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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Burned home 'secondary' issue amid cancer fight

By: Melissa Martin

Posted: 05/3/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

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The wreckage of the Brunel family's home near Ste. Rose. The home was insured and will be rebuilt. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)

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Ian McCausland PHOTO From left, Myley, Rob, Erin and Larsen Brunel.

When the bad news came on April 24, Rob and Erin Brunel bundled up their toddler son for an all-too-familiar routine.

That meant getting back on the highway to Winnipeg. It meant leaving their Ste. Rose farm for Children's Hospital, where little Larsen has spent much of the last nine months locked in a battle with leukemia. Back to a new set of treatment plans, and to the familiar faces of the friends and doctors who have walked the cancer journey with them. But when Erin, Rob and Larsen left for Winnipeg, they could not have guessed it would be last time they would ever see their home.

Their house burned to the ground while the family was still settling into Children's Hospital Saturday afternoon.

"It's still for sure a shock," Rob Brunel said, settling into a chair outside the isolation ward where Larsen is undergoing a fresh round of chemotherapy.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the blaze. The couple's four-year-old daughter, Myley, was playing with her grandparents when she noticed a trail of smoke whispering past the window. The roof was already ablaze, but Myley and her grandparents made it out safely. As firefighters raced to the scene, family took Myley to a safe place out of sight of the flames.

Twenty minutes later, the Brunels' four-year-old house and everything in it was gone.

The cause of the blaze has yet to be conclusively determined, but it may have been caused by faulty wiring.

It seems an incredible blow to a family already facing so much -- but the Brunels are taking it in stride.

"If we'd lost the house and hadn't been dealing with cancer with our son, yeah, it'd be a big deal," Brunel said. "But our son is our son. The house is a secondary loss, but it's not the most important thing... There's only one thing we don't want to lose. We're going to focus on that."

Meanwhile, close-knit rural Manitoba communities have rallied to help. Dozens of people started a Facebook campaign to lobby TV handyman Mike Holmes to help rebuild the Ste. Rose house. Friends also set up a trust account at the Royal Bank of Canada for anyone wishing to contribute to the Brunels' costs.

For all this, the Brunels are incredibly grateful -- and also a little overwhelmed. After all, Rob Brunel reassured, the family will make it through this latest challenge. They have a place to stay, a small Winnipeg condo they rented after Larsen got sick. Their grain farm is being tended to in their absence and friends and family are helping with Myley. The house was insured, and someday it'll be rebuilt.

Still, some kinds of support are priceless.

"People have been asking, 'What can we do, how can we help?' " Brunel said. "Please, keep sending warm thoughts and prayers our way. Also, signing up for the bone marrow registry (through the Canadian Blood Services website), or donating blood, or supporting CancerCare Manitoba... These are things that have helped us, and that will help so many more people like us."

One more thing. Shortly before the house burned down, doctors told the Brunels that on May 31, Larsen could receive a crucial bone-marrow transplant, a living gift from his big sister Myley. After a roller-coaster year of remissions and relapses, and with treatment options running out, it's thrilling news.

That is hope -- forget the ashes of their home.

"Larsen's feeling pretty good today," Brunel said, and smiled. "And that's what we focus on, each day."

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 3, 2012 A6

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