Ellie Ledin (00:06.739)
Welcome back to another episode of the Inheritance of Hope podcast. My name is Ellie and I am really looking forward to having another...
episode from a caregiver perspective and I think this one is going to be a really raw vulnerable conversation of what this this process looks like for so many people and hopefully if you're listening to this this will help you feel a little less alone. So Bill why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story.
Bill Kerner (00:40.45)
Hello, my name is Bill Kerner my wife who recently passed of ALS. Her name was April Kerner. She was diagnosed December 28th of 2022, given six months to live. And we were able to extend it for two and a half years until she finally passed. But I want to let you guys know what it's like being a caregiver.
And especially with somebody with ALS, when she died, she was completely locked in to the point where all she could move was her eyeballs. She couldn't even close her eyes all the way. So it was a long journey. And it was mainly just my immediate family by ourselves doing everything. Really me, because my children, we have three kids, Ryker, eight, Jackson, Ava are twins, and they're about to turn seven.
Ellie Ledin (01:36.917)
Bill Kerner (01:37.166)
It was a journey for all of us, both happy and sad.
Ellie Ledin (01:43.399)
Yeah, I'm sure there's so many mixed emotions in that whole process. But walk us through what that journey was like from when you first found out that she was diagnosed with ALS.
Bill Kerner (02:00.136)
I mean, even before that, before December, her first issues that she started having was earlier in April of right around Easter of 2022. She said that she was feeling leg weakness, but she had a long commute. So she just figured it was gassing back and forth with the traffic around the area. So she.
Didn't really think anything with that until Mother's Day of 2022. We were walking around the mall here in Frederick and she had fallen and she couldn't get back up. We didn't know what was going on. I had to physically lift her up to get her up because she didn't have the leg strength to stand back up when she fell. And that started a whole host of doctors.
started with ortho looking at the knee because she thought it was her knee because that's around where she was feeling the weakness and then Nothing there went to the hip nothing there spine nothing there and Her mother had died two years prior And she had a neurological
issue. when everything was going bad, I said, okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and contact a neurologist because it started in her mom's right leg. And that's the leg that April was having issues with. thinking ahead, I was trying to get in with a neurologist and anybody who knows, anytime you go to see a specialist, you got to at least a one month wait to get in. You can't just show up the next day.
Ellie Ledin (03:24.277)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (03:43.596)
So I had called earlier. I want to say I want to call it in July. And we had a neurological appointment in September of 2022. But in that meantime, she was still falling. She kept falling more and more and more.
Some of the falls were scary where she almost racked her, back of her head on the island that we have in the house. And she would have done that. That would have been bad because she hit it pretty hard and dented the island, the paneling on the island. It broke that. The falls were scary, but in August of 2022, she was on her way to work. She was at a stoplight and her right leg slipped off the brake.
Ellie Ledin (04:08.232)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (04:17.758)
Okay.
Bill Kerner (04:29.918)
And thank God it was at the stoplight. So she couldn't lift it up to get back on and she hit the car in front of her. So it was August 3rd of 2022 was her last day of work. She went out on disability. And then we got into neuro the following month. And that started a slow process. It was faster than most, but still slow of different tests.
the amount of blood tests that she had. Just an absurd amount because they couldn't figure it out. They were talking about Guillain-Barre and other type of neurological and muscular things. One of the guys I worked with, his sister was a nurse at Hopkins, or is a nurse at Hopkins, and she was able to get us into a neurologist at Hopkins. And that was the first time anybody had said anything about.
ALS and that right there the wheels on the car just screech because everybody knows anybody who knows anything about ALS knows that's a death sentence there's no cure there's no there's drugs to help kind of slow the progression but it's just buying you a little bit of extra time it's not really stopping the disease at all and they said that we got set up with an EMG which is where they take and they put needles in
Ellie Ledin (05:33.3)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (05:56.364)
you and then they zap your muscles to get feedback from it. She only had her legs done and they came back bad but it was so weird that they weren't sure what it was. And this was in November. She was still able to walk at that point. By late November, early December she was unable to walk. One of the last things she got to do was where she could still enjoy herself so to speak.
