When Life Changes in an Instant: A Father Shares His Son's Brain Injury Journey | E17

When Shane Swenson's car was struck by a drunk driver traveling 90mph in a 30mph zone one February morning in 2019, life as he knew it changed forever. His 12-year-old son Brady suffered a traumatic brain injury that would launch the family on an unexpected journey through emergency surgeries, months of rehabilitation, and a complete reimagining of their future.

Shane vividly recalls the moment of impact—feeling "like an explosion" that momentarily paralyzed him before he turned to find Brady unconscious. What followed was a parent's worst nightmare: emergency craniectomies to relieve dangerous brain swelling, 18 days in intensive care, a broken jaw, fractured femur, and months of inpatient rehabilitation. Even after returning home, complications continued, including Brady's body rejecting his skull replacement, requiring a custom prosthetic skull that later became infected.

The most powerful thread woven through Shane's story isn't just about medical challenges—it's about how communities rally during crisis. From teachers showing up at the hospital during surgery to neighbors feeding their dogs and plowing their driveway, the outpouring of support sustained them through their darkest days. Perhaps most touching was how Brady's older brother Jacob, who has autism, stepped up to care for Brady, even waking at 4:00 AM to prepare medications so his parents could sleep.

This experience inspired the family to create the Brady Finn Foundation, which hosts the annual Lucky Brady Swenson Lucky 13 Golf Tournament (named for Brady's favorite number). The foundation supports Sacred Heart Catholic School and Crescent Cove, a rare respite facility that provides the family with crucial breaks from Brady's round-the-clock care. Though Brady remains in a wheelchair, unable to walk or speak, his story has become a powerful catalyst for giving back to the community that carried them through crisis.

Ready to help families like Brady's? Join the Lucky 13 Golf Tournament on October 11th, 2025, or learn more about how you can support the Brady Finn Foundation at Lucky13golf.net.

Facebook Page for the Lucky13 Golf Tournament

Contact Shane Swenson at shane@bradyfinnfoun

Get 20% off your first order of Puori protein with code LIFEAFTERIMPACT by following this link.

Purity Coffee
Coffee that is free of pesticides, mold toxins, and heavy metals. Just pure delicious coffee! Save 20% off your first order with code LIFEAFTER20.

Chapters

• 0:00 Brady's Accident and Initial Impact
• 8:12 Hospital Stay and Medical Complications
• 12:26 Community Support During Crisis
• 21:47 Navigating Home Care and Therapies
• 29:09 The Brady Finn Foundation's Origin
• 34:16 Brothers' Bond and Family Resilience

Transcript

Shane Swenson: 1:10

Brady was on Cefapine antibiotic with the PICC line that he had, you would have to take these little balls like the size of a I don't know racquetball or tennis ball, and they had to refrigerate them. But you had to take them out an hour before you administered them, and so we were on like I don't know what time I can't remember what the times but Jacob would actually get up in the morning and at four o'clock in the morning, come upstairs, grab one of those little balls, put it on the countertop and then go to bed so we, Jenny and I, could sleep. Oh, wow, yeah, I mean, it's just the little things, right, and he did that for two, two months. Wow, Without question, like without question, yeah. So yeah it, it, it takes, it takes everybody, you know. And he.

Shane Swenson: 1:55

he definitely stepped up to the challenge. It takes it takes everybody, you know, and he definitely stepped up to the challenge.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 2:01

Welcome to Life After Impact the concussion recovery podcast. I'm Dr Ayla Wolf and I'll be hosting today's episode, where we help you navigate the often confusing, frustrating and overwhelming journey of concussion and brain injury recovery. This podcast is your go to resource for actionable information, whether you're dealing with a recent concussion, struggling with post-concussion syndrome or just feeling stuck in your healing process. In each episode we dive deep into the symptoms, testing, treatments and neurological insights that can help you move forward with clarity and confidence. We bring you leading experts in the world of brain health, functional neurology and rehabilitation to share their wisdom and strategies. So if you're feeling lost, hopeless or like no one understands what you're going through, know that you are not alone. This podcast can be your guide and partner in recovery, helping you build a better life after impact.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 3:06

