Towards the end of January, the 27th to be exact, I asked Brady if he wouldn’t mind me taking a bit of a break for the evening and just hiding out in our room for a bit. I hadn’t asked for one in a while considering we had JUST moved into our new home on the 13th, but I was feeling pretty impatient and ready for some letdown. He very willingly gave me the freedom to take a break, as he always has 💜 I went to our room, but it was still pretty loud, considering our room is a lot closer to the rest of the house than it used to be. I finally barricaded myself in our en suite to make a phone call.
After a while, I heard Brady come into our room. He had the morsel with him and I could hear him doing some bedtime stuff. I heard him growling at the morsel, as you do when you’re a parent with a morsel who growls. After a little bit of time, I heard other kids come into our room, which isn’t uncommon. Sometimes tucking babies in becomes a family affair, because they’re cute and fun and a great excuse to stay up longer.
At one point, a kid knocked on my door. Now, I love my children, but try as I might, they interrupt a LOT. Not great radars for that, try as I might to teach them otherwise. So when they know I’m on the phone and still interrupt, I tend to not respond, so they can hypothetically read the room. But the knocks persisted so I opened the door. There was Rowan, looking a little silly but perhaps a little unsure.
“Whats wrong with dad?”
“How so? What do you mean?”
“He’s laying on the ground and he won’t answer me. And his arm is red.”
It took about one second for me to end my call and get out of there, and there lay Brady on our bedroom floor, unresponsive.
Barf.
So everything I had learned in first aid went out the window for a second and I lifted his head. You’re not supposed to do that, but, c’est la vie, I did. He jolted awake and looked at me, very confused. It looked in his eyes like he didn’t recognize me. I spoke to him and called his name, and he fell back out of consciousness. I woke him back up and tried to ask him if he was ok. He would sort of nod or acknowledge me, but it was very slight and inconsistent. I asked him if he knew his name, and he nodded. I asked if he could say it and he nodded again. Lol! Twerp. So I instructed him to say it.
“Brladrly…”
It was NOT good.
So needless to say, I called 911, thinking he had a stroke.
The dispatcher was awesome, and worked quickly. Meanwhile, most of the kids had made their way up to our room, so it was absolutely bursting with activity. When the dispatcher said the first responders were coming, Rowan jumped up and went to unlock the front door and hit the lights. Laela just cried and cried and cried consistently, positively beside herself 💜 Poor girl.
While I waited for first responders and paramedics to arrive, I was actively trying to keep Brady awake. Which I’m pretty sure is wrong, but also I don’t think it hurt anything. I’d smack his cheek and he would jolt awake and look at me with surprise. I told him he scared me, and he would SO INNOCENTLY apologize! Knowing what I knew about his brain mass, I said to him “I think you’re going to have brain surgery.” His eyes grew huge and he exclaimed “WHY?!” Hahaha! It was a pretty cute moment in the midst of the chaos.
A beautiful thing about living in a small town where everybody knows everybody is that the first responders were ALL familiar. Oh the relief that came with seeing faces of people I already knew were truly invested in us. Nothing else quite like that. One of them came and eagerly whisked the kids away to the living room to read stories, hold babies, etc. They came armed with craft stuff and stuffies 💜 A solid way to their hearts for sure!
Brady was starting to come to a little bit more, and he answered the questions he could while I filled in the blanks. He couldn’t quite place the first responder he was talking to, but he easily recognized one of the others, and named her so sweetly and calmly. It was an oddly warm interaction even though it was so stinking scary. He passed all the right tests. No droop in his mouth. Strong voice. Decent recognition. Hand strength. All the things.
The paramedics were not far behind at all, and they were SO kind as well. They took his vitals and Brady was able to sit up a bit more. We went through memories, to see if he could remember the events leading up to falling down, which he could to a point. Likely to the point where he seized. It was pretty clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t a stroke but a seizure. Felt a bit less scary, but I still definitely super hated it.
With all of this, Brady hitched a ride in the ambulance to Saskatoon for the night. That was another first.
Our neighbour came over as soon as the ambulance left and sat with me and the kids while we talked through the whole experience, and then helped me get kids down. It was really lovely of her 💜
Brady ended up staying the night. He was back to himself, plus one new anti-seizure medication, and without his drivers license. Behold 🙌 the WORST part of this whole ordeal for Brady.
But we’ll talk more about that later…