Fighting the good fight
Cal football assistant’s son, family make epilepsy awareness their cause
Bryson Thompson smiles mischievously, eyes twinkling, as he chats on the living-room couch of his family’s Danville home. He’s a typical, happy, sports-consumed 11-year-old: He loves playing baseball and flag football, riding his bike and watching Stephen Curry on television.
Only Bryson is wearing a protective helmet in case he has an epileptic seizure.
Two days later, Cal running backs coach Aristotle Thompson sits at a table in the press box at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. He talks about the anxiety he and his wife, Sarah, feel every night when they go to sleep — listening to their son breathe through the baby monitor in their bedroom, knowing there’s a good chance he will have a seizure before sunrise.
Aristotle Thompson also reflects on the estimated 20 ambulance rides to the hospital over the past three years, the frustration of insurance companies denying coverage on the helmet and the inspiration of the foundation Bryson and his 13-year-old brother, Brock, started to help other kids with epilepsy.
There are several layers to Bryson Thompson’s story, but more than anything there is this: Parents trying to protect their child.
His seizures can strike at any time, triggered by anxiety, food or another unknown cause. Bryson sometimes takes off running and other times drops to the
floor; he has seizures of some sort every day. When they’re grand mal seizures, typically causing a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contraction, he stops breathing.
At least once a week, the seizures are severe enough that Sarah or Aristotle has to rub Bryson’s spine, or stick their knuckles into his sternum to get him breathing again.
“It’s scary stuff, seeing your kid drop to the ground and not being able to catch him, or prevent it from happening anymore,” Aristotle says. “It really tears at you.”
Or, as Sarah Thompson says, “We have to stay strong for him in front of him. We try to find silver linings as much as we can, but I still have my moments where I go in the bathroom, shut the door and cry.”
Most of the seizures now happen overnight, between 3 and 6 a.m. Aristotle and Sarah hear his metal bed clanging against the wall, or the family dog — an obedience-trained yellow Labrador named Nola — racing down the hall. Nola is often the first to know Bryson is having a seizure.
Amid all this heartache rests hope, and a good deed. Bryson was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 4, in 2015. Two years later, he and Brock started Helmets4Helmets, a foundation to provide protective helmets to other kids with epilepsy. They were 8 and 6 at the time.
The idea was hatched at their kitchen table in San Luis Obispo, where Aristotle worked as an assistant coach for Cal Poly. Brock and Bryson were trying to think of ways to return the favor to Jack’s Helping Hand, a local organization that had aided the family during the early days of Bryson’s condition, when the Thompsons regularly traveled to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for tests and treatment.
The effort started with a signed Drew Brees helmet donated by former New Orleans Saints guard Zach Strief, a family friend they knew through Sarah’s dad Stan Brock, a former NFL offensive lineman. Bryson and his brother gave the helmet to Jack’s for a fundraising auction.
Soon, their vision expanded: They wanted to help kids beyond San Luis Obispo County. The protective helmets ranged in cost from $100 to $6,000, according to Sarah, and insurance companies deem them not “medically necessary” despite doctors’ guidance to the contrary, and refuse to cover them (“it’s mind-blowing,” she says).
Bryson and Brock, making calls themselves, connected with Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, one of Aristotle’s high school friends in Portland. The Warriors contributed memorabilia. The Thompson kids secured helmets and/or jerseys from Tom Brady, Odell Beckham Jr. and Peyton Manning. The late Kobe Bryant joined them on The View and later invited them to Orange County, where he helped Brock with his shot.
Five years later, the foundation has raised enough money to buy protective helmets for nearly 60 kids with epilepsy.
“We just want to help kids like me,” Bryson says. “We don’t want them to hurt their head.”
Or, as Brock says, “It feels good to put a smile back on those kids’ faces.”
More than 3.4 million people in the U.S. live with the brain disorder known as epilepsy, according to the Maryland-based Epilepsy Foundation. (November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month.) Studies have found research is funded at persistently lower rates than other neurological conditions such as ALS, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
Aristotle and Sarah Thompson had little warning of their entry into this harrowing world, until Bryson began frequently and inexplicably falling in 2015. They brought him to the doctor and soon received the sobering diagnosis.
Even more concerning, Sarah said, was the uncertainty. She equated the doctors’ efforts to throwing darts at a board, trying different drugs and treatments to see what might work. It doesn’t help that Bryson is a “drug-resistant epileptic,” meaning medications have less impact.
He had three surgeries to install, repair and ultimately remove a VNS (vagus nerve stimulator) implant. He underwent genetic and genome testing, which was inconclusive. Bryson’s neurologist has grown frustrated, Sarah said, so the Thompsons are trying a more holistic approach.
They tinkered with his diet, suspecting stomach issues (Bryson’s kidneys aren’t functioning properly), and discovered drinking celery juice every morning has helped. Still, they’re considering a visit to the Mayo Clinic to possibly strip Bryson of all his medications — which Sarah and Aristotle fear might be contributing to his seizures — and start over.
“It’s very frustrating,” Aristotle says. “But I have to be optimistic about him beating this with or without medicine, be it God’s will or some treatment out there someone comes up with. …
“I’m not going to walk away from a fight, and he’s in the fight of his life every single day. So I’m very optimistic things will change. I know something is going to happen.”
In the meantime, the Thompsons forge ahead with Brock, Bryson, Payton (age 10) and Lennon (8). Beyond the emotions, it’s a logistical challenge given the need for constant supervision of Bryson and the time-intensive demands of Aristotle’s coaching job at Cal.
Bryson is with one of his parents at almost all times, except when he’s in his fifth-grade class at school (where a nurse is always with him). Sarah, who along with a partner runs their event business from home, stays within a five-minute drive when Bryson is at school, and she instinctively jumps anytime her cellphone rings.
Stan Brock marvels at the way her daughter copes with the stress. Brock, who played 13 of his 16 NFL seasons with the Saints, could not fully comprehend the magnitude of it all until he saw Sarah wrap Bryson in a bear hug during one of his seizures, spinning him around in circles until an ambulance arrived.
Eventually, fear becomes relief: When Bryson comes out of the seizure, his grandfather said, he usually flashes his signature smile.
“I have no idea how she does this,” Stan Brock says of Sarah. “If I take Bryson to get ice cream, I’m scared to death he’s going to have a seizure when he’s with me.”
The Thompsons were told grand mal seizures are akin to running a marathon with a migraine, and then getting hit by a truck afterward. But after one of his early-morning episodes, Bryson invariably bounces up ready for school, as energetic and upbeat as ever.
“He’s the toughest person I know,” Aristotle says.
Bryson and his siblings are finding their way in the Bay Area, after moving here less than three years ago from San Luis Obispo. The kids enjoy hanging with their dad at Cal during the summer; two Bears players organized a charity golf tournament with the proceeds benefiting Helmets4Helmets.
Both of Bryson’s parents spoke of his big heart, evident in the foundation and his eagerness to help friends at school. Aristotle also shared the story of one early visit to Children’s Hospital in L.A., when there were no beds available on the neurology floor so Bryson ended up among oncology patients.
He was hooked up to an EEG test, with wires attached to his head, but Bryson remained ever restless. So he persuaded his dad to play catch in the hallway, then rode a small scooter around and used the empty resource room/ common area. Kids and parents started poking their heads out of their rooms.
The next day, three or four kids joined Bryson on his hallway adventures. Soon, about 10 kids wandered around or used the resource room. In Aristotle’s mind, this showed the “bigger purpose” of Bryson’s situation, and his ability to spread joy to other kids in need.
Don’t underestimate the power of a mischievous smile and twinkling eyes.