After Brady’s MRI late on Wednesday night, we realized that his doctors may not have been notified that he got a last minute cancellation spot. On Thursday morning, he called around to our family doctor, his neurologist, and his physiotherapist, and left them messages to say his MRI happened early, and to be on the lookout for the report. He called around 9:30am. 

In true Dr. Guselle fashion, she looked into it immediately, and called Brady within a couple of hours of his message. Around 11:30am. She said she had not received the report yet, but that his MRI was on eHealth, and she was able to look at it. She confirmed that there is a “foggy, undefined area” of his spine, between T7 – T12, in the lower thoracic region.

She said she had already spoken to his neurologist, and that she would be calling Brady at the end of her workday to give him details of the full report. 

Sooner than expected, around 2:30pm, Brady’s neurologist called. 

She believes something is growing inside of Brady’s spine. She cannot be sure what, and for that reason, Brady needs a second MRI. 

😩😰😭

This second scan will be performed with contrast, so he will have dye injected into his arm first, and it will produce clearer pictures of things like inflammation and blood flow. It is possible that Brady’s spine has a soft spot in it due to a lack of blood flow, but because his symptoms are changing literally by the day, its not as likely as something growing. 

On top of that, he has a bulging disc in his neck, which is unrelated to his legs but is still something to note. Because, why not something else? 

He got that news around 2:30, and the MRI clinic called at 4:00. His next MRI is booked first thing Monday morning. He is finally, officially considered emergent. Which is a completely bizarre thing to be excited about, but we are. 

To catch everyone up to exactly what we’re looking at right now, Brady is in almost no pain. His back gets sore and stiff from time to time, because his legs are not working and his back is compensating. For months now, his left leg has been numb, and his right leg has had extreme muscle weakness and lack of motor skills. In the last week or so, however, his right leg has started to feel numb, and he has weakening of the left leg. Its changing very fast. It is an emergency. And its FINALLY being treated as such. 

All of this being said, Brady has been told that, no matter the MRI results, he is being referred to a neurosurgeon. So we’re pretty sure we know where this is headed.

We have been offered SO MUCH CARE from SO MANY of you!!! For this, I am SO thankful!!! I haven’t known what to ask for, as everything is still just so uncertain. For the time being, I can say we are well taken care of! Praise the Lord! 

I have a couple of kid-free hours tomorrow that I will use to prep kids lunches and some suppers for the week ahead.
I have childcare on Monday morning so I can drive to Brady’s MRI with him and the kids can still get off to school. 

I have a friend working in the hospital Monday who offered to hang out with me for a bit of time during Brady’s scan, so I don’t get too in my head. 

I have live-in help, at the moment, and my mom just SO close by, so we are covered in case of an emergency. 

As I’ve been saying for what feels like an eternity, we are just waiting. We don’t know what is ahead. I feel a dire need to prepare, and I’m starting to think maybe I’m not crazy, and we’re really going to be in need shortly. I just really don’t know. But I know nothing is done, yet. Its not over. And we continue to need your prayers and support. 

Todays post is not expressed as well as I wish it were, but hopefully the information translates. I feel like things will be ok. But at the same time, we’re teetering a little. 

Husband time! 

This is Brady stepping in for a hubsby post. Hailey asked me to write about my experience in the MRI machine last night. So here you go.

I was originally booked to go in Monday the 8th in the evening but Hailey and I both felt like that was so long to just sit and wait so she suggested on Tuesday morning that I call to see if any time slot open up. Guess what, they had one! So we went in last night for 10:30pm. Apparently the MRI clinic at our hospital is open til 12am every day. They must be a busy place. 

They had asked me to wear clothes that didn’t have any metal on them if possible so I donned my Daddyplushy-for-around-the-house outfit and Hailey and I headed in for a quick subway supper before my oddly late appointment. 

Thanks be to Cher for finishing up bedtime with the kids so we could go in a little early!

