Shaun Newman Podcast - #214 - Dr. Brandi Suva

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Veterinarian, wife, mom & concerned citizen. Brandi shares her story about her son Hudson. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Like the podcast? Support here: https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. Hey, I didn't jinx us all. We had a pretty good day for Halloween. Kids got out, did a little trick-or-treating. And honestly, it was a good day. I hope everybody got to, you know, get outside and enjoy, you know, it's frosty in the mornings. I'm not acting like it isn't a little bit chilly. But, geez, compared to some of the years we've had, it was pretty darn good. Sunday for having the kids out and doing a little trick-or-treating and, you know, getting some candy and all that good stuff. Now, let's get on to today's episode sponsors before we get to today's show. Carly Clause and the team over Windsor Plywood Builders of the podcast studio table for everything would. These are the guys. I always suggest going on to their social media, their Instagram, do a little creeping, creep in, and see what they got cooked up. Of course, they did build the podcast studio. and when you're looking for a slab of wood and you want something unique,

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You heard about them from the podcast, right? Now, let's get on in that T-Barr-1. tale of the tape. A doctor of veterinary medicine, a wife, a mother of two, and a concerned citizen. I'm talking about Brandy Suva. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Dr. Brandy Suva, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Dr. Brandy Suva. So first off, thanks for hopping on. Thank you. Thank you for happy me. Yeah. So we got, you know, when your story came down, I was saying before we started, I get a lot of things across my desk, my figurative desk.

As you can see, it's more of a table. But when it came across and then I started digging into it because, you know, you live in my area. We went to school together. I just, I'm like, okay, this is, you got to come in here. We got to talk about this. Now, people have no idea what I'm talking about because we literally have people from all over Alberta, Saskatchewan into the states, et cetera, tuning in this. So maybe first let's do this, Brandy. Let's give, just start with a little bit about yourself, some of your background, so people

can get a feel for whom you are. Well, yeah, like you mentioned, my name is Brandy Suva. Born and raised in this area, we farm. And in addition to that, I underwent numerous years of education, 12 years to be exact, with a Bachelor of Science, which I achieved with an honors degree. And following that, I pursued my doctor of veterinary medicine. Once graduating, I traveled to Toronto to undergo two years of additional training in the area of surgery, and then I completed my last year of training, a third year in surgery at Washington State University, where I did a internship and fellowship position. Did you actually get to go to Washington?

Yes, I was there for over a year. You lived in Washington for over a year. Yeah. What did you think of living in Washington? Washington State, so Pullman, yes. Yes. It was fantastic, honestly, and that's where I met my husband. He's a former United States Marine.

He was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, served his country for many years overseas, Iraq, Afghanistan. and during the time, you know, after 9-11 with the, you know, the war on freedom. So I, you know, I absolutely love my time there. Honestly, there are some of the nicest people in the world that you were around down there. You're walking down the street and people are just happy to talk and say hi and help out anybody. And it was just a fantastic situation. And the university is gorgeous. They are world leading in a lot of different surgical procedures in veterinary medicine.

And yeah, I'm very grateful to have been involved with that. How on earth, I'm married to an American as well. I'm married to a girl from Minnesota. How on earth did you convince a Marine to move to Canada? That's a good point. Yes, he is, you know, he loves his country. Obviously, he will die for his country. Yeah.

And I guess I will say what he said to me when we met and when, you know, our relationship progressed and we ended up getting married down there. And he said to me, I will follow you anywhere. And I mean, it's a beautiful thing to say. And that's how. I always find it interesting when an American moves up here. I moved my wife from Minneapolis. We have a good idea of what Minneapolis, the size of it is, a couple million, to Hillmont, Saskatchewan. Exactly.

Think about that. Very different. The bustling metropolis of Hillmont, Saskatchew. Anyways, I'm not here to talk about marriages and family. Well, maybe it will. Who knows where it'll go. But I guess if you could lead us through what happened a couple days ago, and we'll just, we'll start there, Brandy. And take your time.

I'm going to apologize right away because my curiosity always gets the best to me. So I apologize if I ask too many questions or if they're inappropriate. I'm just curious. And I know the listeners will be curious as well to just figure out exactly what happened. Yes. Well, like I said, I'm very happy to be here, except that I'm not happy to be here under these circumstances, unfortunately, to discuss this incident. I wish it was under a better situation that we were sitting here having a conversation.

but the incident happened October 26th a few days ago we Mark and I have two children Hudson who is five and a half and Adeline who's two and a half and Hudson started kindergarten this year he is on the Buffalo Trail Public School Division and we live in the country and therefore he goes on rural busing his bus time is quite long as most rural buss times are. You know, in the morning, it's not so bad. It's about a 35-minute bus ride, but in the evening, it's an hour and 15 minutes in total, which is in itself, you know, perfectly fine. The busing experience, especially, you know, for me when I was growing up, and, you know, you mentioned yourself is, you know, it's fun. It's a great time to be on a bus.

And it's just, and it's something very, uh, normal in this area, right? Like, like when you say rural busing school system, you know, people in the big city maybe have a dip. Well, they certainly do it differently than we do it. But when you live in Hillmont, Saskatch, I always bring it back to Helmand, like the entire place is rural. So it doesn't matter where you live. You're on the bus, and sometimes that can be an hour and 15 minutes. Sometimes it can be two minutes, right? But I think that goes across the board for where we live. All these little communities are rural busing systems. Yeah, exactly. So Hudson and And any other kindergartner on the bus, honestly, you know, grade one, two, three, our bus driver has always told us since we started, you know, him in school in September is that he sleeps on the bus in the evening.

So do the rest of them. This is fairly normal. You know, our bus driver jokes that you'll have kids that are, you know, falling asleep and falling on top of each other, falling out of their seats and whatnot. And, and that's fairly normal. And, you know, for a child, the age of five, who is now adjusting to, you know, their brand new career as a student, you know, an eight-hour day away from home, and, you know, everything that has evolved with that, you know, their brain growing, all the stuff they're learning. You know, sleeping on the bus is quite fine. And none of us have ever had an issue with it, and the bus driver's never had an issue with it. So that's fairly normal. but most recently in what happened was Hudson, you know, when they're riding the bus, are required to wear a mask.

And I mentioned that because grade four and under in school, at least in our Buffalo Trail, is not required to wear a mask at school unless there's an outbreak, in which case they're required to mask for two weeks, and it kind of progresses from there. But on the busing situation, because it's public transport or considered public transport, they're all required to be masked. So Hudson had, as usual, fallen asleep at some point, we presume. And he, when they got to, you know, our home, his bus stop, his bus driver attempted for about a 10-minute period of time

to arouse him, essentially. She describes him as sitting there slunched over completely in his seat. He's three and a half feet tall, so really quite slunched in those seats, if you know what they look like. And what she could see was just his eyes, and they were staring forward, men not moving. Otherwise, she couldn't see any more of him. She couldn't see his face. She couldn't see he was wearing a hat.