In 2019, shane and his son, brady, were hit by a drunk driver driving 90 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour speed zone on their way to school. This accident left Brady with a traumatic brain injury that would change his life and the life of his family forever. In this interview, shane shares Brady's story and how this experience led him and his family to start the Brady Finn Foundation, an organization that raises money to give back to the communities and organizations that supported them during this crisis and afterward. Thank you for joining me for episode 17 of the Life After Impact podcast, which is being released on May 13, 2025, in honor of Brady Swenson's lucky number 13.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 3:50

All right, welcome to the Life After Impact podcast, and we have a very special episode today where I have Shane Swenson on and Shane is here to talk about his son, brady Swenson, and the story of Brady and everything that his family has been through with Brady's traumatic brain injury. So, shane, welcome to the show oh, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here and how that's developed, and then everything that you're doing now as a result. So why don't you start out and tell us a little bit about what happened with Brady and how he got his traumatic brain injury, and we'll take it from there.

Shane Swenson: 4:44

Well, the data is very fresh in my mind. It comes up a lot Most days of my life I think about it. It happened on February 5th 2019, about seven o'clock in the morning. Day was pretty typical. We got up, got ready for work and school Brady hopped in the car. I drove him every morning to school, to Sacred Heart Catholic School in Robbinsdale, minnesota, and we had stopped and got gas that morning and it was a little icy for being February in Minnesota and I had pulled out and and, uh, had driven down the road a bit and there was this massive.

Shane Swenson: 5:22

It felt like an explosion, to be honest with you. The airbags deployed, um, and if you've never had that happen to you, it stuns you Like you. You lose feeling in your body. It's almost like timestamp still, and you have to wait for the feeling to come back in your body. It's almost like time stands still and you have to wait for the feeling to come back in your body before you can react to what what just happened, and the reality sets in and then panic ensues, right, and obviously Brady was my first priority and, looking behind him, and he was out cold.

Shane Swenson: 5:49

He'd been knocked unconscious and I got out and it was pretty. I was pretty hysterical, as you can imagine. The impact was just incredible. I've never experienced anything like that in my entire life. And so first responders arrived on the scene, got me to the hospital, extracted Brady, got him to the hospital and you know it's hard to recall everything that happened in the way that actually did happen, but you know there's doctors, and then my wife, jenny, came, and then I have two brothers locally that showed up and they explained the situation that he had. Their biggest concern is one of his pupils had blown, which means that there was pressure on the brain and they needed to do an emergency craniectomy to get that bone off the skull off, so he could let that brain swell. So that's what happened and they took him into surgery right away while I was in the ER recovering.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 6:52

And you were rear-ended by a drunk driver, correct? That's what happened.

Shane Swenson: 6:56

Yeah yeah. This is what blows a lot of people away is that. It was seven o'clock in the morning and, through back channels and talking with the detective from the New Hope Police Department, his blood alcohol level at 7 am was 0.319.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 7:12

That's insane.

Shane Swenson: 7:14

That's yeah, that. I mean. That's almost four times the legal limit at 7 am on a Tuesday.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 7:20

And now didn't he also have three previous DUIs on his record too? The person that hit you.

Shane Swenson: 7:27

Yeah, technically I think it was two and this turned out to be his third one. Yeah, but you know, just a repetitive behavior from this man.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 7:39

So you found yourself in the hospital. Brady has to have emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain.

Shane Swenson: 7:45

Yep, and they successfully removed it. The surgery was fine. I think they actually put the flap back on and were and we're like wait and see. You know, I don't think the prognosis was very good. He was 12 years old and um he it was a very significant injury. Not only did he have a traumatic brain injury but he had broken his jaw, um, in two places and his right femur as well. So he was in pretty tough shape and you know, next couple of days, you know, he stabilized and you know, and things were going well.

Shane Swenson: 8:22

But then I'll never forget this, the the crane cranial pressure. They were always monitoring. It was like a, like a ticking time bomb. You're just waiting to see. Was it going to go up, was it going to go down? And when I get it? Just throughout the week got worse, right? So Saturday of that week they actually ended up having to do an emergency craniotomy. So they had to remove it again to allow his brain to swell, which, if you've never seen that it's amazing that your body can do that and recover from it. I mean, at least you survived, know you survive that trauma. So yeah, that that first week was pretty dicey, it was really dicey.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 9:01

And then after that he had some other complications as well, right as far as the the plate got infected or there was another kind of infection.

