS), an inflammatory immune system response that can cause severe flu-like symptoms and organ stress.

“We learned a lot in the early development of this therapy about how patients may react,” says Alan S. Wayne, MD, Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Pediatrician-in-Chief, who helped launch CHLA’s CAR T-Cell Therapy Program.

“Before treating Diego, we spent a lot of time talking through the essential components of what would be required to administer CAR-T safely,” he adds. “This included assembling a multidisciplinary team of experts and coordinating with colleagues in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and the Emergency Department.”

We learned a lot in the early development of this therapy about how patients may react … We spent a lot of time talking through the essential components of what would be required to administer CAR-T safely. — Dr. Alan S. Wayne

Specialized, supportive care

Shortly after treatment, Diego developed a high fever—the first sign of CRS. He spent more than a week in the PICU in a medically induced coma while doctors treated inflammation in his brain, lungs, and kidneys.

“When Diego became critically ill as we had anticipated, his care team responded quickly with supportive care medicines that essentially work as an antidote to the toxicities from the treatment,” Dr. Wayne explains.

Then, slowly but surely, Diego started to get better. The CAR T-cells were doing their job.

Diego’s family relied on faith during those uncertain days. “My mom kept saying, ‘He’s gonna wake up,’” Diego recalls, “And thank God, I did.”

After six weeks in the hospital, doctors no longer detected leukemia in Diego’s bone marrow. His cancer was gone. He rang the end-of-treatment bell and was discharged just before the New Year on Dec. 27, 2015.

A decade of progress

“We’ve learned so much over the last 10 years,” says Dr. Hsieh.

“In early clinical studies, many of the patients who had severe reactions, like Diego, have great long-term outcomes,” she adds. “A key focus of our continuing research today is identifying which qualities may better determine patients’ response to CAR-T. And because leukemia cells are highly adaptive, we continue to vary our approach and the markers we target.”

Given the effectiveness of CAR-T, clinical leaders are also exploring when the therapy might be an appropriate first-line treatment approach. 

“Sometimes you don’t want to wait for a relapse,” Dr. Hsieh adds. “We want to ensure we’re giving patients the best care at the appropriate time.”

10 years leukemia-free

Today, Diego is 22 and a recent college graduate pursuing a career in visual arts. It’s a passion that was sparked during long hospital stays as a kid.

“Art gave me something to look forward to, and a way to express how I was feeling,” he says. 

He continues to hone his art skills today, experimenting with both physical and digital media.

As an adult, Diego receives ongoing survivorship care as well as monthly intravenous infusions for B-cell aplasia, a common side effect of CAR T-cell therapy that indicates the lasting effectiveness of treatment but requires supportive medications to help patients avoid infection.

When asked what he’d share with others receiving this treatment, he says that despite the immense challenges he faced, he’s remained optimistic: “I’d make the same decision again,” he says. 

“I’m living proof that CAR-T works. You can just look at me and see what’s possible.”

See how CHLA is advancing care and research for pediatric cancer.

How you can help the kids:

Refer your friends, neighbors, associates, or family members who are considering making a move:

Visit entar.com/refer or call Corey at 213-880-9910

Story and photos courtesy Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles

Copyright © This free information provided courtesy L.A. Loft Blog with the information provided by Corey Chambers, Broker, DRE 01889449. We are not 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.