You know, he was wearing his coat. We're getting into colder weather now. And he was wearing his cloth mask. That as every small child, as parents would attest to, is always soaked. And for that reason, I send him with, you know, four and five masks to school so that he might change them through the day, you know, as they become damp. or even the disposable masks. But it was completely saturated and it was stuck to his face. And so after about 10 minutes of trying to, you know, arouse him

or get any indication of response from him, my husband standing outside of the school bus, holding our daughter, and I'm not home, I'm at work, 45 minutes away, was watching this and didn't quite, get the gravity of the situation because what he could see is that there's just somebody, you know, she's trying to get his attention, so he assumed that Hudson was just simply sleeping. Our bus driver describes this situation as what's going through her head is she's thinking, do I get up and do I touch him? Do I go to him? And she's scared.

In her mind, she's scared to do that because she's scared of the repercussions of what would happen if she was to do that with everything that's going on with COVID, with people being, you know, offended by having their children touched or whatever it is. So this is what's going through her mind. She feels that she can't. It's been so inundated into her, you know, what the rules are for her. She feels that she can't go to him and assess him face to face. Yeah, properly.

Yes, properly. So she calls my husband onto the bus, which again, right now, because of COVID, is not strictly speaking aloud. But she's in a situation that she can't now control. So he gets onto the bus, picks Hudson up. He is burning hot. He is, you know, he's soaked, basically, and he is just limp. He's completely limp. He carries him off the bus.

He takes, you know, his coat off. He takes this saturated stuck mask to his face off. And he waits and does what he can because at that point, Hudson is breathing. You know, he's kind of moaning. It's not that he's completely blacked out. His eyes are open, but they're not really doing a lot. And so, you know, we live fairly far away from, from the nearest hospital.

So within that 10 minute period of time that it took Hudson to kind of come around, you know, I'm on the phone, I'm listening to this situation, driving home from being 45 minutes away. It's a parent's worst nightmare. It is. It was a feeling of hopelessness. So, and just to set, the record straight Hudson has did see his doctor and was assessed and has had numerous testing done. you know, to ensure that there wasn't anything underlying, anything like that.

But he came around extremely fast. Within a few hours, you know, he was busy gluing a wooden tent together, actually, you know, to popsicle sticks. So, you know, the long-term effects of this were nothing. But, and everything that's been looked into him has been completely. normal. And so the discussion, you know, that has been had is a couple of things, a couplefold, in that, you know, children of that age, and I would, I dare say, you know, grade four and under, don't yet possess the mental faculties and the ability to, to recognize that when they are feeling

lightheaded, hot, you know, whatever it is, that they need to, for example, take their coat off, take their mask off, and that they can do that because they just don't have that mental ability yet. You know, adults, we do. So his situation and, you know, what this doctor and things like that, we've discussed, it's almost likened to a toddler version of SIDS or it could have been. wherein they fall asleep, you know, they're hunched over, nobody's supervising them, because if this was truly public transport, I'd be sitting right there beside him. And, you know, if I was worried about him, I would intervene immediately.

But this is specifically unsupervised. So, and they're, like I said, they were hunched over, and, you know, there's something obstructing their face. And so, you know, the question becomes is, was this brought on by a mask? is brought on by the fact that he was sleeping and he got overheated. It doesn't much matter. The point here is that he was in distress. For some reason, he was in distress. And because his face was covered with a physical barrier, nobody could see. So you can broaden that farther to any child.

And I say child because I want to be very specific that that, you know, these little guys on these buses don't quite have, you know, the voice that an older child would, for example, or a teenager, that they can say, hey, I'm not feeling good, something like that. but any child that would be undergoing some form of distress maybe a kid hit his head on the playground at lunchtime and they have a concussion a few hours later and they pass out on the bus and they have something covering their face nobody knows maybe a child is diabetic and they are hypoglycemic and they become lightheaded and they pass out or whatever the response to that is and they have something covered in their face and nobody knows. They fall asleep and they vomit on the bus, which happens quite frequently I've found out recently.

They throw up into their mask, they fall asleep, they aspirate and nobody knows. So this situation I think is very, very specific for rural busing and length of times because these children are simply not supervised. for hour longer? Yeah, one of the things, one of the things that we talked, well, I, one of my concerns of having you on, like, think of the world we live in where I have to be concerned about like how this is going to be perceived, right? And maybe that world's always been there and just it's heightened in COVID. But when you say unsupervised, this isn't to, to place blame on bus drivers or anyone like that. It's just, the situation of what's happening for an hour and 15 minutes. They're driving along the road.

I mean, as we come, God, love our Canadian winners here. Sooner than later, we're going to have some nasty stuff. It's going to be dark. It's going to be deer move and everything else. A bus driver is focused on one thing, getting our children to and from school safely. And that's their main focus. You mentioned, why is it called unsupervised? Or that's what is termed by the government?

Yes, exactly. And so the term for unsupervised is not something that I have come up with on my own. This is inherent in the reason why there's no seatbelts on buses because they have been deemed to be essentially unsupervised. And so if we seatbelt children, what potentially could occur there, children slumping down their seats, you know, the belt coming around their neck. all these things that they cannot be adequately supervised by a bus driver busy driving a bus. You know, they look back in their mirror and they can see faces. And now we've covered those faces. But when we're talking about these little kids, these little kids are three and a half feet tall.

They're slumped down in their seat. My bus driver has flat said to me that she can't, when he's sitting in his seat, He can't even see him. He's too short. Same with the other kindergartners, the great ones. You know, this is across the board. So it, you know, this idea of it being unsupervised is, is inherent in busing, you know, student busing.

This is something that they've recognized already. So it's not a huge reach then to say that. you know, these children that are, you know, so at risk of not being able to respond adequately from having, you know, feeling lightheaded or whatever it be, you know, should not be sitting there unsupervised with facial coverings. You know, even the term mask isn't correct because a mask is meant to, you know, have valves that get. rid of oxygen or bring in oxygen, get rid of CO2. This is literally a facial covering.

They're not meant to do that kind of filtering. So, but again, like I said, this is not a masking debate because in, you know, in adults, you know, if, like if, if you're feeling, you know, lightheaded or hot or whatever it be when you're wearing your mask, and certainly everybody does at work. one point, you just remove yourself from the situation, right? You get up and you go outside and you take your mask off. You go sit in your vehicle. You pull it down because you're not scared of getting in trouble. These children are so scared of being in trouble for taking a few moments to breathe uninhibited. Listen, we both have children.

