Town support

A family “Angels Among Us” fundraiser Sunday will raise funds for 3-year-old Christofer Krajec, who has an inoperable brain tumor.

The event will be from 2 to 7 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Clubs on Laguna Canyon Road.

“I hope a lot of people come to the event, and it will be a great day,” said Christofer’s mother, Anna. She is a former kindergarten teacher at Anneliese’s Schools who has stayed home with her son to care for him.

The event will feature music, kids’ activities, art projects; food and wine; and a silent auction.

Local scheduled acts include Jason Feddy; Jasso and Garcia; and World Anthem.

“We’ve got the best bands in town,” Krajec said; additional ones are coming down from Hollywood.

“It’s just beautiful. There’s so much love, and it feels like Christofer’s wish is for people to love each other and help each other.”

The phrase “so people can help each other more and love each other more” came to Anna in a meditation; she later spoke to a medical intuitive who used the exact same words, so she felt it wasn’t a coincidence.

“This is what the fundraiser’s all about,” she said.

She is hoping that parents and children alike join together to make art that day in the theme of loving and helping each other; if enough is created, they will create an Art Miles Mural that could hang at a United Nations celebration by the Egyptian pyramids.

In addition, a fitness fundraiser will take place at 9:30 a.m. April 26.

A previous fundraiser was held in November to raise money for alternative treatments that have not stopped the tumor’s growth; it is currently larger than a golf ball.

Raised in a bilingual French and English household, Christofer also was ambidextrous until about the time he was 2 ½, when he began to use only his right hand.

“We didn’t think too much about it,” Krajec said; it seemed normal to them.

“He walked when he was 10 months old,” Krajec said. At 1 ½, he was doing tricks on his skateboard. She said he had amazing balance, which is why she was so surprised when he began to stumble.

A few months after he began favoring his right hand, Christofer began to bump into things and stumble; every few steps, one foot would turn inward.

Christofer’s father Eddie said he had similar issues when he was younger, so he figured Christofer was experiencing the same thing and would grow out of it.

“One day, it was August, and he was running barefoot in the living room,” Anna said. “There was nothing in front of him, and he fell.”

Christofer began reenacting the fall, to try to figure out what made it happen.

“It wasn’t like a normal fall,” Krajec said. “He didn’t understand why his body did what it did.”

The Krajecs took him to a pediatrician, who examined Christofer and told them that the problem was neurological, not structural, and that he needed to have an MRI performed.

They did so at the end of September, and learned that he had an astrocytoma, an inoperable brain tumor in the thalamus/brain stem region.

“If we attempted a surgery, the survival odds with chemo and all were about 1%, confirmed by at least 10 neurosurgeons,” Krajec wrote in an e-mail newsletter.

“So we tried alternative methods in an attempt to have better odds of healing him.”

Christofer suffered from occasional headaches in November, and then stopped walking and being able to support himself while standing in December.

“The only part of his body he still used was his right arm and hand, mostly to feed himself,” Krajec wrote.

“His speech became slurry, and near the end of December he stopped speaking altogether.”

He also experienced urological difficulties.

Since then, his suffering has increased.

The Krajecs went to Mexico, where he began taking steroids to reduce the swelling.

He also had a catheter operation, at which time he lost his motor skills; his vision also shut down while he was in Mexico, Krajec said.

“The cold truth is that since the second week of January, Christofer has been paralyzed, blind and unable to speak,” Krajec wrote to her friends.

Every doctor has told the Krajecs that they believe the tumor has penetrated into healthy surrounding tissues, which is why it is so dangerous to attempt to operate, in addition to the tumor’s location.

Even famed doctor Ben Carson, who became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital when he was just 33 years old and has separated several pairs of Siamese twins, said there was no safe way to operate.

Christofer was given a couple of weeks to live if he didn’t undergo a second surgery on March 11.

“That was meant to be a de-bulking biopsy,” Krajec said; the goal was to remove some of the tumor to reduce the pressure in his head.

But the doctor ended up just performing a normal biopsy so that Christofer would be able to recover quickly.

“He knew that taking it out to the degree that was there would not impact him in any beneficial way,” Krajec said.

In the meantime, the Krajecs have tried several expensive, alternative treatments that have not been covered by their insurance.

One, Poly-MVA, is a nutritional chemotherapy that is considered nontoxic but is both water- and oil-soluble, and is therefore able to pass the blood-brain barrier; it contains the trace element Palladium along with fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

Poly-MVA is a nutritional form of chemotherapy that combines the trace element Palladium along with alpha lipoic acid, vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

The product is thought to attack anaerobic cells, which include cancer cells, while leaving the aerobic (“normal”) ones alone.

Many people have reported that after using the product without traditional chemotherapy, their tumors have decreased in size.

The Krajecs also recently purchased a Lifeforce 2000 machine, which generates frequencies that are thought to realign the immune system to defend against invasion. Cells are “taught” to release pathogens into the bloodstream, where they are exposed to the frequencies and are destroyed.

Anna first heard of the device by a woman whose cervical cancer disappeared 27 days after using it.

They are looking into having a vaccine made from the tumor tissue.

“Child brains are amazing,” Krajec said.

Krajec said she has given all her worries to God, and is learning to abide.

“It’s been an incredible journey,” Krajec said. “The most amazing part of it has been the community. We have so much love and support.”

The Laguna Beach Parents Club has begun regular food deliveries, and people are donating massages and other gifts for Christofer.

“It’s just been extraordinary,” Krajec said.

But the Krajecs are currently facing another trial: where to live next month.

They leased out a larger home five months ago in order to run a day care business out of it. The lease runs out at the end of April.

“Christofer got sick the same week we signed the lease,” Krajec said. All thoughts of a day care service then went out the window.

The home is far too large and expensive for the three to live in; Krajec said they would rather spend the rent on Christofer’s treatments.

As their support group is in town, they are looking for somewhere to stay within Laguna.

Krajec is also seeking help in preparing for the move.

“If everybody comes and packs just a box or two, we should be able to do this very easily,” she said.

She is also seeking success stories of people who were afflicted with high-grade glioblastomas.

Anyone with a nursing background can help the Krajecs change Christofer’s wound dressing from his surgery. He also needs professional massages and physical therapy.

The Krajecs also ask for prayers; Anna said there are people on every inhabited continent praying for Christofer, and she believes that the more people who pray for him, the better.

To contact the Krajecs, e-mail annaluken@earthlink.net. To help out with meal donations, e-mail jennifermani@yahoo.com. Other donations can be sent to Jill Espinola at 1335 Cerritos Drive, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.