Shane Swenson: 9:12

Yeah, so he ended up spending I don't remember the exact amount of dates, I think it was 18 days in icu. He spent another seven days, I think, and just like a like a regular floor at at the at the hospital, before he was transported over to saint paul, to gillette children's, where he began in in-house rehab for the next five months. He lived there for five months to get the extensive rehab, and so February was the accident, and then I know it was tax day of 2019 that they brought him back to North Memorial, where he had been to put the bone flap back on. Everything was fine, but three or four months later you could actually tell that there was parts of a skull that were missing. It was crazy because you could feel like a hole in his skull, which was very traumatic as well.

Shane Swenson: 10:07

What is going on here? So we brought it in and turns out it's a fairly common thing that happens, and so they ended up having to take that it. The bone basically dissolves. It's like your body just rejects it. After they put it back in, so met with a plastic surgeon his, his neurosurgeon at gillette and they had a 3d um. I think it was a ct, could have been an MRI, I can't remember and they send it off to a lab and they print these things prosthetic skulls, basically.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 10:37

Like a custom fit based on the image. Wow.

Shane Swenson: 10:40

Yep, based on the yep, based on the imaging, and so then what they did was they had set them up for surgery. This was in March of I think it was 2021 or 2022. I the years kind of just kind of get all jumbled together now, but it was in March. It maybe it was 2020 because I think it's. I think it was right around COVID that this happened.

Shane Swenson: 11:05

And so he went in and had surgery, got him home, everything was fine, and then he started like vomiting, like like he'd eat vomit, you know, and didn't know what was going on, went back to Gillette and it turned out he had an infection in the underneath the skull cap. There's a bacteria that they had found in there, so they had to remove it again. And so he and then he went on a eight week. He had a pick line put in an eight week course of these really, really strong antibiotics that we had to administer through IV Um. So Jenny and I did that every eight hours for uh, on the eight hours. For two months we did this and then in July of that year he went back in and they make two, apparently, uh, in case something happens with the first one, so they put it on and knock on wood, but everything's been fine since then, so that was quite an ordeal too.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 11:58

That was really kind of a wow, yeah, and so at this point he's, he's in a wheelchair, he can't walk and he can't speak, and he has a feeding tube, yep. And so you guys have undergone a lot of different therapies, a lot of rehab, but let's talk first about just the community outreach and all of the support that you got after this happened, because I know that was, you know, so impactful after this happened Cause I know that was, you know, so impactful.

Shane Swenson: 12:29

Yeah, you don't realize how many people are there to help out until you're in. You know your most dire time of need, right it? People that you, that you knew were around, that you maybe knew casually, were all all of a sudden, um, the most important people in your life. You know. When you're, when your son's in, you know, you know ICU he was in an induced coma for eight days. You don't really feel like doing anything.

Shane Swenson: 12:49

Getting up and going to the hospital every morning was was the only thing on our minds. And we we have an older child too that still had to go to school and you know we had to participate in those things. But Brady and our older son, Jacob, had gone to, like I said, sacred Heart Catholic School and I remember being in the waiting room when Brady was in surgery and teachers, the principal, the priests of the parish they were chief, we had detectives from from the police department that came and just talked to us and just there and it just snowballed. You know it. Just, it started out just being there emotionally and then it was what do you need? Do you need food? Do you need?

Shane Swenson: 13:34

We had dogs at home and people would go buy dog food and feed our dogs twice a day. Let them out, make sure that they they were taken care of. Um, it was middle of winter, our driveway was always um, they were taken care of. It was middle of winter, our driveway was always plowed out. We got a lot of snow that year too, and just hot meals. We didn't have to worry about anything, and that just made a really hard situation just a little bit easier to tolerate.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:00

Yeah, the other thing is that you have to travel for work as well, correct? Mm-hmm, yeah, and so you also discovered there's a place, I mean. So, so fast forward to you know, today, and Brady is still, you know, in a wheelchair, needing a lot of support, and he was going to school, but now he's, you know, essentially graduated, correct?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:21

And so.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:22

so now he's, he's at home full time. You have to travel for work, and so you guys have have also discovered a place where, if both of you need to leave town, you and your wife that there's a place that can care for him, called Crescent Cove, as well.

Shane Swenson: 14:37

Yep, yeah, that actually was interesting how that came about. Jenny had a, I believe was a cousin that had passed away a couple years ago ago and she was at her funeral and I don't remember how the conversation came about. But somebody had told Jenny about this place called Crescent Cove and we knew about it because it literally was probably about two miles away from where we lived in Crystal for almost 20 years. We knew it was there for almost 20 years. We knew it was there. We didn't really know what it was other than it was. It was marketed as a um uh, a respite and end of life care for kids, which is very unique because this facility in the Northwest part of Minneapolis is only one of three in the entire country.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 15:21

Oh, wow.