One of the things that, like, when you tell the story, it makes the hair on my arms raised because I have a five-year-old who just started kindergarten, right? Fortunately, he's not on a bus. He's driven to school, right? So, like, we have dodged this for the time being, right? But I know there's a ton of parents that are going to immediately build, like, empathy, right? They're going to be like, holy crap. I grew up a rural kid. That's all we did was ride the bus.

I was fortunate. I was first stop, so I was always off first. But I hated it because I always wanted to be the guy that got to ride for an hour and 15 minutes. Because you get to hang it with friends and everything else, right? When it comes to kids, we can argue at what age they know they can pull it down, et cetera, and when they can. But like, right now in society, I'd argue there are adults that don't feel comfortable pulling their mask down. The amount of social pressure going on to conform and to do what the rules state at all times don't think about it is unbelievable.

And the fact that we have young children who are, and this will be my words, not at risk from COVID, not from getting it from like the severity of it. And we're putting in place something because as a parent, like if I rewind the clock and I heard they were going to make kids mask on a bus, I went, that makes sense. Like honestly, I got this rational part of my brain that goes, oh, I guess that makes sense. Like they talk about COVID spreading in confined spaces, right? So we're protecting kids from spreading it to everybody. Okay, fair.

So this was a protection, though, against something that they're not at risk of. And it almost caused like the worst outcome. And so we're doing things to try and keep kids safe. I hope I'm explaining this the correct way. Trying to keep kids safe from something that they, we shouldn't be afraid for them. Like, and all in the name of just trying to keep them safe.

Yeah. Like these kids, like as parents, this is what I, you know, and I watch it. I'll put it on myself. I was a part of an arena board a year ago where we had kids skating on the ice with masks on. Oh my. Right? And you're going like, and you're trying to like reason this out.

But that was the rule across hockey, Brandy. Is that kids ate on the ice. Kids need to have their masks on though. Yeah. Right? We're doing that to adults right now. Yeah. Right?

The rule right now is if you're vaccinated, you can go and play. If you're unvaccinated, you got to wear a mask. And you're like, That's not healthy. That like physical exertion, one of the greatest things about this year, I thought, was that they weren't requiring kids

to wear masks in gym class and physical exertion and outside. And I was like, oh man, maybe things are going to start to go back normal. And then this story comes and I go, like, we got to figure this out before something bad really happens.

So what have you been, you mentioned like, this isn't where the story stops. You've been, instead of just doing a Facebook rant, you put the story out, on Facebook. That's how people hear about it. But since then, you know, it hasn't been that long. Yeah. What's been going on behind the scenes? Yes. So exactly. And thank you for bringing that up

because it this, because of this risk for these, these kids of being, again, not seen, not seen to be in distress. It be, I would like to say that I hope that this mandate in this situation, specifically where they cross the board with busing in rural situations as being public transport and therefore requiring masks and that they just missed. Maybe they just simply overlooked the fact that small children will be on their unsupervised because that's my hope because I would hope that there would be nobody out there that would have purposely made this decision. to do this, knowing that these children are unsupervised. But having said that, ultimately, there is, there's no one to blame with regard to the bus driver, with the children around him,

with the school board even. The buck ultimately stops with the government and the mandate that's come down. And so with that in mind, I have been engaged. a lot of different people in, you know, heads of position to bring about a change in this situation specifically. So immediately that night, I drafted the email that has been widely shared on social media. And if anybody wants it, just reach out to me and I can pass along. Yeah. And, you know, I sent that to the entire school board and all the trustees that night at midnight. You know, by 1230, I already received a response from our superintendent addressing this and, you know, reaching out with compassion and empathy for the situation that we endured that we didn't ask for and saying that there is going to be a change. You know, and the very next day, in fact, at their first Board of Trustees meeting, because there's new people on the board now with the election just being completed,

this specific situation and the email that I sent was addressed in their meeting for about 20 minutes. We were able to watch it online, as you can, and unanimously they agreed to take this to the next step. So, but further than that, you know, I've been in discussions with our MLA, Garth Roswell, and he's very impassioned by this specific situation, and we'll be speaking next week in Emmington in their caucus meetings regarding this, because they also, you know, agree that because of the inherent unsupervised nature of rural busing and the length of the time, especially these small children, you know, they can't have their faces covered where they can't be seen. So, you know, it's going to Eminton next week to be discussed, and it's, you know, it's not going to stop there.

You know, fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, this happened to the exact right or wrong mom. because I will not rest until this has changed. And I will die on this hell alone if I have to. Yeah, but you're not alone. And I didn't do understand that. And there's been so much outreach from people. And I'd like to talk about that actually in a second here. But if I was the only person that had to fight this fight,

I would do it because the other day, I almost had nothing to lose. 10 minutes more on that bus ride may have been 10 minutes too late. There was almost nothing more to lose. You know, I will stand in front of a bus or a train if I have to for my children. I will die on this hill alone. So it is more than just having, you know, a letter or a description of the scenario on social media. My goal is to take this to the top until it is changed.

And I'm not going to stop until I do. Well, I think what you're going to find out, and you've probably already found this out, is you like to, in your situation it won't be the same, but people like to make you think you're alone. And then you put it out, and the amount of, well, just from what you've said, like, you're going to learn very, very quickly. You are not alone. you know, one of the things,

I act like I hesitated in bringing you on. I never hesitated, but I did have an inner turmoil of, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to just pick the one in a million story and try and cause chaos. Because I've, I've, I've, I've learned a couple lessons through doing this podcast. And at times,

um, what I think is a smart plan causes a ton of chaos. And that chaos causes harm on people. And I understand that. To the listener, I really understand that. And so it's funny, the world we live in, my hesitation after I invited you on, which wasn't a hesitation, was more of the moral dilemma of, is this a one in a million story? And then I went, well, even if it is, it's a girl that I graduated high school with that lives in my area. If I don't talk about it, who's going to talk about it?

I mean, it is an interesting world we are living in where I even have that moral deliberation. of like, should I bring this on? And all I got to do is just go, all I got to do, it's as simple as this. It's like, what if it was Shea? She's my five-year-old. Like, what if he was the guy on the butt? Like, it's just, it's doing it to me all over again.

All my hair is, like I just, my sole purpose, you talk about, I'll die on that hill alone. You won't die alone. There'll be 50,000 more parents that'll die with you on that one. Because to me, that's, once you have children, you understand the, the responsibility that comes with it.

