INDIANAPOLIS – Brody Marlin was six months old when his parents were told their baby had something called tuberous sclerosis, a rare, stubborn disease that suppresses the body’s ability to fight off tumors. Today he’s got too many to count, in darn near every part of his body. “They told us he may never walk or talk or do anything,” his mom, Laura, remembers.
Problem was: Brody never liked watching from the sidelines, never liked being left out, especially with a football-playing brother who’s just 18 months older than him. Brody’s five now, slogging through 40 hours of therapy a week, autistic and epileptic and as stubborn as the disease that, at its very worse, was causing him to have one or two seizures an hour.