Shane Swenson: 15:22

And yeah, so we contacted them. You go through, I would say, kind of an interview process to make sure that you know it's a good fit for Crescent Cove and for Brady and it's a place that we can bring Brady, we schedule time. I had a time we get 15 nights of respite care a year at no charge, no cost to the families at all. It's all donor funded care and it's amazing, yeah, and for a family like us that you know we don't have a lot of PCAs, we don't have a lot of people that can come in and relieve us of our responsibility that we have with Brady. So when we get these opportunities, it's huge because we can go away for a couple days or three or four days or whatever.

Shane Swenson: 16:10

It's not a week or two weeks at a time, but you just get to step back from the daily grind, I guess, of life. He requires full-time care. We can't just leave him at home for two hours and go out and grab lunch, it just that. That doesn't work for him. He needs, he needs care all the time.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:32

And you've also had to make a lot of modifications to your house and so you've had to kind of work you know, a lot with insurance companies as well in terms of, like getting equipment and getting approvals for things, and I know that has been a bit of a battle at times to like even just getting the eye gaze device to try to help them with communicating via the eye gaze.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:52

Do you want?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:53

to talk a little bit about kind of that process too and the different things that you've had to kind of adjust and it's.

Shane Swenson: 16:59

it's always a challenge. You know the the way that insurance companies view needs of of people is kind of incredible, but because they're not the ones that are caring for him and they have no idea what his needs are, it's based off of somebody, what somebody else is telling them that he may or may not need. So it's it's um, it's frustrating and it's challenging, but for the most part it's really worked out pretty well. You know, the state of Minnesota has some really really good programs out there that are available to families that have children with disabilities that help us. If insurance companies can't help out depending on what the need or the ask is, they can step in and help out financially as well. Because it's a, you know it's just not the trauma or the brain injury as well. Um, because it's a, you know it's just not the trauma or the brain injury. I mean it's a huge financial burden to families that have it's not just like brady, it's families that have children or adults that have some type of disability. You know it's.

Shane Swenson: 17:59

We went, we tried, when brady came home, to have a full-time PCA in our house and it just didn't work. The best people that can care for him are myself and Jen, and so you know she had a great career, had just started a new job, her future was going places and she decided it was in her best interest and Brady's best interest to um to quit working and and care for him full-time, best interest to um to quit working and and care for him full time. So you lose a lot. You don't just lose the child that you knew or the life that you knew. There's so much more to it, yeah.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 19:38

And I, I, I sense from Jen too. I mean she's she's often talking about. You know the Facebook groups that she's on and seeking out information, and you know facebook groups that she's on and seeking out information, and you know, the thing that really struck me from the beginning of of meeting you two was just how dedicated she was to trying anything and everything under the sun to help brady and uh, so that's been, you know, just inspiring to watch. You know her endless search for trying to to get him better, and I know that she's. Both of you have really also found that he struggled with some of the medications that the doctors had recommended and found that he actually responded really well to a lot of the natural therapies you know the herbs, the supplements, the homeopathic remedies. Talk a little bit about that part of it the homeopathic remedies.

Shane Swenson: 20:30

Talk a little bit about that part of it. Yeah, so when, when you know he was in rehab, you talk with all kinds of doctors right and specialists, and we actually connected with a doctor at Gillette that was, you know he was more open to the idea of you know natural medications, not where where a lot of the other doctors and surgeons, it's like you know their their path forward is you know natural medications, not where where a lot of the other doctors and surgeons it's like you know their their path forward is you know medication, drugs, you know whatever they can do to kind of manage the situation. And you know don't get me wrong there were a lot of things that that brady required, otherwise he wouldn't have been alive, you know so. Um, the we just saw as time went on they were trying certain things and his body would react to him. You know things that, like kids, have been taken for years. Like I remember Ritalin was, was something and I can't remember why they had prescribed it for him. He just rejected it all, like across the like he. We had to take him off immediately because he had such an adverse effect to it. Um, and you know so it's it's been a slow progression, but it's been a couple years since.