We're here to protect them. They're going to inherit what we give them. That's what's troubling about everything that's going on right now is how do we get this to the world that they want to, you know, that we can leave for them. That's, you know, there's many a different idea on that. But when it comes to this issue, even if it is one in a million,

it doesn't matter. It should never happen, like ever. Yeah. And exactly. you know the the comment from people might be that this was an isolated incident and you know up until this happened this was never even a consideration of mine that this could happen because you know he goes to school and at school like I said he's in kindergarten so they're not required to wear masks so for a half an hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening I thought to myself.

You rationalize it. Exactly. You rationalize it. I'm like, this is not this is not a concern and I say that because in his situation specifically he did two years of play school uh in Lloydminster and he had to wear a mask this is not a foreign thing for him he tolerates it you know fine he's he's he's uh he's this is just something that he's learned to you know live with basically so so I thought okay well a little bit of time and then they get to school they don't have to wear it, this isn't a huge issue until this, and I never even imagined in a million years that this type of situation could happen until it did. And we talk

about whether or not this was an isolated issue incident, and it was not, in fact, since I've had this, you know, massive outpouring of people sharing the letter that was originally written and this scenario on social media, I've had a huge amount of mothers. reach out to me with private messaging or email describing situations that are exactly the same as what happened to Hudson in their small children, in their kindergartners, but even one mom has described similar situation with her 13 and 14 year olds. So, and this is where we talk about how it's so sad that there's such a strong narrative out there. right now that people don't think that they can speak up with a different opinion or with an with an

incident like this that happened because this is what these mothers are saying to me they're saying to me in these detailed excruciating emails of these situations that happened to them that they didn't say anything because they were too scared of the outcome of the repercussions of how they would be perceived um and so they have either a pulled their children off the bus, which when you're busing an hour, you can imagine how that changes your, you know, your lifestyle, especially if you're work full time, if you have both parents working full time. Having said that, the safety of their children obviously outweighs their level of convenience, so they drive them. Or they've

gone through different routes with having, you know, other other, other, kids in their family that are older, for example, pull masks down off their face when the little ones fall asleep. You know, so they've, but they felt that they couldn't say anything because they were so, they felt they would be so ostracized because the narrative right now is so strong against that. And, you know, I'm not here to debate mask wearing in adults. I'm not here to debate efficacy of mask wearing. I'm not here to debate, you know, anything even regarding COVID. So this situation is just a matter of safety with the little kids. And but these moms have all said to me in this, in their messages that they've sent, I've gained strength from your letter,

from what you're doing. And I'm currently sitting down and I'm writing my own letter. to my own school board, to my own MLA in the area, because this is going across, you know, it's going across all the provinces, it's going into the states. You know, I've had communication with people in New Zealand, you know, regarding this and sharing it. I've had countless phone calls from bus drivers describing similar situations, you know, all over Alberta, northern Alberta, southern Alberta, and asking to, share this scenario with their school boards. So what was seemingly an isolated incident is in fact

not. It's happening everywhere. And man, it's so too bad that people are too, feel too scared to speak up. But that's our own, like, that is a product of where we're at right now. Mm-hmm. Like, I rewind back to what I said. Like, if I don't bring you on to talk about this in our area, this is no knock on anyone in town or around Saskatchew. I don't know. Maybe global news has reached out to you.

I've had a lot of different places reach out to me all the way to Calgary, Amundton, a lot of not specifically global news, as of yet. But a lot of different media streams. I don't know why. single out global news. I go like, to me, you don't, up until this point, things like this that go in the face of safety towards COVID do not get talked about. They get brushed under the rug.

It's why nobody wants to, all these moms you talk about are like, I just get, you know, I just get Johnny to pull down Ben's mask when he falls asleep. Just to think that's where we're at is wild. Yes. Like, that is wild. Yeah. But it's also, you know, we're sitting in a time that a lot of things, like just common sense things don't seem to add up. And a lot of what we see on the news every day is just the same old song and dance of it's bad, it's bad, it's bad.

And it's like, well, we've got to find a way to not let things like this continue to happen. Creative solutions. get people talking and thinking. We've been all sitting in isolated rooms for too long and just, you know, shut her down, trying to go about our lives, not tread too much on, you know, just quietly get our kids to school and make sure, right?

Nobody, it's reasonable that they wear, okay, it's reasonable, right? Okay, that makes sense, right? But this, like, slaps it right in the face. Like, I mean, honestly, I don't know how many times my arm hair has got to raise every time you start talking about the story. Like, it's just every parent can feel that. Yeah.

Every rural area when they hear this story is going to go, holy shit, like, we got kids that ride the bus for an hour. Like, this isn't isolated to our area. This is all across Saskatchewan, all across Alberta. I'm sure I'll have somebody reach out from Ontario saying, oh, that's northern Ontario too, right? And probably BC. And like, this isn't isolated to just us.

it's a system and a successful system gets used across the board. Yeah. Right? And so if it's happening here, like you say, people reaching out, chances are there's going to be a lot of school boards get this put on their table and go, holy crap, we didn't even think about this. At least that's what you hope, right? I go back to what you say.

You hope they go, we overlooked this or we didn't think it was a risk. And now it is very blatantly a risk that nobody can turn away from. Well, and exactly. And I think the idea of them thinking that they didn't think this was a risk is really key here. Because if you think back, you know, about who is obviously making the mandates and whatnot, these mandates for masking, specifically, like I said, we're focusing here on the small children. We're focusing here on long bus rides. you know, we're not talking about adult masking, but these mandates, regardless, are made by adults, for adults, with the interpretation of how it feels to wear a mask by an adult, with life

experiences by an adult, with not a consideration at all of what does it feel like to be a five-year-old in a mask. They're making these mandates from the from the viewpoint of an adult and a logical adult will think to themselves,

well, geez, it's really darn simple to take that mask and pull it off your face or to, you know, pull it away or to remove yourself from the situation.

Or to not send your kid on a bus for an hour, right? Like, oh, just why would anyone ever do that? Yeah. Like, you can understand how somebody's going to try and rationalize us. Probably trying to rationalize it right now. Yes.

Don't rationalize it. This is not good. We got to figure a way to put the pressure back on the government to do what's right. And honestly, pull the masks off the bloody kids. Yeah. Right? Like, they need to come off. Yeah.

Like, they've learned in sports, I'll talk about us. You know, we just had U-7 practice. My son's playing U-7 hockey. I'm sure a lot of parents can either sympathize or be like, oh, that's awesome. because you get these little kids running around on the ice. I mean, it's awesome. But one of the great things is they don't wear masks this year. Yeah.