We weren’t sure if Hailey would be allowed to come into the clinic with me to wait so she opted to wait in the van and occupy herself with scrolling on her phone and crocheting.

Turns out she could’ve come and waited inside because I saw a lady waiting for her husband in there. His pants and coat neatly folded on her lap while she scrolled on her phone. The guy definitely came out of his appointment in a T shirt and long johns.

Long johns in public. What has this pandemic done to us? 

I was shortly lead into the back waiting area where I was given and locker to leave my belongings in and then sit and wait in a second waiting room. With no phone! I am way too dependant on my phone to pass the time because I really only had to wait about 15 minutes but I was SO bored. *facepalm* In typical contractor fashion I was looking around analyzing the workmanship of room I was waiting in. Hahaha!

I was briefly joined by a very chatty gentleman who apparently was scheduled for the exact same time that I was, however, he did not arrive in the window they asked him to arrive in and was made to wait longer. 

I was brought further back around 10:10pm and I was asked to switch out my mask for a mask without wire and sanitize my hands. Makes sense. 

I mentioned to the tech that I had been a welder in the past and that I’d had an orbital X-ray done recently to confirm that I didn’t have any metal flecks in my eyes, and I hadn’t received the results. She made a quick check of my chart to confirm that I had been cleared for the MRI and I was. I don’t know about the rest of you but I wanted to make darn sure I wasn’t gonna be stuck to the inside of that thing.

I was then ushered through and door with a big, bright ‘DANGER’ sign on it and I knew I was headed to the show. And it was a show. I felt very important to be brought in for a scan in such an extravagant machine. I was told to lay down with my head in the cradle and given headphones to protect my ears from the noise. I would liken the cage they placed over my head to being made into a human trouble light. Thoughtfully, a mirror was added within my eye-line so that I could see my own feet and the mirrored glass was behind which sat the tech at her computer. It was at this point she told me that my scan would be roughly an hour. 

Yikes!

With some 70s soft rock as my soundtrack I slowly glided in about waste deep. The close proximity of the machine was a small adjustment for but I was prepared for it and it wasn’t an issue for me. The tech then warned me there would be some louder noises which was followed by what a noise that I would describe as shoving your head into a dot matrix printer while it’s printing. 

I was slowly moved further and further into the machine as it was ‘getting the lay of the land’. After being slid in as far as my shins it stopped trying to be a printer and instead decided to warn me that my space ship was about to self destruct. Imagine being onboard Apollo 13 when everything went to poop and thats about how it felt to be in that machine in that moment. Not the panic, just the sights and sounds.

I was then pummelled with a barrage of sounds I can only describe as a super distorted synthesizer  turned up to 11. And controlled by an annoying sibling. I was also able to pick out some metal drummer style blast beats and variant timings. An alternating 9/8 to 7/8 time signature was a groove that was hard for the metal head in me to resist. I found it to be an oddly musical machine. 

I quickly came to enjoy the solitude and the abundance of sensory input gave me a sense of what its like to be in a sensory deprivation tank. Perhaps a sensory overload tank. Has anyone copyrighted that idea yet? Maybe I should. Hahaha

At 20 minutes in the tech stopped the machine and asked me how I was doing. I responded that I was doing well but that my face was itchy. I heard a ‘You can take care of that now’, and managed to find a way through the trouble light cage to scratch my face vigourously. 

The next 20 minutes were pretty low key and the tech’s periodical ‘The table will move now’ was a singsongy break from the deep distorted synth monotony. And after another 20 minutes she stopped to check on me again. Itches had come and gone without being scratched and I was good to keep going.

The last 20-30 minutes probably went the quickest. By this time I was well accustomed to the noise and the occasional table movements. It was soothing, and I had been up since 6:20. 

And then I dosed off. During the MRI. It was nice.

I’d wake up every minute or two when the table would move and then slowly drift off again. I have no idea if the tech could see me face or not, she could probably tell that I fell asleep a couple times. But I didn’t mind. 