Shane Swenson: 21:33

Jenny like it, you know she's been a pretty, she's a bulldog when it comes to this stuff. She, you know, she's reading, like you said, on those groups trying to find these things, and she found us a line of supplements that she really likes, that offer certain things. So we were actually able to remove medications that he was taking to help him do just basic life function and replace it with a natural thing that did the same exact thing. It did the same same thing and it's non-toxic and that's as a, as a parent. That's great, because you don't want to. Just, you know that poor kid's liver is probably, you know, in really tough shape because of all the medication that he has to take. I mean, he still takes um, keppra or levotricetam for um for seizures, which he does have from time to time, Um, but that's really like the, the only, like true hard drug that he takes on a day-to-day basis. Everything else is natural remedies.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 22:26

It's pretty incredible, yeah, yeah it is, and then talk a little bit about the fundraiser that you started on behalf of Brady, the golf tournament that happens every fall.

Shane Swenson: 22:38

Yeah, yeah. So it became really apparent to us quickly after Brady's accident that the house that we lived in wasn't going to be adequate for him. And you know, we had kind of been looking at moving a little bit here and there but this really like we didn't have a choice, really Like he just he didn't have any mobility in that house. So we ended up, um, and we ended up building a new house and where we can have big, you know, wider doorways and just a more open place for him to be.

Shane Swenson: 23:07

Along with that comes making new friends in the neighborhood and with COVID we got really close to people in this neighborhood and I tell you it's probably no different than a lot of other neighborhoods, but all the men in the neighborhood are they're golf nuts, right, we like to golf, we like to get together. The first year we lived out here we had a little neighborhood golf tournament that there's 16 of us and one of the neighbors I found out really kind of interesting. He's one of the founders of our foundation. His name is Rich Conley and in talking and making small conversation with them turns out he went to Sacred Heart School, just like Brady did years ago. They both played basketball and they both wore the number 13, brady's lucky number, and they also share the same birthday, october 13th. Oh, crazy.

Shane Swenson: 23:59

Yeah, it was really, really crazy. And so just in talking with Rich I'm like, hey, is there something fun we could do? You know, like 13th place gets their entry feedback or something like that. So that's what we and we made some hats and you know with with Brady's name on it and we did that for a couple of years and it was a lot of fun.

Shane Swenson: 24:19

And then Rich and I kind of got to talking. We're like you know what, maybe we should break this off from the neighborhood and maybe we should like see if we can put a tournament together and we can give money back to sacred heart. So sacred hearts, a private Catholic school that requires tuition and it's hard for some people to pay that tuition even though they want to their children to have a Catholic education. So I thought, hey, if we can get give back to them, that that'll ease somebody else's burden. We had kind of Jenny and I kind of flipped that switch from asking people for help all the time and we got so much help and people were just there for us emotionally, like you know how we talked about it's. We let's see what we can do to give back now let's show our appreciation in this method. So the first year was a 2022. Uh, we partnered with a golf course um, close was 2022. We partnered with a golf course close in Maple Grove, minnesota, and put on a golf tournament, made a ton of money and was able to donate a bunch of money and everybody had a great time. Feedback was really good. So we did it again in 2023. Again, it was just perfect. It was great. We had a good time, good turnout, able to raise a lot of money for Sacred Heart. In between that year and this last year in 2024, that's when we partnered up with Crescent Cove.

Shane Swenson: 25:40

Jenny and I had used Crescent Cove services and thought this is just the coolest thing. It's privately funded, it doesn't cost us anything, which is great. The average daily stay costs $2,500 per kid. Wow, that's Brady needs. Brady needs a little bit more than that. He's $3,500. Wow, so it's that's. It's incredible that they can offer that at no charge to to families. It's. It's a gift, it's an absolute gift that we otherwise I don't know if we'd be able to get out and and have any kind of normalcy in a marriage without it, to be able to just get away for a couple of days, um and it.

Shane Swenson: 26:22

So in our thinking. We're like you know what, let's take this to the next level, right, let's? Let's not stop. We've got the momentum behind us. So last year it's almost coming on a year now we founded the Brady Finn foundation that supports Sacred Heart and Crescent Cove, and so this is kind of our going on year two, as with our foundation, and we've got our tournament scheduled again for October 11th this year and change of venue, which we're really excited about. It can help accommodate us a little bit better, I guess, for lack of better description. So, yeah, and we're just, we're just getting started, we know, with some planning and you know certain things, and now we need people to sign up and get out there and come golf with us.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 27:09

Yeah, okay. Where is the golf course that you're at this year?

