Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510300109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Nathan died at home," with his mommy holding one hand and his daddy holding the other," said his mother, Denise Brown.
His mischievous grin, along with those baseball caps he wore to hide his missing blond hair, were captured more than once by a Roanoke Times photographer.
A year ago, the newspaper covered Nathan Brown and Andrew Braeford as they prepared for a bone marrow transplant at Duke University Medical Center. Months earlier, both 4-year-old boys had been diagnosed with the same acute myelogenous leukemia, a cancer that attacks the blood-forming organs.
Andrew survived the procedure but died a few months later.
After a tough recovery in which Nathan suffered high fevers and a lung biopsy, he seemed to spring back to his vital self. Denise and Gene Brown hoped their son would be one of the 30 percent or so to stay in permanent remission.
Then, in July, it was reported that the cancer had resurfaced.
Since then, his family had been making the most of the time they had left, visiting Virginia Beach and Disney World. But in the past week, after doctors began giving Nathan a continuous morphine intravenous drip, his parents and his sister, Megan, have stayed close to home.
"He's up in heaven now," Denise Brown said, "playing with Andrew ... and having a ball."
by CNB