Source: Freep.com

Kaden Strek was born three months premature to a drug-addicted mother. Weighing 2 pounds, 12 ounces, he wasn’t expected to live.

If he did, he would be placed in an institution because of his disabilities, his adoptive mother, Eddie Strek, was told. He is blind, has limited speech, hydrocephalus (excessive fluid on the brain) and cerebral palsy.

But Strek, who learned she was pregnant with her first child two days before Kaden was born, wasn’t going to let him slip into the system.

“Sometimes you know it’s the right thing to do,” she said of the decision she and her husband, Tom Strek, made to adopt Kaden. They knew the boy’s mother.That decision was seven years, 15 surgeries and 29 therapists ago.

Now, the St. Clair Shores parents want to give Kaden a chance to see, speak and walk, through umbilical cord blood stem cell treatments that they said aren’t available in the U.S.

They are to hold a fund-raiser Sunday to pay for the treatments in China. Eddie Strek said the trip and the treatments, which would flood Kaden’s body with new cells to repair the damaged ones, are estimated to cost about $50,000. The family has about $20,000.

“We’re just trying to give him every opportunity we can,” said Strek, 42, a stay-at-home mom of three who is undergoing radiation for a noncancerous mass on her brain.

Umbilical cord blood stem cells are collected from the umbilical cord at birth and can produce all of the blood cells in the body. Cord blood is used to treat patients who have undergone chemotherapy to destroy their bone marrow because of cancer or other blood-related disorders, according to the National Institutes of Health.

There are public and private cord blood banks in the U.S., including in Michigan.

Strek said she hopes to take Kaden to China next summer. She hopes the treatments will improve his vision and ability to walk. He can walk about three house lengths with his U-shaped walker.

Strek is hopeful after seeing results in her friend’s 4-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy. Heather Hall, 38, of Harrison Township said her daughter, Brooklyn, showed improvement after the treatments in 2007.

Before the trip, Hall said, Brooklyn walked only about five steps, holding someone’s hand. Now, she walks 3 to 6 feet on her own at therapy. Hall said Brooklyn’s speech improved from one or two words to being age appropriate. Brooklyn is to attend preschool next year.

“We’ve been extremely pleased,” Hall said.

Strek knows the trip is a gamble. But so was the decision to adopt Kaden, and she doesn’t regret that for a second.

“If you have the opportunity to drastically change his life,” she said, “why wouldn’t you do it?”

Contact CHRISTINA HALL: 586-826-7265 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              586-826-7265      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or chall@freepress.com