Wheels for Brendan

Hi everyone my name is Tanya.

As hard as this is for me to do, and as much as it goes against every ounce of dignity I have, I am not a person who ever asks for help. I have always figured things out my own way, some way, some how. Unfortunately this time I have to swallow my pride and put a call out for help. This call for help isn’t for me personally it is for my youngest son.

If you are reading this and don’t know me I will give you a little background.

As a baby and young child Brendan hit all his milestones at a normal age, the only thing we noticed that was different at that time was that he was always a little clumsy, always falling down and would climb stairs one at a time instead of alternating feet while going up. Once he started school his teachers had some concerns about his physically abilities as well as his academic abilities as something seemed off. I took Brendan to our family Dr for an assessment but the Dr didn’t seem to see anything wrong. Fast forward another year or so and his school contacted me again and asked if I’d be willing to take him to Kingston to see a pediatrician as well as a slue of other Dr’s to have some testing done.

I will never forget this dreadful day! November 17th,2018 the pediatrician examined him and told me that he believed Brendan had what they called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I had never in my life heard of this and said “okay so now how do we fix this? With medication?”

He looked at me and said unfortunately not. We will have to take some blood work and send it to sick kids in Toronto to confirm the diagnosis. If it is confirmed that he has Duchenne you will then have to decided if you want to leave things as they are or put him on a steroid to help slow down the disease. This disease slowly takes his muscles away, all muscles including breathing and heart and as of now the only “treatment” is steroids as there is no cure and it is 100% fatal. The steroids also come with there side effects as well, weight gain, possible cataracts and one big one being Osteoporosis since they weaken the bones.

After waiting two extremely long grueling months the results were in and Brendan tested positive for Duchenne. I’ve never had my heart shatter so hard in my life to hear that my little then 8 year old boy was given this terrible disease. All my hopes and dreams came crumbling to the ground I was so angry and still am wondering how can life be so cruel to an innocent child.

To sit back and watch all the kids his age run around and play or just do things a normal child should be able to do while he sits and watches and says “Mom I wish I could do that” absolutely breaks my heart everytime. When most people are celebrating each birthday their child has I dread each passing year not knowing what it will bring for my little boy.

In November of 2022 Brendan fell while just casually walking across the grass and broke his leg. Due to being in a cast for 6 weeks he lost so much muscle that he hasn’t walked since and has been confined to a wheelchair never to walk again due to muscle wasting this disease causes. With that being said he is currently a 14 year old boy whom is growing and getting extremely heavy for me to lift and before long I am not going to be able to get him into my vehicle. He has monthly medical appointments in Kingston that he must attend but without proper transportation I will not be able to get him there.

So here’s the hard part, where I ask for help. We need a wheelchair accessible vehicle for Brendan and unfortunately they are extremely expensive and there is limited funding in Ontario to help out with this. If there is anyway you could help you have no idea how greatful we would be and if you are unable to donate I completely understand, but if you could please share this post it would be great fully appreciated more than you could ever imagine.

Thank you so very much for your time.

Tanya