Eventually the synth stopped and the tech chimed in that we were done and she was coming to get me out. I was slowly brought out of the machine like a life size 3D printed Brady and brought to life. She informed me that the scans would be looked at the next day and passed along to my doctors on Friday and she ushered me out.

The MRI clinic was eerily quiet and abandoned. I’m pretty sure the tech and I were the last two people in the clinic. I quickly grabbed my stuff out of my assigned locker and made my way out of the hospital to find my wife waiting in the van.

In true Hailey fashion, she was helping a stranger in need. Another guy in the same parking lot had a dead battery and she was attempting to give him a boost. Unfortunately, our van requires a very specific method to boost another car. Luckily, I arrived just as they were attempting to figure it out and I was able to help and get the guy’s SUV running within a minute or two. A fun activity to end an eventful evening.

So that’s the story of my MRI last night. I weirdly enjoyed it. And I hope my retelling has been enjoyable. 🙂

Have a good evening folks!

As you can imagine, time is standing still as we are anticipating Brady’s MRI later today. In an effort to not just post about how hard waiting is, I’m going to tell you a funny story about a dream I had the other night 🙂 

In my dream, we were on a family vacation somewhere where our hotel was attached to a mall. West Ed ish, but it was smaller. We had gotten up in the morning, and were getting some hotel breakfast together. The kids were doddling hard, so while they ate, Brady said he wanted to buy me a new pair of jeans. 

Now, in reality, I have FINALLY found jeans that fit me the way they’re supposed to! I have a couple of pairs from Value Village. So, in the dream, Brady wanted to go to the actual store and buy me a fresh pair. So it made sense. 

In the dream, he insisted on going to pick a pair on his own. He didn’t want my input. He just wanted to get me something by himself, which felt really sweet and also a little risky, haha! But I told him to go for it! 

He returned shortly to the hotel, telling me there was a whole new jean hybrid (yup, go with it) and he wanted my input after all. So, I’ll clarify, in the dream, we fully just left the kids in the hotel, hahaha! Because we wanted to go shop without them. Lol! NOT reality, guys. 

So we went to the mall and walked into American Eagle. It was oddly small and not very full. Brady pointed me to the wall of folded jeans, and guys, they were ALL flares. No burn on people who wear flares, but I do not, so it was kind of a shock in the dream. I was pretty hesitant. Then a sales associate started talking to Brady begrudgingly. 

“Did you talk to her about the insurance yet?” she asked him. 

He kind of laughed awkwardly, as he hadn’t, because his gut was right that I didn’t want any of the flared jeans. So he told her he hadn’t. And she got very snarky and rolled her eyes BIG TIME at us. 

Then there was a chuckle behind us, and we turned around to see the manager, stacking a display table with (wait for it) hundreds and hundreds to tins of corn…
*shrugs*
She was quietly shaking her head at the situation and commented “Whatever, their loss!” As if somehow, not getting insurance on my jeans would’ve been a great travesty. 

At that point, we saw that the new “hybrids” were all only $20. Definitely a costly item that needed insuring.

So we left, and went back to the kids, who hadn’t missed a beat, left alone in a hotel room. 

Oy. What a thing. What a stupid dream, haha! But it was a good light moment in this otherwise horrifically overwhelming week! 

Well, friends, I know so many of you are rooting for us in terms of Brady’s health, treatment, and search for answers. It means more than you know to know I could call for help and how many of you would happily and willingly come running. Just knowing that kind of help is available lifts a large weight from my shoulders, so thank you, friends. This is a very uncertain road we’re walking, and its nice to have so many of you standing at the sidelines, as well as many of you, walking along with us. 

I want to keep everyone in the loop, but I admit I’ve sat on this information for a few days. We got an MRI date for Brady. Its next week. We found out towards the end of last week. Brady called every avenue and pressed, but no one could move the date up. He has been “urgent” for what feels like forever, but I suppose there are only so many minutes in a day. So we had to wait. We had no choice. At least he was FINALLY on the books. 

