I haven’t written any blog posts in a year. To be honest 2018 was an extremely challenging and humbling year for our family. We came out of it stronger in our faith, more grounded, and grateful for our family, friends, and church. However, I have been struggling to put into words all that has happened. Here is a quick summery, and i will be doing more detailed post soon!
The first big event was the birth of our third child, our beautiful daughter Anika. Like her brothers, Anika wanted to come close to her due date, and fast. I had my first contractions at supper (I was craving steak and Brock bbqed a good one!) and she was born at 10:42pm. By body needed a bit more recovery than with the first two pregnancies, and the up-at-all-hours nursing seemed to be harder as well. I suppose it was with three I was needed by at least one child, and often all three, at the same time. There were no ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ naps with this newborn. Anika has proven to be stubborn and silly, the clown of the family and all-star eater. She was born with a full head of hair and it has been a defining trait so far.
Next, Braxton entered kindergarten in September 2018. There were months of planning, meeting, and organization to get Braxton into his neighbourhood school. Honestly, we didn’t know that this was the best choice, but our school board wanted to have an inclusive model and not send Braxton into the special needs school in Calgary. I think gong show is a nice way to describe the first weeks of school. Although the teachers and aide and school did their best, they just were not trained or equipt to teach a child like Braxton. There was no nurse supplied by the nursing agency, and so I left Zander and Anika and went to school every day for 6 weeks to be Braxton’s nurse and bridge the gaps in understanding Braxton’s needs. I can see now that I came rolling in with very high expectations, but honestly I will always advocate for what is best for Braxton.
At that same time we were living with grandmas because our house was under renovations. That is for the next post, all the trouble our contractor caused. But to put it lightly, we were left in the lurch with half done project and money stolen. Supplies we paid for were not provided, subcontactors were not paid by the contractor, and he lied to us about passing inspections and structural aspects of the build. Talk about stress. We had to fire the contractor. In the fall Brock worked all evening and late into the night after his dayjob, with the help of his dad, and members of our community and church, as well as new trades we hired, in order to get us back into the house as soon as it was safe for the kids again. We had started in fall of 2017, therefore Zander had lived in a construction zone for over a year, so coming back to a mostly renovated house around Halloween didn’t really phase him. We got the final tiling, plumbing, and finishing done to get Braxton into his new room and bathroom on the main floor of the house once we were back in. There was lots to do, and we are still working on some bits and pieces.
Then just as we thought we were getting life a little settled, we got the phone call that Braxton’s case for brain surgery was taken to an international conference, and it didn’t come back unanimous to go for the surgery that had been suggested to us, hemispherotomy. The neurologists could not agree if there would be enough benefit to warrant such an extreme surgery. They left it in our hands to decide if we wanted to go ahead or not. It was such an extreme weight on mine, and Brock’s, shoulders. In the end we decided to go ahead with the surgery with the hope that it would reduce Braxton’s seizures. Surgery was scheduled with surprising speed, and just two weeks before Christmas Braxton went for the longest, and scariest, surgery of his life, to disconnect the right side of his brain. He spent a week afterwards in the ICU.
Braxton, as always, was a fighter, and was home to spend Christmas with his family. He had a special visit from Santa, who came right to his door, and delivered amazing gifts for our whole family. (Thank you to whoever you are Secret Santa!) Thankfully, the rest of winter was a bit more calm, as we all focused on healing, school, and completing renovations.