EDMONDS — Brendan Hauer isn’t quite the Brendan he’s been most of his life.
He’s bed ridden and can’t speak. He’s being fed through a tube and has had periods of time on a respirator.
But he can open his eyes and seems to be able to hear. When his parents talk, it seems the 11-year-old Edmonds boy can hear what they’re saying, said his mom, Kathleen Hauer.
“We think so,” she said.
Physical therapists working with Brendan see a lot of signs of life in his eyes.
“‘He’s in there,’” they’ve told his parents, Kathleen said.
Brendan suffered cardiac arrest at school while playing at recess Oct. 29. He has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a relatively rare heart disease characterized by an unusual thickening of the heart muscle that occurs for no apparent reason.
He went eight minutes without blood flow or oxygen to his brain. Fortunately, after being diagnosed with HCM four years ago, a defibrillator/pacer device was implanted in his chest that detects when his heart gets out of a normal rhythm and gives it a shock.
“The defibrillator actually shocked him back into a rhythm,” Kathleen said.
Since then, Brendan has been in a type of semi-coma. Doctors don’t know if or when he’ll come out of it.
No known cure exists for HCM but people who have it can live relatively normal lives with the help of debrillators and drugs. Brendan wasn’t diagnosed until he went into cardiac arrest at home at age 7.
Medics weren’t sure what was wrong with him, Kathleen said. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
“They thought he broke his neck,” she said.
Brendan went symptom-free for four years, except for an episode in 2001 where the defibrillator malfunctioned and shocked him unnecessarily. Brendan can engage in some physical activity and has played a little bit of soccer, but has to be careful, his mom said.
“He has to rest when he has to rest,” she said.
Ironically, Kathleen used to work with Linda Rodriguez, whose husband Jorge died of HCM in October 2002 at age 35 while working at Top Foods in Edmonds. Rodriguez and Kathleen Hauer are still friends and Rodriguez is listed as one of many regular visitors to Brendan’s web site, established so friends and family can keep updated on his status. The web site’s had about 7,000 visits, Kathleen estimated.
Brendan’s had an outpouring of support and encouragement from friends and family through letters and photos. He also had a visit from Mariner Dan Wilson and ex-Mariners Jay Buhner and Dave Henderson. “They signed everything in sight,” Brendan’s mom said. He also received a signed Seahawks jersey from Matt Hasselbeck.
Between Kathleen and her husband, Brendan’s father Duane Hauer, one of them is with the boy 24 hours a day, she said. Kathleen has taken indefinite leave from her sales job and Duane is on six weeks’ family leave from his job as an engineer.
“You do it because it’s your child,” Kathleen said. The Hauers have two other boys, Joseph, 13, and Cole, 9.
Doctors don’t know if Brendan has any permanent brain damage. But they have said that “kids’ brains are rubbery and elastic and can recuperate,” Kathleen said.
If Brendan does improve, it will likely be within six months to a year, doctors have told the Hauers. Wherever he is after that time in terms of the major functions of walking, talking and eating on his own is likely where he’ll stay, they’ve said.
“So we wait,” Kathleen said.
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