I have remained over-prepared in terms of home stuff. Pre-writing some blogs. Meal planning. Preparing lunches for the week. Brady’s emergency bag is packed, just in case. Brady has continued working at his job, as long as he possibly can, just in case suddenly he has to be off again. Light duty work, anyway. And I spend the days working hard not to overthink. I’ve been crocheting a lot. Listening to a lot of music. Keeping busy. I cannot let my brain be idle, because it goes straight to anxiety, but I cannot just go and go and go either, because I desperately need rest. We all do. 

This morning, I asked Brady to call the MRI clinic. While they don’t have a cancellation list, I know people HAVE to cancel a lot more these days, as you can’t go anywhere with any kind of sick symptom these days. So he called from work. And called me back minutes later. 

Brady has an MRI. Tomorrow night. 

Thank you, Lord, for answering these prayers. I feel so emotional about all of this. Still horrifically uncertain, but ready for whatever is going to come our way now. As ready as I can be, anyway. 

One more day. 

As we approach two months of Rowan on Melatonin, I feel vastly unprepared to ween him off anytime soon. That has been the plan along the way, but there have been a few snags, and I do not feel ready to sacrifice my evenings back to the way they were just yet.

Rowan sleep walks a LOT. I know its not something to be worried about specifically. He is completely safe when he sleep walks. He always seeks Brady and I out. He doesn’t get into any kind of scary mischief. That being said, the full moon gave us a run for our money!

The night before the full moon, Rowan was awake for HOURS. And he was TICKED. He has some pretty hefty sleep anxiety, like his mom. He finally fell asleep, I’d say, around 10:00pm? He was NOT impressed. Turns out the moon stuff renders Melatonin ineffective, haha! Thanks to that night’s exhaustion, the night of the actual full moon was without issue. But the next night was SO BAD.

Rowan came up to our room in the middle of the night, saying he was afraid. This happens sometimes. I could tell he was actually awake, not sleep walking. When he does this, I give him a hug and pray for him, and he completely willingly heads back down to his room. So, that happened again. I didn’t even check the time. It was a quick, easy interaction. But then he surfaced again, at around 3:45am. He said he was awake again, or couldn’t fall back to sleep. As per usual, I told him I understood, and I encouraged him to go to the bathroom, grab a drink, and try again. He huffed at me. I reminded him that getting up multiple times would wake him further, and that he would be best off to do the things I had said, and then snuggle up under his nice heavy blanket. He huffed and puffed and sighed and tried to escalate me, but I didn’t bite.

And he did NOT like that.

He STORMED out of our room, stomping and raising his voice, working up BIG. Brady beat me out of bed and caught up to him before he woke the entire houseful. Thus began the fifteen minute negotiation with an irrational overtired five year old. Brady did manage to talk him down and get him back to bed, but he and I were SO awake afterwards. It was a pretty sucky scenario, and the whole household was overtired and irritable the next day.

This makes clear to me that, while the Melatonin is helping him fall asleep with so much more ease, and is helping his brain get more rest, he is still struggling.

Bottom line. Its been a tough week. The Melatonin is buying us a few hours of peace in the evenings, and I KNOW Rowan is doing immensely better than he was a few months ago. But Melatonin isn’t cutting it. Neither is Magnesium.

I had someone reach out to me very vulnerably this last week and share some information with me about her experience with one of her children. It was a wealth of information, and I’m VERY excited to try a couple of other things paired with Rowan’s Melatonin. Today, in fact, my beautiful mom offered to do a grocery run for us, and she will be on the hunt for these things for us. Not only is she saving us the struggle of trying to find a window when I can get in to grocery shop on my own to save Brady’s legs and back, but she is doing some hunting and in-store research for us. Mom, you’re saving our butts this afternoon. Thank you.

On top of everything else going on in our lives, we need to keep our evenings as a time of breathing, peace, and sanity. So, for now, the Melatonin stays, and hopefully we can help lift Rowan’s anxiety in some other ways.