Ellie Ledin (06:09.332)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (06:24.974)
was with my company Chinook. They had a Christmas party. She got to go to that. I pushed her in a wheelchair and we did that. That was our last.
like date, I guess you could say, that we had. shortly after that, we, her birthday, December 19th of 2022. I had got her up to use the bedside commode, because we had one in the living room, because at that point she couldn't walk. I didn't know what a Hoyer lift was. So I was physically lifting her to put her on the...
Ellie Ledin (06:39.252)
Sure.
Ellie Ledin (07:02.068)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (07:06.442)
the commode if she needed it or anything. She was still able to lock her left leg and help me with that. But she, when I got her back up, she said that her leg had popped and she can't put any weight on it. I said, okay, well, we gotta go to the hospital.
Ellie Ledin (07:15.188)
Thank
Bill Kerner (07:27.022)
because I can't just, I need a little bit of help to lift because lifting a body is much different than lifting weights or anything like that. And with all the falls and stuff like that, I've, I learned how to pick her up. Usually it was finding leverage and stuff, but trying to lift her and move her from one spot to another, I couldn't do on my own. So we went to the hospital. They started working her leg. They did some blood work. Her CO2 levels were through the roof. This was December 19th. And then
Ellie Ledin (07:31.988)
you
Bill Kerner (07:57.1)
By December 25th on Christmas Day, I had taken each one of the kids up to the hospital. Santa visited the hospital and left a package for each one of them so she could participate in Christmas with them. We were leaving with my oldest, Riker, when the nurse said that they were getting ready to transport her to Hopkins. So we went up to Hopkins that night. The kids went off with some family members and I stayed at Hopkins with April. And on December 28th,
Ellie Ledin (08:01.396)
you
Ellie Ledin (08:06.493)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (08:27.024)
of 2022, we were given life changing news. We were told that she had a end stage ALS and they gave her six months to live. They were ready to trach her there because her CO2 levels were so high, but because she was able to have a conversation like we are, they kind of backed off on that, but they were forcing the BiPAP on her, which is like a CPAP, except it helps bring in air and out air at the same time.
Ellie Ledin (08:47.604)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (08:57.55)
to help bring the CO2 levels down. She was having trouble with that because she's the most claustrophobic person I ever met. She couldn't even wear like goggles without freaking out.
Ellie Ledin (09:07.476)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (09:12.468)
having a CPAP mask on because in the hospital they don't have nasal pillows or anything like that. have one of two style masks. Either a full face mask where covers your mouth and nose or it just covers your nose. She couldn't do that. I have a CPAP and I have nasal pillows so I asked the doctor if I could give her one of my fresh sets and they said yeah and she was able to do that and she learned how to sleep with it and that brought things down.
Ellie Ledin (09:23.06)
.
Ellie Ledin (09:34.644)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (09:41.326)
During that time, like I said, I was staying at the hospital with her. We spent New Year's in the hospital and we didn't come home until, I want to say January 11th or 12th of 2023. And at that time I was still trying to be on site at work with my job.
When I got there, the guys were talking to me about it. told them what was going on. Unbeknownst to me, they started to go fund me at one point. And they raised money to send us to Disney for a big trip. I'm so, so appreciative to my friends, Billy and Danny, for doing that because that was the last big family trip we were able to take. And Disney World, that was...
Ellie Ledin (10:12.752)
Bill Kerner (10:34.53)
her favorite place to be, that was her. That was like her being a kid again. She loved every moment of Disney. So being able to do that because my friends thought, man, they have big hearts and they were able to do that. We got one last big trip.
Ellie Ledin (10:43.25)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (10:51.742)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (10:56.814)
but that was in april she could still move her arms so she was able to drive her wheelchair around but she was on a bipap at that point twenty four seven and at that point we'd also gotten entered into well she got entered into a an expanded access program for a drug called tophrosyn which is a lumbar injection
some type of medication that for her version of ALS, let me back up a little bit, the version of ALS she had, there's multiple versions, every patient is individualized. So what worked for her doesn't mean it's going to work for somebody else vice versa. But she had SOD1, is supergoxin gene 1. That is a familial version of it, which we didn't know at the time.
