Braeden's Journey

This GoFundMe is to raise money for Braeden and his parent's Tom and Des Norman, as they go through the worst nightmare any parent could imagine.

Since the end of November, Braeden has been in and out of the hospital and the medical expenses, travel expenses back and forth for treatment along with the accessibility changes being made to the house all add up to an overwhelming amount.

Whatever you're able to give would be beyond appreciated.

Below is some information from Braeden's Mom Des, on how we got to where we are...

In October, Braeden came home to visit before he went to Calgary for his Crane apprenticeship course. While he was home, he got sick. We just thought it was the flu. It caused him to stay in bed for a couple of days headache, nausea fatigue. You know the usual suspects. He did manage to get out to the lake with his dad and Grampa for fall clean up.

He still wasn’t feeling himself.

He managed to buck up and head off to school. During the next few weeks, the symptoms didn’t go away... they got worse. He went to a couple of doctors, but nothing helped. Finally at the end of November he asked me to come and give him a hand. Hoping some home cooking and company would help turn this around. I got to Calgary on Nov 26th. I took him to school the morning of the 27th so I could take the truck and get some groceries to make all his favorites. By 10:30am he called me to pick him up.

I picked him up and went to the Foothills Hospital straight away. He was admitted to emergency. He could hardly stand on his own at this point. He was in tremendous pain. His headache was out of control. He was also very nauseous. He spent 2 nights in emergency until they could get him a bed in the neurology department. The next couple of weeks were hell for him. He was poked and prodded everyday. They were searching so hard to find out what was causing his pain. None of the test were saying anything and he was deteriorating every day. He had numbness on the left side of his face hearing loss in his left ear. He was throwing up all day. This is when they started him on steroids to try and help elevate some of the pain.

He had CT scans and MRIs done. Still searching for any autoimmune diseases, they could think of. The Doctors did a spinal tap. It was so painful for him. But again, nothing showed up. Finally, they seen an abnormality in one of the scans. They decided to do another MRI but just focus more on his cerebral cortex. There it was a tumor. Because of the location and not being able to see it clearly on the MRI they next decided to do a brain biopsy. We needed to know if it was cancer or not. So, on December 9th the brain biopsy was done.

It took a few days, but the results came back...

Stage 3 very aggressive brain cancer.

Because of its location, it is inoperable. So, the doctors at Foothills Medical quickly got his care moved over to Arthur Child Cancer Center. Because of the aggressive nature of this tumor they wasted no time getting him into radiation and Chemo treatment.

He started his first treatment on Dec 19th. We rented an Airbnb so he could have a comfortable place to be while we did his chemo and then radiation at Arthur Child Monday-Friday.

He also now couldn't walk unassisted anymore, so we had to get him a walker to help him get around. He also got a pair of prism glasses to help with the double vision. Unfortunately, Braeden wasn’t set up with medical coverage, so everything has been out of pocket.

We were in Calgary with him until this set of treatment was done. We finally got to come home on February 7th. He definitely is happy to be home. We went back to Calgary on March 4th to find out the next steps of treatment. Found out he is to start another 6 Months on chemo. This next set of chemo is more than double his original dose.

March 8th, he started chemo again. It’s really kicking his butt. His appetite is down and very nauseous. We try and keep him as comfortable as possible. He is very strong and eager to finish these treatments.

This is a very long and painful road for him. He is so strong we are so proud of him. This is not easy and we don’t know what the future is going to bring next. We are so grateful for all the Prayers and love.