Thank you to those of you who follow and care about Rowan so much. He is SUCH an important part of us. We just want him well. We don’t want him to have to work so hard to get through his day.

Can we all agree that the not knowing is sometimes just the worst part of stuff? The waiting game is SO hard, and not knowing while waiting is torture. 

I feel the deep need to prepare, and I don’t know for what. 

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I don’t want to be caught off guard, either.

I feel an itch to be “ready.” 

I keep my devices charged ALL the time.
I have a more desperate feeling towards organization.
I’m pre-writing blogs.
I’m meal planning.
I’m keeping the house chores more caught up than usual.
I’m speculating about who to ask to be on call for us in case something happens and we have to leave the house fast.
My to-do lists are long.
My brain hurts.
My heart is so tired. 
It is SO hard not knowing what is to come!

Here is what we do know. 

We know Bradys condition is deteriorating every day. 
We know his numbness is travelling up onto his abdomen and his right hand is weakening.
He know that there are only a few more little things we have to spot before his nerve damage will be permanent. 
We know he went from a “slipped disc” to needing a neurologist in a matter of one hour.
We know that he urgently needs imaging. 

We know Brady now has amazing professionals advocating for him, going down every avenue to get him cared for properly. 

We know I’m having to actively check my anger at the door, where I would love to go beat down the doors of the “professionals” who neglected my husband for months. That fury will not do anyone any favours. Not myself, either. But MAN it feels justified. 

And we know that God cares for us.
And that He knows how this whole mess will turn out.
And that He hasn’t forgotten us. 

I don’t love cooking. Yet there is a very large part of me that wants to be amazing in the kitchen, cooking and baking delicious things for my family. During quarantine last year, I learned more and gained confidence. It was actually kind of an awesome year in that respect. While I still don’t get too excited to make supper, and while I don’t make extravagant things often/ever, I don’t dream cooking or preparing food the way I used to! Win for me, and win for the people I feed!! Hahaha!

I mentioned yesterday that I was determined to make the day great, and part of that was supper and a movie after the kids went to bed. I prepped food on and off throughout the day, and I have to show you guys how it came together! 

Firstly, I made a knock off of Outback’s Alice Spring Chicken. Its a very indulgent entree, with chicken breasts slathered in homemade honey mustard, with bacon, mushrooms, and cheese. 

I can’t say I’ve had the original recipe, but I cannot even fathom it being better than this dish! Even Brady, who is anti-mushrooms, loves it! This time around specifically, I assured him I was happy to accommodate him and leave the mushrooms off of his pieces, but he insisted he’d have them, and enjoy them. 

A couple of tricks, friends. Fry bacon in advance, not too crispy. Then sauté the chicken with some of the leftover bacon grease. I slice the chicken breasts in half the super skinny way and it all goes SO much smoother. I never used to precook everything but it is SO much easier to give everything a little fry first. Not the mushrooms, though. They cook great in the baking process. Lastly, I double the sauce part of the recipe because its a great sauce for other things we’ll talk about shortly. 

Then I made broccoli salad. This is a favourite for everyone over here. To the point where the kids were ticked that there wasn’t any for them this time, hahaha!!

I had a bag of broccoli from Costco that was half frozen, and I was then neglected it in my fridge because it made me feel bummed, but I decided to grow up and not waste the entire bag. I chopped it up and added my homemade dressing to it. Then I added the yummies. In this case, I added craisins and bacon bits. We recently bought the far grosser brand of bacon bits and they were pure fat. Like, couldn’t even break down when you chewed them. So because todays food wasn’t enough steps, I fried the bacon bits. They are WAY better now! For the record, I always add sunflower seeds to this salad as well, but I’m learning its only me who likes them, so I opted not to this time. 