Ellie Ledin (11:54.196)
you
Bill Kerner (11:56.696)
there is a familial risk of that. But when we got entered into that expanded access, it was up in Boston and we live in Maryland. So every two weeks I was renting a hotel up in Boston right across from Mass General. Spending in four days there because it was one day up. Next day was the injection. Next day was recovery.
day after was back down. every two weeks we were doing that. Then we went to Disney, we got back from Disney, did that again. And we did that through May. So was end of March, April, May, busy just running back and forth. Then in June, I can't remember the day, but it was June of 2023. She wound up having trouble breathing. But at this point, her voice was also getting lower.
Ellie Ledin (12:26.228)
you
Bill Kerner (12:52.238)
Her voice wasn't strong. It was more like a whisper like that instead of like this and that that that was odd we didn't know what it was just kind of Let things go which we probably shouldn't know but there was nothing that could have been done anyway But I took her to the hospital again. They gave her an x-ray and only the upper lotion or the upper portion of lungs the upper lobes
Ellie Ledin (12:59.07)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (13:21.998)
were still open. So her lungs were collapsing. She had respiratory failure and they sedated and intubated her. She was in a medically induced coma for about four days, intubated. And then they, they,
put the trach and the feeding tube in at the same time. It took her another couple days to kind of come out of that and wake up before she could use her eye gaze device again. And this was late June, early July of 2023. And that's when things drastically changed. Because I thought it was hard taking care of somebody who couldn't physically move like we could. But...
She still had some function like in her arms and stuff where she could help. She couldn't do much because I was feeding her by that point in time as well. She, at that point, before we got out of the hospital, I was told she needs 24-7 care. So I no longer went to work. They allowed me to start working from home. Thank God for Shinook. They have stood by me the entire time and allowed me to work from home.
Ellie Ledin (14:36.98)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (14:38.676)
so I could take care of my family and I'm forever grateful for that because without their support I would have done it but we would have been in dire straits. We would have lost everything because I wasn't able to work and no matter where I went for help to help me I got shut down every step of the way where I thought family and things like that would come not so much especially after
Ellie Ledin (14:48.702)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (15:06.766)
the trach, because that adds a whole new level of everything. But from that, April still found strength. She's from her hospital bed. When she woke up in July of 2023, she started planning the twins birthday, because their birthday is mid-July. So.
Ellie Ledin (15:23.86)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (15:27.118)
She got a bounce house, she got everybody together, got everything going. And when she got out of the hospital a week before, not even a week, like four days before, everything was set up, everything was planned that she did through her hospital bed with just her eyes using the eye gaze device. Yeah, she was an amazing woman. She was one of the strongest people I have ever met in my life. I don't know if I would have chosen the traits.
Ellie Ledin (15:30.484)
Thank
Ellie Ledin (15:42.472)
Well, that's incredible.
Bill Kerner (15:57.012)
knowing that she can't move or anything because her arms were still sort of moving. She still had her smile and she could still move her face and things like that. But that was going. We got home, we celebrated everything. I thought we were going to have more support. Obviously we didn't. So my game plan changed and I
bought a bed so I could sleep, well I started with cots and stuff so could sleep next to her. We had a hospital bed. In the back room I changed the dining room out from the dining room to a makeshift bedroom. I wound up buying a bed so could sleep next to her still and take care of her. Then the bed didn't work out for her. She didn't like the bed so I bought a recliner. And then we moved into the living room.
She stayed the recliner was her area from pretty much July of 2023 up until the day she died. She loved that recliner. I bought a pull out couch so I could stay with her. Because when you're trach, it requires 24 seven care. It's suctioning because when you clear your throat, you're moving all that mucus and all that out.
She couldn't do that. So she would say, I need suction. And then it's inside the catheter tube that goes down into the trach. So down into the lungs and it's hooked up to like the same type of machine that the dentist used or what you see in the hospital where they take and then you suck all this spit out of your mouth or anything, which had to be done as well. But with the trach, that's pulling it all out of her lungs. And so that was
Ellie Ledin (17:37.843)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (17:52.014)
about twice an hour on a good day. She would need something like that. So that's almost 24-7. So with that, as a caregiver, not only was I her surrogate body, but I did everything I could so she could function properly and not get like a mucus plug or anything like that. the sleep that I did get was broken for two and a half years.
