If you’ve followed long enough, you know I take the last day of every year to recap the significant events we’ve experienced. I usually comb through the photos from the last twelve months and make one collage photo for each month. I remember last year, for just ONE month, I did two collage photos, because we had finished redoing the camper, and I wanted to show that as well. It seemed absurd at the time to need TWO collages to depict one month. But friends, we’re just going to forget what used to be the norm, and we’re going to laugh at the mountain of photos on this years recap post. Deal? Deal.
Please be patient with me.
January
The year kicked off with struggle. It began with doctors appointments and anxiety. The push to figure out where Brady’s struggles were stemming from was on, it was pretty all consuming. We celebrated any normal we could get our hands on, but there was an undeniable feeling that change was looming. Its also important to note that January kicked off Rowan being on Melatonin. We were all on a hunt for wellness!
February
This is without question our biggest month this year. The busiest. The life changiest. It started out with Brady still working, which felt like an insignificant picture at the time, but is huge now. Brady went for his first MRI on February 3rd. We celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary on the 7th. He had his second MRI on the 8th. On the 9th, we met who would become Brady’s neurosurgeon, who showed us that Brady had a large tumour growing in his spinal cord. February 10th Brady went in for live saving, life altering surgery. Boom boom boom boom. One after another. A whirlwind if there ever was one.
Brady woke up from surgery and knew immediately that he was paralyzed. But the smile on his face was real, as both of us truly believed he might die in surgery. Legs are so secondary to life 💜We celebrated Valentines Day just a few days later in the neuro ward at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon. I would bring him an americano nuevo and he would drink it from flat on his back through a bendy straw. It only took a few days before he was sent to physio, where he was able to transfer from his chair onto a bed and back. This quickly cleared him to leave the hospital and be transferred to City Hospital’s rehabilitation ward. His stay at RUH was eight days.
Brady was placed in a very nice big room with a window overlooking the river. I was welcomed to join in his therapies, and he started walking between the parallel bars. Meanwhile, Rowan celebrated his birthday and had his first haircut! So did Solly, but of course I don’t have a picture to share. Aaaaall the mom fails.
At home, I was single momming it, but with an immense amount of help from my close people. We did devotions and prayers with Brady every night over FaceTime, which was important but a huge challenge considering how much had happened and changed in such a short amount of time. Brady closed February off by suffering a pulmonary embolus, and almost dying. What. A. Month.
March
My mental health took a pretty hefty nosedive in March. Thanks to Brady’s blood clot incident, he went on blood thinners and had the pleasure of a three days nose bleed. My cute mom moved in to take care of us all at home, and to effectively take over while I went to the hospital every single day. The BEST part of March was when Brady was scheduled to meet an occupational therapist at home, and the taxi missed the memo and left him here. His quick pop-in turned into longer visit of a few hours, where he even joined us for supper It was the BEST.
March was not without its challenges. We were given the ugly diagnosis of stage four cancer. That did not deter Brady, however, and his therapies continued. He graduated out of the parallel bars and moved to walkers, and finally, forearm crutches! He was SO much happier with the crutches than the walker! Stairs was the final win of March, which was something he desperately wanted to try that felt out of reach. It wasn’t 💜
April
Brady was cleared to go outside in April!! This was a HUGE deal! We went on our first outing to Brainsport, to get some shoes that fit Brady’s brace in them. It was also the first time we ran into someone we knew who had no idea of the changes in our lives. It was entertaining in the moment and then utterly heartbreaking after. I’ll never forget it. With Brady’s outside time, we were able to casually wind up at a nearby park at *gasp* the same time as our kids!! So that was a beautiful open door. It was hugely relieving to see Brady with the kids 💜See how Laela has “crutches” and Rowan has a “wheelchair?” Also in April, Cher started taking the kids out on dates, so they would get some more face to face attention. They loved it.
Brady continued to crush his therapies one after the other. The FES bike was a regular part of his day, as well as weights and bulking up his arms and chest the best he could, as so much more depends on his upper body now. He broke a lot of therabands during his workouts in his room, lol! But better that than not using them! Also in April, he began radiation treatments. They would taxi him over to the cancer centre five days a week. It was scary and made him so sick.
While Brady was away, we prepared the house the best way we could for his return. And right smack dab in the middle of April, he came home. It was a HUGE celebration!!! Nine weeks he was away. They were long long weeks.
We settled into our normal. HA!! That 🙌 is the biggest lie I’ve told all year! 😆But hey, we got to brush our teeth together. Teach our kids to tie their shoes. Stuff like that. People gifting us a golf cart is not normal, but it did happen also 💜And the crocheting bug bit me HARD. I tried to crochet when Brady was away, but just couldn’t get into it. It sure worked a lot better the moment he got home!
May
Brady began to learn his limits and abilities here at home! We got everything set up for Spring, and I will say the theme of this Spring was DIRT. Goodness it was SO filthy here without grass, and, spoiler alert, we never got there. Ah well. What we did do was complete Brady’s five weeks of radiation!! That was significant and dearly important. He was so uncomfortable for those weeks, but he was granted a month of no treatment after he finished, which helped. Cher gave us a couple of weekends at the lake, just Brady and I, to try and get things set up for our new circumstances. This was a huge gift, and more necessary than we anticipated!