And I can't speak to last year in U-7. I just know an intro to hockey where they're trying to learn how to skate. They were all supposed to have masks on, right? Well, that's gone. Because we should have known back then. But everybody goes, well, you didn't know and we're worried and whatever. Okay, let's rationalize that that way. Okay.

But we've learned now. And now we don't have them on them because they can't, Right. Like I've skated with a mask on. And at times, I'm like, holy man, I got to slow down. And that's a grown man. Well, they're not, they're not meant to be worn with physical exertion. Right. I stand in an OR for eight and ten hours a day sometimes with a mask on. Do I have an issue with that? No.

You know, it doesn't impede my, my breathing at all. And I've never had an issue with masking. And there's probably one of the reasons why I went into surgery specifically is because, I do very well with a mask. In fact, it doesn't bother me at all. Having said that, with the amount of, you know, years of teaching that I did of of fourth-year veterinary students who, you know, are between the ages of 26 as the youngest and probably into their early 40s, you know, in the, in that first semester of them doing

actual surgical procedures with a mask on. And these are on cadavers, like they're not going to hurt these animals, you know. The amount of people that pass out, because they become so overwhelmed with the fact that they feel they can't breathe properly is easily over 50%. And it happens time after time, year after year. It's normal. It's so normal that we have, you know, a... A procedure that is just second nature at this point of how to catch these people sterile, right?

Because in the situation where we're dealing with live animals, of course, you don't want to contaminate anything. How do you catch these people sterile so that they don't hurt themselves and you don't, you know, put the animal at risk of contamination? Because it's so normal. these are adults. These are adults that have all their faculties about them. And so, like another example, two weeks ago, three weeks ago now at this point, one of my, you know, head technicians that I work with in the orthopedic surgery scrubs in with me every time.

Didn't eat breakfast that morning. And it's always the same thing that you see. she first thing that happens is that their eyes become quite glazed you talk to them and they look around but they don't know you're talking to them they don't understand anything and then they turn a shade of gray that is you know probably very similar to your walls here and then within that period of time of when they look that way you have about a quarter of a second to then have their body weight, you know, supporting it so that they don't go down and hit their and hit their head or be hurt.

And that happened to her a couple weeks ago. And this is a woman that's very adept with wearing masks all the time. So, yes, they're not meant to be worn with exertion. They're meant to be worn standing, you know, right? But, you know, again, really the masking debate is a whole other situation. that we'd like to keep over here. And the discussion that we've had with our MLA, with our superintendent, with the school board and whatnot is that we specifically have to look at the risk of specifically, in this case,

small children on long bus times being unsupervised, wearing something that covers their face, that if we can't see that there is somebody in distress for whatever reason, literally whatever reason, I'm not standing here saying the mask is going to cause this child to pass out. I'm saying if we cannot see their face and we cannot see there's something wrong, how are we ever going to successfully intervene? Yeah, we're setting up to fail. We are setting up everybody to fail and we're set, you know, these poor bus drivers that have to follow through with these mandates, you know, the school board, the buck does not stop with them. Yeah, we're, we're setting things up to fail. Yes.

Right. We're creating more risk instead of a, you know, risk reward, right? And when you, you frame it there very nicely, right? This isn't just about a kid can't breathe. This is about all the different underlying things that kid happened to a kid and you can't see what's going on. Yes. Specifically, you can't see what's going on. And more so, there's nobody there to see what's going on. There's the bus driver who has X number of kids on her bus who, looks in the mirror every few seconds or whatever it is, who's busy driving the bus, honestly. She's, you know, every time a kindergartner falls asleep, is she going to get up and go and wake them up and see if they're okay? Yeah, she definitely could. Would that result in something

that is going to be effective? Well, it's going to increase bus time significantly. I can tell you that. Every 15 minutes, I've got to get up and go wake them up and see if they're okay because they can't see them. Yeah. You know, that's not a, that's not a, that's not a, a solution here. And it's not a huge step to say that going from school where grade four and under doesn't have to be masked to then going on to the bus, who of course is associated with the school, to say grade and four and under doesn't have to be masked.

This is not a big step we're making here. No, you, you know, you hope. I hope that politicians do the right thing. Yeah. That AHS does the right thing. And next week, like, as they sit, this shouldn't take four months to figure out. No. Because the thing we're walking into, we both know this.

The thing we're walking into is this little thing up here called, oh, wait, winter. And it's going to be here for a while. Which means it's going to be dark on those buses next. And they're going to be how many layers you've got to put on your five-year-old? Yep. Right? And then just stack on a mask and a toque and everything. And I mean, sure, take the took off, take the gloves off.

We get it. Like, as a parent, you instruct your kids, and I'm sure the bus drivers do too. We're just, at the same time, there's going to be more layers, more hindrances on seeing what's actually happening in the darkest, worst part of the year coming up. Yeah. We're automatically going to have, like you said, all these other things going, you know, covering them. And then we're adding this one more thing.

And so it just becomes, you know, honestly a tipping point, really. of how difficult do we want to make this to assess children. You know, I've had the school board come back with me and say, well, you know, what if we have other children around them assessing them? I mean, think about that for a second. I had a hard time responding to that one because I said, how dare you put the health and well-being of another child on the next child over who is, you know, even a teenager dealing with the stresses of being a teenager in school or whatever it is.

Everybody's dealing with something. I mean, yeah, we all need to be looking out for each other, obviously. If they see something wrong, they need to, you know. Help. Yes. They need to say something, at least to the bus driver. But how dare you pass the onus onto the child sitting next to them when this is a mandate made by adults? Yeah, you know, it's funny though.

That's what's become a trend of all the mandates, right? The government is passing the buck onto businesses. And now businesses have to mandate it. And it just keeps getting pushed lower and lower and lower. So now that, you know, if you're a business in town, you have to mandate people what they're doing, right? You're a restaurant. You've got to be the one checking. And if you don't, the government.

government's going to find you. It's like, right, this is all stemming back to what's, where is the root problem here? We've hit around it about seven times now. Government, right? Like you want to get upset with somebody. You know, I really, I really feel for your bus driver because yes. And, and bus drivers, you know, I mentioned off the hop like, man, some, I have some great memories of being on the bus and in a rural school setting of going to a friend's house and getting to go on somebody else's bus, right? It was always cool. The bus drivers were awesome.

I assume it hasn't changed. So my heart breaks for the bus driver as well, because here's a person that is in a situation that we, you know, you mentioned off the hop, like they're not allowed to touch the kids. Well, and obviously there was a part of that once upon a time that was founded in like this really good thing, right? We're not going to lay hands on kids and whatever. Except there should be a giant accident.