Shane Swenson: 27:12

So it's called um pheasant acres, which is in Corcoran, minnesota, which is a neighbor of Maple world. So it's right If you're familiar with this area, um, we're physically in Maple Grove, rogers, corcoran area, um, so that's where we kind of keep it out this way. A beautiful golf course it's. I can actually see it from my backyard, if on a good day, I can see across the where the golf course is. I love to play it. Good staff, it's fun. They got a great number 13 hole, which is kind of our, our, our highlight, our feature hole, because Brady's favorite number was 13. So we incorporate that into everything that we do. The golf tournament is technically called the Lucky Brady Swenson Lucky 13 Golf Tournament. That's put on every year. So yeah, it's a great event. I look forward to it every year.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 28:03

Do you do other things in addition to the tournament?

Shane Swenson: 28:06

Yeah, you know, we're very fortunate that, through channels that we have and people that we know, we're able to get some really great stuff from, whether it be the Minnesota twins or the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Minnesota wild, um, the Vikings have have have given us stuff, um, and we have random people to that to say, hey, here's a golf set here, you go, go ahead and raffle it off and we do silent auction, we do um, we do a uh a raffle. We also do 50 50 if you're familiar with that, which is a fun thing, you know 50. We take 50 of the, the uh, the proceeds that come in cash wise, and one lucky winner gets the other 50 of that. So the first year we did $3,000 and somebody went away with 1500 bucks that day. So, wow, yeah, we do a lot of different things. You know it's it's going to be fun.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:00

Excellent, super Well. I will include the information in the show notes for how people can sign up. Is there a website that you have up right now or, as far as registration, yeah, it's a, it's lucky13golfnet. Great. I'll include that in the show notes.

Shane Swenson: 29:16

Yeah, there's great information out there too. As far as about the tournament, a little bit more on Brady's story, some pictures of him, some pictures of the golf tournament, past sponsors. So if you're just curious to see what we're all about, and go and check it out.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:29

Yeah Well, I'm afraid I'm not a golfer, otherwise I'd sign up. I'll contribute to the raffle, since I can't swing a club. How does that sound?

Shane Swenson: 29:40

Perfect, we'll take everything we can get, thank you.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:43

Well, is there anything else that we, you know we haven't covered or that you'd like to talk about in terms of just, you know, brady's experience?

Shane Swenson: 29:50

I really appreciate you having me on and and we had talked during one of Brady's acupuncture sessions about when you, when you have a foundation and a golf tournament. Golf tournaments are a dime, a dozen, they're. They're all over the place, they're. Everybody does them. We're no different. It's not unique, but it's unique to our situation. But what we find really difficult is getting people outside of our umbrella of people that we know and that participate to, to pay attention to what we're doing. You know there are so many of these, these golf tournaments that give to the American cancer society or they give to diabetes. You know these golf tournaments that give to the American cancer society or they give to diabetes organizations or research on this or that and the other thing. But we feel that what we're doing is no less important than any of that. And they're getting millions and millions and millions of dollars, you know, every year. And that's great. You know I don't begrudge them for that. I would just trying to get the message out. That's the hardest thing is outreach, just to get somebody to listen, just to bend an ear and say you know what are you guys doing?

Shane Swenson: 30:57

Or take a moment, look at Sacred Heart Catholic School. I could go on and on and on about, not just about how they supported Brady, but how they supported our family. We have an older son, jacob, who's 22 years old, went through that school. Jacob is on the autism spectrum, struggled in the public school. I think it was because they didn't have enough resources to help him. And so I reached out to the principal at Sacred Heart Her name is Karen Bursey, who has been a great asset to us and our foundation and being a part of the golf tournament and getting the word out for us on the on the the school side and I just said, hey, he was in the third grade, can we see, can we just try, can we just see how it goes? And she said, let's do it. And it was a struggle. It was hard. You know, children on the autism spectrum struggle in so many aspects, and academics was never Jacob's like strong suit. But he worked really hard. The school worked really, really hard to accommodate him with like a small percentage of the resources that a regular public school has, and he got through it and he he went on and had a very successful high school career. He ran cross country, he was well-respected, he was adored by his coaches and his teammates, and now he's at the University of Iowa attending a special program called UI Reach for kids with intellectual disabilities, that they go to this major university and they get a specialized education to help them be very productive people in life. And it's no small miracle, honestly, that Jacob's there going through his story and just even now remembering how hard that was for him and us in the school.

