Glimmer of light during a family’s darkest moments

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This article was published 12/09/2022 (1426 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Team Brody Foundation is a non-profit organization started by the family of a boy named Brody Birrell-Gruhn.

It fills the gaps for parents of children who have cancer. It helps with everything from paying rent, gas or vehicle repairs so families can get to and from their child’s treatment, buy groceries, gifts or pay for parking.

Recently, they’ve paid for a tutor for a child who has missed school and helped a family cover funeral expenses for their son. They’re taking care of rent for a family who was told their child’s cancer is terminal and were advised to make the most of her remaining time.

They are a glimmer of light during a family’s darkest moments.

They don’t just offer to help people financially, they also form relationships with families, and can relate on a level that many others can’t. They understand the struggle because they’ve been there. They’ve lived it. They do this work because this is the help they needed when Brody got sick.

“We want to help these families with money, but we want to see those kids happy, too,” said Sheena Gruhn, one of the directors of the foundation, and Brody’s aunt.

Gruhn started the non-profit in 2016 with Tori, Brody’s mom, and their sister Allie.

They host fundraisers, events, gift drives, and even organized blood drives in Brody’s honour. Their biggest fundraising event of the year is a live show called Rock Against Childhood Cancer. After a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic, the sisters planned to host the event this month. However, a few months ago, the man who ran the previous shows died, and they’ve had to hit the pause button.

“It’s been three years since we’ve had an event, and everybody’s feeling it after COVID. Everybody’s drained their accounts and they don’t have donation money like they used to,” said Sheena Gruhn, adding their funds are getting low.

“I’ve had to prioritize our funds right now, and that sucks because I’ve never had to do that.”

Brody was born healthy on June 19, 2012. However, in 2014, things started to change. He was always sick. He became detached, exhausted, lethargic, and at one point he stopped eating, walking and talking. His mother, Tori, kept taking him to the emergency room, but the doctors couldn’t find anything seriously wrong with him.

Three times he was diagnosed with pneumonia, another time it was probably an ear infection.

No matter how many rounds of antibiotics he’d finish, or how much rest he’d get, nothing seemed to make Brody better.

In December 2014, Brody’s ear started to bleed. When Tori looked inside, she saw something shadowy in his ear canal. She knew something wasn’t right, so she took him back to the emergency room. Brody was sent for a CT scan that showed a large mass covering one whole side of his face and head.

The family was sent to stay in CancerCare’s CK5 unit on Dec. 18, until the biopsy and portacath surgery was done, and a diagnosis was made. A few days later, on Christmas Eve, their worst fears were realized when Brody was diagnosed with Stage 3 rhabdomyosarcoma.

After that, life changed drastically. Brody was in and out of the hospital constantly. There were days when he was very sick, and there were other days when life seemed normal, and he got to do things other kids his age did, like playing at the park, or going to the zoo.

Despite his illness, Brody maintained a feisty attitude. He had always been a spirited kid with a big personality and an infectious smile. He loved superheroes, and Toy Story. He collected things — treasures his mom boxed away and has just started sharing with his baby sister, Elle.

On Sept. 1, 2015 — the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month — Brody died while his parents lie beside him, playing videos they’d taken of him on their phones. Tori said she was playing the last video she’d ever taken when his monitors started to go crazy. In the video you could hear his little voice saying, “I love you,” and in real life he was slipping away. He was three years old.

Since then, Brody’s family has worked to keep his legacy alive. They run the foundation on a volunteer basis — all of them have full-time jobs outside of it. Donations, minus expenses, are given to the families they help.

By doing so, they get to share Brody’s story and keep a little part of him alive.

“He was just one of those people who he walks in a room and you’d know he was there, whether it was his smile or his laugh, or him saying a bad word,” Gruhn chuckled. “We miss him.”

Donations can be made through their website at www.teambrody.ca.

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter @ShelleyACook