health

Health Conquest

Brandon Pomish researched his
options and beat his illness in Spain.

Editor’s Note: When health issues surface, your life can change dramatically. This is one of those
stories. Brandon Pomish, 35, of Bloomfield Hills was active and involved in his work and in the Detroit
Jewish community. When he was struck with a complex medical problem, he began researching his
options, including clinical trials around the world. This story, in Brandon’s words, documents his
three-year journey back to health and his message to be proactive and never give up hope.

During one of many visits to
the hospital, Brandon receives
flowers to cheer his day.

BRANDON POMISH SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

I

n October 2014, life was
good. My wife, Emily, and
I just had our first child,
Nora, who was 7 months old.
I was involved in our fam-
ily business, PCI One Source
Contracting, and was volun-
teering in the Jewish commu-
nity.
My community involve-
ment included serving on the
NEXTGen Detroit executive
board and Temple Israel board
of trustees and on Federation’s
Capital Needs, Security and
Partnership2Gether commit-
tees. I was a mentor through
Jewish Family Service’s Mentor
Connection program and an
active AIPAC participant.
Starting in November 2014,
I was suddenly hit with a half-
dollar-sized enormously painful
perianal abscess. Not knowing
what an abscess was or where
the perianal region was, I went
to my internist who directed
me to a colorectal surgeon who
insisted that he immediately
cut and drain the abscess.
After two surgical attempts,
he surrendered to the uncon-
trollable buildup of fluid and
recommended me to another
surgeon. This new surgeon was
more tactful in his approach;
however, he could not control
the abscesses (yes, now more
than one).
After four more surgical cut-
and-drain attempts, he could
not cut any longer because the
skin was too raw. By July, I had
two wounds underneath my
scrotum about 1½ inches in
length and about three-eighths
of an inch deep.
The nuclear option of an
ileostomy was recommended
and performed. The first ileos-
tomy failed and caused massive
blockages inside of my small
bowel requiring a nasogastric
tube to be administered and
many emergency visits to the
hospital. After more complica-
tions, an ileostomy revision was
performed, and I was admitted
to the hospital for 23 nights.
After my release in
September, I was introduced
to the head gastrointestinal

(GI) doctor at the University
of Michigan, and he put me
on Remicade and Imuran,
which were supposed to heal
my fistulas. At this point, I
also had been introduced to a
highly regarded GI at the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She
has written many influential
papers on clinical practice
for inflammatory bowel dis-
ease (IBD) and has written
a highly praised book on patient
management in IBD. I was also
introduced to a new surgeon
who would manage my surgical
treatment.

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

For the next eight months, I
visited Mayo dozens of times
in hopes that my fistulas were
healing. Each visit included
pelvic MRIs. The MRIs contin-
ued to show each of the fistulas
corresponding to the previous
MRI with no improvement. At
this point, after more surgeries
for anal fissures and continued
pain at the fistula/seton drain
sites, I asked: “When is this
going to end?”
The answer I was given
changed my life forever. I
was told that complex peri-
anal fistula (cpf) healing isn’t
measured in days, weeks or
months, but rather in years.
Not taking this answer lightly,
I went home that evening and
went onto clinicaltrials.gov in
search of something that could
accelerate my healing. I found
numerous trials for cpfs around
the world on almost every
continent and started reading
up on the studies.
I took into consideration
the country and its medical
establishments, time of healing,
number of treatments, costs
and many other factors.
The trial I was most fas-
cinated with was the effi-
cacy of a stem cell procedure
being performed at Hospital
Universitario Fundación
Jiménez Díaz in Madrid,
Spain. The two leading doctors
behind the study had excellent
credentials (one of the surgeons
completed her fellowship at

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March 29 • 2018

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