We attended Brady’s first outpatient rehab appointment in May. It was nice, and informative, but also bizarre to be back at the hospital! Our dates have gotten SO weird, haha! Hear me, guys. Dates at the hospital shouldn’t count! Buuuut for now, they do. A hit we took in May was our dishwasher dying. Of all stupid things. But thank goodness, my handy/handi (HA!) husband was home, and we could sort it out together 💜The day it died, someone came over unannounced and gave us $500 in cash. Sooooo that took care of that. God took care of that. Thank you, friends, for listening to God and being good neighbours. We closed the month off by celebrating Solly’s birthday!
June
The weekends at the lake with just Brady were a total treat 💜 We were able to see how Brady would adapt to lake life and how we could adapt it to fit him! We built a nice big level patio! Meanwhile the kids played well and were totally happy at home.
We ran around a lot in June. School was still going so time was split between home and the lake, plus all the appointments! Brady had his first driving assessment, and took his brace in to Saskabilities so many times! Brady started chemotherapy, and did his first round over our first lake weekend with the whole fam jam! It was utter chaos, but we made it! We were very thankful that my mom joined us 💜
Because there wasn’t enough going on, the work kept on kicking at the lake. Brady built us a front step with good sturdy stairs and railings. I helped him a lot, but my rest and relaxation translated into crocheting by the fire. Thats another thing. I got really good at building fires this year. It was my gig, and once I settled into it, I was a master. Not to say there weren’t blistered and slivers and blood and tears along the way. Because there were.
July
Right off the hop in July, we celebrated Waverly’s birthday. She was stylin’. Shortly thereafter, I had a very small procedure where an OB cleared a small tissue septum out of my uterus. Cher took me there and back 💜 Back to the lake, Brady built us a beautiful firewood stand, and Solomon learned to ride a bike!
The kids went to day camp at Kinasao for the first time ever, and they loved loved LOVED it! Meanwhile, Brady and I spent our days with Wavy, feeding her cheeseballs like they were going out of style. She was a fan.
This little beauty, Cher, had a birthday in July, so she joined us up at the lake for the day and we ate appies off the barbecue. Win! Brady and I worked HARD and got our deck shaded before the end of the month, and we closed July off with my birthday. I won’t lie, I have never felt older 😆
August
August kicked off with Brady’s SIXTH MRI! It was their effort to see if anything had changed since his radiation treatments. Not especially significantly, but noteworthy, we discovered Wavy had enough hair for a palm tree pony! Woot! We continued our time at the lake, and Brady built our cook nook! My mom celebrated a birthday in August, so she came and spent some time with us out there! We are certainly fortunate to have people who are willing to come our way so often 💜
Work is never done, so we continued our lake projects and got our site levelled out really nicely. In between lake stays, Brady officially got his drivers license! This was an ugly crying kind of event. Independence!!! Dekker celebrated his tenth birthday at the lake, and we wrapped up our beautiful lake season shortly thereafter.
September
Back to reality! As if we ever left, haha! But you know what I mean. We winterized the campsite and entered school mode! Four of the kids had their token “first day of school pictures” taken, though on different days. We settled into the reality of having – wait for it – ONE KID every other day!!
September was also the first time we talked publicly about needing to move. The hunt for solutions began (aaaand continues, lol) Brady and both dove into the things we are excited and passionate about! And we wrapped the month with Laela’s birthday!
October
This was really a month for settling into life. I think I’ve said that a few times, but nothing was shockingly new in October. We just lived. We set up a beautiful yarn wall for me 😍Wavy got her first big girl bed. Cher and I celebrated our four year friendaversary 💜 Brady celebrated his birthday, which was also exactly six months since he got home from the hospital. We got our basement ceiling done, sealing off the official finishing of our home! And also noteworthy, I BAKED for the first time in AGES! This is important to add in here because it was extra, and it still happened! Woop!
November
This month was a cold slap in the face, when it became immediately clear that winter was upon us, and that I was on the hook for so much more than I was used to. I know that sounds extra “poor me” but truly, it was a hard griefy moment of time for me. We had our first big snow early November. Brady worked to figure out how to be outside and effective. He managed to get into the backyard and take apart the trampoline. Meanwhile, November was full of crocheting. Like FULL of crocheting. I got some big orders out the door, which had me feeling capable and accomplished. I truly hope there are more orders to come. Probably the most important thing in November to note was that Brady WORKED! As in out of the house, with another guy, on a job site! He painted, and he LOVED it!
December
Its been a full month of grief and excitement, memory making and emotion organizing! With our friend, Carrie, we played our first gig in a full year! It was incredible! Brady was nominated to the Maker Community Project out of NJ, and was chosen to be the recipient of some amazing help, resources, and gifts that will get him set up to move forward as a successful, profitable maker. We praise the Lord for Mike, Matt, and the other folks involved! I had a great success in December, also. In my case, this means I finally found an antidepressant that works!! In this month alone, I regained all the weight I lost, I have a real appetite for the first time in several years, I sleep, and I cope. Fewer anxiety attacks means a happier Hailey who is more compatible with life! We set up for Christmas this month, and even made a two hour trip to see some of our dear friends from the lake 💜I did my final count, clocking in at 16 blankets crocheted. And we’re closing the year off wiiiiiiith… car trouble, lol!
I mean 🤷🏼♀️all things considered, at the very least, this year was eventful like none other! God has remained faithful, and has cared for us undeniably all along the way 💜 So we wait eagerly for whats to come, where God will take us, and where we’ll land. If we’ve learned anything this year, its that God knows the outcome. He knew it before we even knew the beginning. We had NO idea at the beginning of the year where we’d be this December, but we’ve come out oddly ahead in some ways.
Thank you, Lord, for bringing us through 2021 together. We eagerly wait to see what 2022 has in store for us!
We trust you, Lord.