Asterisk. Like, unless this happens, then you're more than in your power and write to pull the mask off, to check vitals, to, like, provide first aid, to invite the dad on the bus immediately. Because, like, if there's a situation, there's a situation, like, it's a first aid response. Like, you got to act, and every second counts at that point. And, you know, you know, you. He just, I run it back and I go, man, that's a feel for the bus drivers because like, I really want to make sure that it's clear.

And I'm sure we have made it clear. Like, there should be no hate thrown at bus drivers now because of what happened on one bus. Like bus drivers provide a pretty kick-ass service. And they are underappreciated for what they do and dealing with our children at the end of long days or early in the morning and everything else. Yeah. And lots of them are just like awesome people. kids love them, right? Like, but at the end of the day, they're putting those situations that's,

is going to fail at some point. They're being set up to fail. And I tried to be, you know, a very explicit in my, in my letter that I wrote initially and to all the conversations that I've had since with, with all the different heads, that this is not on the head of the bus driver. this is you know this has to be coming down from the top you know who they're they're being told this is the mandate this is what you have to do and if you do not do it you lose your job yeah follow the rules yeah so can you blame somebody for wanting to preserve their job i guess it depends on

where you stand on that whole thing. I mean, how much of a foot you want to put in the sand. But ultimately, that's their livelihood. So they're just doing what they're told to continue to, you know, have their livelihood as they are. So no, we cannot, we cannot have a simple fall person being, you know, a bus driver, any bus driver. We can't have a simple fall person, even honestly being the school board. because they're working in the confines of what the mandate has been given. Having said that, teachers have a teacher's union that is their voice. Who is the voice for the children?

It's the parents, right? But now we've been taken, we've had the ability to choose for what's safe for our children taken away. if we had the choice to say yes or no to masking or whatever it is and something like this happened and I had said yes put this mask on Hudson he's going to school with this and this happened who would I have to blame I would have to blame myself as I should I am the parent my job is to make the decisions of what is safe for him but this was not my decision this is a decision that's been enforced. So now had the worse happened, had there been a fatality in this situation of a five-year-old

who, as we know, is not going to die from COVID. And he doesn't need to be busy protecting me with a mask on because I've made my choices. As of I. Yes, we all have. I don't need my five-year-old to protect me or my parents or anybody else around him. So had the worst happened here, had it been 10 more minutes, whose head would I have on a stake? You know, not actually saying that. Yeah, figuratively.

Figuratively speaking. Who would I be suing for not enough money to make this ever better? Who would be, you know, sitting in front of a judge in court taking the fall for this. and because it wasn't my decision, it's somebody's that enforce this. So where would this go? And like we've said over and over again during this interview, the buck stops with the government. And the important thing that we have to note here and that what I discussed with our MLA is that this, and actually he voiced this, he said this, he said to me,

What? How can this change right now? Because as it stands, this happened on, you know, a Tuesday. On the Thursday, we drove him to school. I say Tuesday, Thursday, because that's kindergarten. Yeah. Yeah. And he won't be going back on that bus until this changes. So, and that's him.

But for all of the other children out there. Yeah. you know and like he said how does this change tomorrow how do we invoke this change ASAP so that's the goal and that's what we're going to you know that's what we're going to the higher levels of government and Alberta health with and because you know the the hope is that this was just simply an overlooked situation that that that them sitting in their in their you know city situations where ride times are probably 10 minutes 15 minutes they're not long children probably aren't falling asleep and whatnot and being unsupervised for that length of time that they just didn't realize and I once again I have

zero idea you know a guy should have I want there's probably a study somewhere that is on uh bus wait times, you know, how long, and I have no idea about the cities. You might get, after this, you might get a couple of responses of actually bus wait times and the cities are long. I have no idea. I just, I have no idea. Like, it's just so foreign to me. How can people, how can people help?

Yes, that's a good question. So, you know, the more people that hear about this and, and, you know, it's fantastic. that people are sharing this on social media and and you know a lot of people are becoming either you know enraged over the situation or have other opinions that's all fantastic but ultimately you know having discussions with with with individuals is is is other than raising awareness isn't so much the goal here the goal is to target the people that are going to make this change and so what everybody can do out there to make this change, to put the pressure on to make this change, is to write their

MLA, is to write their education minister, is to write the health minister, to write their school board, their superintendent, and that's a start. You can add in your MP as well. And the more they hear about this, the more pressured they're going to be to make a stance. And speaking with R.MLA, he's when I contacted him and man, he responded with with an excellent email back to me. Again, compassionate, that he feels that this is enough of a serious, potential serious incident to move on a change here. But he said already, and this was within 24, hours of the incident. He had heard, he'd gotten so many emails from people already. So he was very much already aware of the situation, you know, before I had even reached out. And had already been in

discussions with, you know, education and health regarding it. So the more people that put the pressure on and send these letters, because if you want to affect change, write a letter. You know, you can't, you can't just go on social media and write an angry post. That's not going to get you anywhere. If you want to affect change, write a letter. Those are not disregarded. So that's what everybody can do out there. And I think that's, you know, that's what we need to do.

We've touched on the fact that this apparently now is not an isolated incident that it's happening to a lot of different children. But even if it was, even if this was the only child that this ever had, happened to. There's such a strong narrative out there that, you know, every child matters, every situation, every child matters, no matter what they're being put into. So even if this was just Hudson that this happened to, that's one too many. Well, I'll say this. And going into a conversation, like this, I've been trying, you know, how can we constructively change what's going on? And the only thing that comes back to me is politics. Obviously politics have the ability to enact

change. The only way politics enacts change is when the population says it, they want it. Which is why you coming forward with the story, getting people that are like-minded that understand or have had similar experiences and are willing to write the letters and put pressure on, you know, and we'll talk yours, ours, I guess, Garth, right? Immediately when he feels that, it gives him the power to walk in the room and say, listen, guys, this ain't right. But I'm going to be extremely disappointed if this isn't changed within a week. Like I don't know, you know, Garth will hear that and he'll go, well, actually, it takes a

month or something, right? Like somewhere somebody's going to be like, Sean, you don't know how. it works well I said this to another guy that I think we need to start thinking about how politics actually works at because what are we doing here like we all as parents can stare at different situations with our young children and go this isn't right but we don't feel like we have the power to step in and go like no and I'm not saying bust into the schools I'm not saying bust onto the buses I'm just saying if you go back to it politics has

the ability to change it for us and we're Paul we're the clients so we need to start putting pressure on the right spots yeah and our MLAs MPs are a good start yeah yeah exactly and and you know we have to point out that that that somebody has to advocate for these children and if it's you know the superintendents the trustees the school board trustees Because like we said, the teachers don't need advocating for, but because they have there, the children need that. And if these people that are in a position of power cannot put their foot in the sand and say this has to change because they're too scared of losing their job, of the backlash,

then that is not the job for them. they should be willing to put their job everything on the line to advocate for the children because that is literally what they're there to do. And if they're not willing to do that, they need to consider another career. I'm going to give you, I agree 110% with you. That fire rate there is, I think, a ton of parents see it that way. One of the cool, I had Eric Payne on a doctor from the Children's Hospital. And one of the cool things that I'm seeing happen right now behind closed doors, or maybe it's more public than I give it credit, is all these, you know, we got for kids' sake that meets, had been meeting regularly and Kid Scotty still meets regularly.