The last piece of the meal was potatoes! I decided on wedges this time around, for ease, and also because the kids don’t love them so we don’t have them very often. I simply tossed the wedges in onion salt, cayenne, salt and pepper, and a big ole scoop of minced garlic. I didn’t add oil, because the last time I roasted diced potatoes, I left the oil out and they tasted SO much better! It was almost like the oil made all the spices and garlic roll right off the potatoes. Does that make sense?? Anyway, there isn’t really a worst case scenario in this case. Potato wedges dunked in honey mustard is pretty close to ideal no matter the level of soft or crisp. 

I didn’t take an after picture because, in the moment, I was SO discouraged. The potato wedges looked gross and overdone and just so so bad. But I will confirm they actually turned out pretty perfectly.

All in all, folks, the meal was DELICIOUS!!! 

It was a decent amount of prep and fuss but my goodness, it was so worth the effort! I’m not sure I’m ready to put this level of effort into food only to have the kids turn around and hate it, but the more I cook, the more I feel capable of pushing through those insecurities and trying it out! I find they are SO much happier to eat food they’ve helped make 😉 So there’s also that. 

Its been a really difficult stretch over here. Why is waiting SO difficult?? Ugh. Its very hard to be upbeat when I feel inner struggle, yet I don’t want to just pout and sulk, either. Its a pretty maddening inner battle, to be honest. My tolerance is LOW, and my nerves are SHOT. Yet, for how long, we don’t even know, because.
We.
Are.
Just.
Waiting.

I’m really trying. I have hope for a good day today. I will work for a better day than usual today. The kids are home today, but so is Brady. That already helps a lot, to have someone else to parent with me.

The dishes are already done, and laundry does not need to be done today. Woot! The kids are going to have breakfast for supper tonight, so thats easy and already planned. And then the rest of us will have a delicious honey mustard chicken with potato wedges after they go to bed, and we’ll watch Hamilton. The evening already feels like a reward. I can’t wait!

But first, we get through the day, prayerfully, hoping for it to be successful.

Aaaaand as I write this out, the fighting ensues! Woohoo! 🙃 Wish me luck!

The other day, I was getting Rowan up for the day, and as is my usual “system,” I lovingly attacked/jumped on him while he was still in bed. This particular morning, he was laying on his tummy, so I effectively lay on his back and smushed him into his bed good and proper. He laughed in a big way, and didn’t try to evade me. I was his BIG weighted blanket for a minute there. 

And then, he became very still. 

“Is something wrong with your body, mommy?” he asked.

I had a little laugh on the inside, because what a question, hahaha! Body shame, much?? Hahaha! I replied that maybe my ribs were poking him a little bit, and I lifted up a little, so as not to make him uncomfortable. He assured me he wasn’t hurt or upset, but that something seemed wrong. He was curious. 

So I lowered myself back onto him, so he could feel the difference. 

He remained so still. 

“Something is moving inside your body, mommy.”

What in the world was he talking about?? We both stayed very still…

“Its very small. Just a little poking. On my bum.”

My heartbeat. He could feel my heartbeat. 

On his bum.

I laughed pretty hard at this. He was very nonchalant about it, but I thought it was terribly funny. Maybe you had to be there. But seriously, it was a good giggle for me. 

How perceptive is this kid that he noticed my heartbeat through all of my clothes and his clothes and weighted blanket??? He’s bananas. 

Waiting…

W is for woah – the sound Brady makes when he loses his balance.

A is for AAAHHH – the sound Brady makes when he actually falls all the way down.

I is for injured, a confident and simple description of Bradys spine. 

T is for tingly, the feeling that Brady occasionally gets in his toes, that brings fleeting hope before it bails into oblivion.

I is for insignificant – the way our original physiotherapist made Brady feel.

N is for numb, which is the way his left side feels, up his leg, all the way up his abdomen, and into his hand. Also neurology. Also nervous. 

G is for grrrrr – the sound I make when I go over all of the injustice in this whole mess. Bonus G is for God, because without Him, there is absolutely no way Brady or I would still be standing, however crooked.

Dark humor has shown its face these last few months, but at least I still know where I stand with my God.