Shane Swenson: 32:52

But that's where it all started, right, sacred heart, we have so much to be thankful for that. We got connected to that community and that community goes back to Jenny's family, like to the thirties, the 1930s. So it's like this, the snowball effect that it's, it's coming to a head. So, um, and, and I want to make sure that kids that, and for families that can't afford that, that we're doing something to help them, and then also for the families that are in our situation to help them get to Crescent Cove and get that much needed respite that they deserve to have. So that's my biggest hurdle right now is just getting somebody that just really buy into what we're doing. You know, because it all takes us, somebody that to relay that message to somebody else and then to the next person and the next thing. You know, you know we we have a wide netcast and we're expanding.

Shane Swenson: 33:50

It's interesting, too, thinking back.

Shane Swenson: 33:52

I was thinking this morning about helping Brady get ready for his day, and to me one of the tragic parts of the whole story is how Brady was definitely there for Jacob all the time, helping him navigate through school or just hanging out with people or doing certain things, and then Brady has an accident and all of a sudden that role gets reversed.

Shane Swenson: 34:17

So for the longest time when, when Brady first came home from rehab, jacob was there like he was helping me transfer, getting him in and out of bed, getting him cleaned up, getting him dressed, getting him like he was there, like he would clean Brady's room, he would tidy it up, he would make his bed, and that role just kind of just flipped like on a dime. It was just amazing to see that. I mean, I didn't have to ask it, it was just a very fluid thing that he would just all right, it's time to get Brady ready for bed, let's do it. And it's awesome when you think back about that. It's just the little things like that that make a really tough situation just a little bit easier to tolerate.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 34:57

Yeah Well, just really incredible when you see people rise to the challenge and take it on and do the hard work.

Shane Swenson: 35:05

Yeah, yeah, he, definitely he was one of them. I mean, I just I can't even remember. You know, the unfortunate thing of trauma is that I forget a lot of the stuff that that we've gone through. You know, I used to have a memory that I couldn't remember anything, and now it's a struggle just because I'm more concerned about. My focus is on Brady and what his day is and I forget about something like that. I was. He had in Brady's room.

Shane Swenson: 35:30

There's a little, um, a little picture that, um, Jacob had drawn, I think right after he got hurt, cause Jacob was 15 at the time, and it said on there a couple of stick people and it said best friends, forever on there, and that's what triggered that. That's what triggered that memory, as I was like, oh my God, that's right. I forgot about how he, and in when I was telling you about how he Brady cefepine antibiotic with the PICC line that he had, you would have to take these little balls like the size of a racquetball or tennis ball and they had to refrigerate them, but you had to take them out an hour before you administered them, and so we were on like I don't know what time I can't remember what the times, but Jacob would actually get up in the morning and at four o'clock in the morning come upstairs, grab one of those little balls, put it on the countertop and then go to bed. So we, jenny and I, could sleep.

Shane Swenson: 36:21

So we could just I mean, yeah, I mean it's just the little things right, and he did that for two, two months without question, like without question, yeah. So yeah, it, it, it takes, it takes everybody, you know. And he, he definitely stepped up to the challenge and and I'm not surprised now looking at how he's doing, he's just about ready to finish up his first year. He comes home next weekend, um, and how he's excelled. And you know his future, his sky's the limit, in my opinion.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 36:51

Yeah, yeah, no, I was. I was so happy to hear that he got that scholarship and was able to do that program, because it sounds amazing and like he's been able to make a lot of friends and, you know, take part in all kinds of cool activities and yeah, sounds really cool.

Shane Swenson: 37:05

I think he's actually kind of dreading coming home, which is when he left. I think he was like what did I get myself into? Can I really do this? And now at the end of he's like I'm kind of bummed out that I'm having to come home. Yeah, I'm like wow, what a change. I mean so, but he's very excited to go back in the fall already.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 37:24

So Well, and I just think it's so amazing, with everything you've been through, that you're taking that experience and you're saying how can we give back to all the people who supported us? So I think that's incredible and I hope I can help in spreading the word about the tournament and the fundraiser. I will be happy to put all of these kind of contacts in the show notes and, like I said, try to spread the word and help promote your tournament, brady's tournament, and try to help make that a big success for you all.

Shane Swenson: 37:52

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 37:54

Yeah, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your story and Brady's story Anytime.