But that group is specific to here. And I was, Eric Payne just literally put me in contact with like two or three groups in Calgary. We know of groups like this all across Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw, all through Regina, Saskatoon, etc. And it's all looking, if I could, if there's people listening this, what I'm trying to say is, I think there's a ton of power in it.

We just have to find a way to unite it so that it can actually put the right amount of pressure on the right spot. And I feel like we've all been searching for where the pressure point is. Well, the pressure point is government. Like I think you know the more more we do this song and dance It's like we we all understand where the where the pressure is coming from it's come from up top

So how do we put pressure on them so that they change it and get rid of some of these things And when it comes to kids a lot of this doesn't make a whole lot of sense Yeah, and we are seeing it we're like your story is just another one of where kids are doing things and everybody's like Oh and my fear is always creating chaos when I when I talk about it aloud with people because the anger goes to people that we all respect. There's lots of teachers we all love, bus drivers, school boards, etc., right? Yeah. But at some point here, we've got to find a way to unite everybody

so that we can put pressure on the MLAs so that they have the power and the confidence to go walk in and go, like, this isn't right anymore. And I'm starting, I think I'm starting to see it with all these different groups forming. I mean, people all over, Saskatchewan, Alberta, country probably, probably all over the world, are trying to figure a way of bring the parents together, bring the brandies together, and go write the letters, put pressure, and get this changed so that kids aren't exposed to this anymore. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly.

And if you are watching this and thinking, geez, I'm going to write my letter, I mean, fantastic, and I will tell you that it will not be falling on deaf ears and that everybody, like I've said, the school board or MLA superintendent is in agreement on this situation. This isn't a fight that we're having to convince those people of what's happened here. Everybody's in agreement that it has to change, that's in a position to then move forward. with enacting a change. So the more that they hear from people is just going to provide them with more and more evidence and strength

to push for that. I really hope you're right. The one thing I fear, you know, I sat down with a guy from ICOR Labs. You're obviously Monday's episode. today is Monday if people are tuning in. And then the episode after you is the president of ICOR Labs. They do antibody testing.

You know, test for you have the, if you've had COVID or if you've had the vaccine, if you have the antibodies to fight off COVID, right? And I really hope government's listening will listen to this because he's a guy that has a test that shows people with natural immunity. Now, I'm not trying to pull you into all these different taboo discussions. but one of the things that I find really like it hurts my brain is when it comes to what he does, he runs a business that tests people for antibodies. He can show two tests, one person who's tested with COVID, one person who had double Vax,

they both show the same antibodies. In my brain, that's what we're trying to get to, right, is like where we're all protected. Yeah. But they don't recognize the one. And it's like, but why? why aren't we doing that? And that's our own government that won't listen to it. Now, when it comes to this, when it comes to kids, I think every, like one of the issues we've had over the last, and I've been guilty of this, I think a lot of people have been guilty of this, is empathy.

We've almost lost the ability to be empathetic to everyone's situation, right? Like everybody has their perspective, everybody has their story. You know, the ICE U-NERS is a heck of a lot different than, I don't know, the guy who worked on the rigs all through this or the school teacher, right? They all have their different perspectives of what they're seeing. And the five-year-old kid is certainly a heck of a lot different than all three of those. Yeah. And we have to find a way to get back to being humans again,

where we have a sense of community, treat one another with respect, we have dialogue and conversation, we're willing to listen to the other side, but we do what's right. And when it comes to kids, after you're hearing your story, I don't know who can say, I just don't know who can go, like we shouldn't do that. This is why we shouldn't, right? Like, I think it's pretty hard to refute Brandy.

That's what I think, but maybe I'm wrong. No, I, and, and, you know, exactly. It is extremely hard to refute because this situation that happened to him, you know, is, like I said, was he too hot? Was it a combination of stuff? As my doctor put it, is this the toddler version of SIDS, right? But more so than that, like we've said, extrapolate this to any child in distress where you can't see them. So that's where it has its power.

And understand, you said it, that people in. veterinary school that are doing that that have to wear it 50 over 50% will pass out and that's adults that are trained in how to wear a bloody mask and our training exactly and we train them to do it right because you don't this is not a normal thing to have something cover your face so we teach them how to you know work with that how to get used to it and whatnot and it's not normal and it's just passing it No, it is just that it's so normal with these masks when we're teaching these people to do it. Yeah, we normalize weird things.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't realize that, that it is so, it is, and why would they, right? Because unless you're in these types of professions, you wouldn't realize that. But for the, you know, the layperson out there that doesn't realize that type of situation, you know, it, It kind of speaks to how passive we've been, I guess, with the use of these masks for all the situations that they're used in now. Like, you mentioned children doing sports in them. Like, that's crazy to me. When I stand there and watch fully grown adults hit the floor from just standing there.

Listen, right now, Right now as it sits, okay? Yeah. I'll speak to, I'll speak to senior hockey, something I, you know, as you can tell from the walls, you know, I love hockey, love senior hockey, played for Helmon for many years, had a lot of great times. And what they're forced with as a league this year,

and all Saskatchewan is forced with the same choice. I can't speak to Alberta and other provinces. I'll just speak to Saskatchewan. since it's 18 plus if they aren't all double vaccinated they all have to wear masks to play hockey that's that's the rule yeah

I mean that makes it's you might as just say listen you can't play because to have them all play with masks on I mean all it is is a to think that's going to be successful is is laughable right

And it's just becomes more pandemic theater, right? It's just a pandemic theater. It's just a pandemic theater. They're going to all wear it. Okay. But then we're not even like going back to what you just said. In the profession that you have to train to wear a mask, 50% still are going to pass out because it's uncomfortable. It's trying to figure out how your body, geez, if you don't eat breakfast, right? Like all these things impact how wearing a mask.

And we're still as governments out here, right? In order to have a senior hockey league play, you either all got to be double-vaxed, or if anyone's unvaxed, you all have to wear masks and play a competitive senior hockey game that is full-on exertion. You're talking about some men

that maybe aren't in the best of shape anymore. Lots of them are, but there's some guys still playing that aren't exactly tipped-up shape to have them wear anything is, I'll say it, bad shit crazy. Yeah, but you know what? Ultimately,

to play devil's advocate, it's a choice, right? You could not. In this situation that we're talking about with these children in school, what's the choice? There is not a choice. They can't, he couldn't have stuck his hand up on the bus and said, you know what, I need to go outside right now to get some fresh air. That's not a choice. He couldn't, you know, So what do you do? Home school? Online learning? How do you online learn a kindergartner?

The whole experience of kindergarten is going to school. I mean, people definitely do it and, you know, great on them and whatnot. But we shouldn't be forced to change what we want for our children in schooling because of this risk, right? are trying to avoid this risk, I should say. So, you know, this and they're too scared because they've been told by their teachers, by everybody around them, if you take your mask off, you're in trouble. Or you're going to infect people. Yeah. They're too scared and they're too young.

They don't have the life experiences yet to say, doesn't matter. I don't feel good right now. I'm removing myself from this situation. Listen, at 17, you don't have the life experiences. I did, we all did stupid shit at the age of 17 to probably 25. Yes. I'm not saying that you don't have enough to make your own choices. I think we've made it pretty clear in our country that at 18, you get to vote,

you get to join the army, you get to do a bunch of things, you get to drink, I mean, in parts of it, certainly 19, but you get the general consensus. in school we deem kids young and therefore ill-equipped to make giant decisions but right now we're acting like they can yeah that's been the last two years probably been longer than that there's probably parents that'll tell me that's been the last decade that we keep putting more and more uh of life-altering choices on children now that's a conversation for a different time where we're at right now is we have kids that are being put in places where we've deemed what we're doing is safe. And we've just talked about it for now for an hour,

that what we deemed as safe is actually causing risk. And that risk can and will affect kids all over the country, not just here. Because rural busing is a thing in this country, because our country is big and wide and spread out, which means you bus for a long time. that's that's what it is yeah so this is something that all parents across the province across the country should poke their head up and go oh man that is unnerving yeah because like me they

probably never realized that that was even a consideration of a risk yeah like I said before I'd never even crossed my mind and and not only do we have to enact change here but we have to make people aware so that so that they know that this is a risk like you know if you drink and drive that there is a very big risk there or if you smoke a pack of cigarettes yes exactly so people need to be aware of risks and this is not even something that was even like I said I wouldn't even consider it I don't think I don't think most parents would consider it we just rationalized yeah that makes sense like they're gonna like I can just hear my brain thinking about it right yeah yeah so this was this was not me going on a, you know, a rampage against masking. And from, you know,

the start with this, we've, I've done everything I can to, you know, try to keep things moving forward with complying with, you know, mandates, with doing what I can to be, you know, safe in the community. Um, for the most part, I've just kept my head down and continue to work. I haven't made a stink about it. I haven't done, you know, because I believe that we would get through this. I think everybody believes exactly yeah and then this happened

and that's it is now something that is I am so steadfast with that I will have to continue it till the end well I appreciate you coming in and telling your story and where you're at

I'm really like as a parent with the same age kid going through the same experiences as a kindergarten for the first year I'm like really happy to hear everything's okay, right? I think, well, I don't know how I would have had this conversation if it was a different spot. And I don't mean to be more, but I just, I don't know if I could have, like, I probably would have been a blubbering mess. Like I just, it sounds cheesy to say that.

I just, like, to me, the amount of times that I even talk about it, my hair rate, like, it's just, it's so, I can just put myself in your situation and understand that this. is terrifying and I would have never thought about it. Listen, we just rationalized it how many times that we didn't think about it. Regardless, I appreciate you coming in and I will make sure that anybody that reaches out and trying to get a whole of you, that type of thing that we find a way that they can constructively help

with whatever direction this pushes you. Before I let you go, we normally, you know, it's been funny. I've been doing this final segment now for two years, the Crude Master Final Five. And the thing is, as the conversations have evolved, I've just changed it into the final question with Crudemaster. I'm sure listeners have caught on to that. But with you, normally the question I ask is who you'd want to sit down with

to pick their brain like this. But I think in this situation, I'm curious with this direction, direction you're about to head, right, and trying to put pressure on AHS, the government, etc. Who do you want to get in a room with, I think is my final question for you?

Yes. Who can we put the pressure on to come sit and hear this and try and make them, like, they can't dance this, I guess is where I'm at. So who's the person you need to get in front of? And I'd like to see if we, like, for you, I'd like to see that happen, I guess.

Who's the one person? Have you thought about that? Of like, we need to get in front of this person. Yes. Actually, you know, as I've been working through this and starting with, you know, the levels that you would go through and working your way up with discussions with how to move this forward and enact change. And the person that I have my site set on to have an in-person discussion with is, Dr. Hinshaw. 100% it comes down to her and I say that because the government, our government, has given

so much power to AHS to make the decision and that office, you know, the office of public health and that they've slept it off onto them, honestly, they've given her so much power. honestly, they've given her so much power, or that office, that position, so much power to enact these mandates. So I need to have a conversation with her to describe to her the scenario that happened and ask her face to face, what which she had done had the worst happened? and how would she have made it better? And how will she make it so that it doesn't happen again? So I would love to speak with as many people as I can about this,

but I want to have this conversation with her as a mother. I hope she'll listen. I hope she'll take that. I appreciate you coming in and doing this with me and being open about it. Listen, the best case scenario happened, right? Yes. Hudson's okay.

Yeah. Things are great. It does not take away the emotions I see on your face right now. Yeah. As parents, we all have had, I assume, I know from our experience, we've had those scenarios where, you know, if I go back to certain points, It does exactly what is happening to you right now. And so I just really, really appreciate you coming in, sharing it, being open to letting the audience hear what happened, what you're doing.

I think the world needs more people like Brandy to go and draw the line in the sand. I hope it doesn't have to come to the same spot that Hudson got to. Like that's not just that we need more people to take a stance and to say no more like no more. And I'm hoping that, you know, by doing this, it spurs on opening up doors for you to get to the people you need to talk to. Because I think you and the way you've talked today, I have a lot of hope that it's going to do a lot of good. I sure hope so. my job as a veterinarian is advocating for animals and working with their you know their owners on how to you know ensure that they have the best possible life and outcome on a daily basis that's my job

is advocating for them we need to advocate for our children because they can't for themselves yeah so for me this is not a big leap I've been advocating hitting from, you know, my children, my entire, you know, their entire life, I should say. And now we need to take it that much, that step further. Well, thanks again for coming in and doing this.

Thank you for having me. Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe, then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix.

Until next time.