Ellie Ledin (17:54.525)
Wow.
Ellie Ledin (18:00.723)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (18:18.109)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (18:20.118)
I got maybe, if I was lucky, four to five hours of broken sleep at night. Because I was always the last one out, first one up, because I still was taking care of the kids, school. All that was starting back up, taking care of her, taking care of work, fighting insurance, which everybody who's ever had to deal with insurance knows how that's a job in itself. And then for me,
Ellie Ledin (18:45.425)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (18:47.886)
I was always trying to find the next step ahead so I could keep what she would need, I could already have in place. That way her quality of life was as good as it could be. And we managed. It wasn't fun. I wasn't always pleasant because not sleeping, frustrating. I'm watching the woman I love slowly die and being taken from me. So all that played into me. Like I said, I was irritable.
Ellie Ledin (19:12.819)
you
Bill Kerner (19:17.676)
which a lot of caregivers that happens to because you get fatigued and there's caregiver burnout. I didn't know about it until I started researching it, but there's other things where I would start, something would get stuck in my head. Like she's having this problem. How can I solve that? And I couldn't sleep because of that until I got online and I found a way around it. I tried to troubleshoot her the best I could to keep her going. So,
I did absolutely everything I could. And we kept going for like special occasions since she was no longer able to eat after the trach because she couldn't do the trach or the feed, well, what the feed into. For her holidays, I took and ground up her favorite foods or if, for...
Thanksgiving she had what we had just through Thanksgiving. But with that we also did something called pledge reading where I could use a syringe and put like liquid in her mouth and then suction it out so she didn't asphyxiate or anything like that. And for the bigger stuff while she could still chew I did I used cheesecloth.
Ellie Ledin (20:11.624)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (20:20.702)
Okay.
Bill Kerner (20:32.91)
and put like the turkey in it and wrapped it around so I could chew and suck on it to get the flavors of everything. And that worked all the way up until she died. Towards the end I had to kind of like mush it and use my hands to give her the flavors and manipulate her jaw for it. It was small things like that that I tried to do.
Ellie Ledin (20:35.528)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (21:01.3)
you
Bill Kerner (21:03.31)
give her quality of life. We were going good. She seemed good and all that for a good long time. Through 2023, December-ish is when I found Inheritance of Hope, which wound up becoming a real big part of our lives. was one of those nights I was looking for resources, trying to find anything I could find help for at home
because there's nothing for in-home care. If you have a job, a house, any type of asset or anything like that, I have emails from Delegate Kerr from Frederick, Maryland, Delegate Shetty from Montgomery County, Maryland.
And I was also in contact with Delegate Pena who's in charge of Maryland Health Department. There's nothing for anybody in our case because it's all financial based. So I couldn't afford to quit working because I had my little ones to provide for. But I'm also doing everything I can to take care of my wife. They don't care about that in Maryland. They care about your financials. So I couldn't afford everything. Because you go from two incomes to one income. That's...
Ellie Ledin (22:10.324)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (22:14.708)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (22:19.52)
a huge difference. couldn't get help so that's things that I was doing. I'm sorry I lost track. What did I say before?
Ellie Ledin (22:34.307)
Well, I feel like, you're just kind of sharing the story. Do you want to walk through, like the, maybe the last few months?
Bill Kerner (22:46.048)
Yeah. Okay. it was in February where we got the additional help. I found out, because I'm a veteran, I was able to get my disability raised. wouldn't have looked into it if I didn't find out about a program called CHAMPVA, which is essentially like the veteran benefit healthcare that I get. But
it's for your family members. So my wife, my kids, they all have Champ VA. Except they can use the community. And through Champ VA, I was able to get 24-7 care for her, finally. So February of this year, we started to reconnect. Because when you're in the caregiver role, it's completely different than husband or wife or just the regular spouse role. Because...
As a spouse, you can feel and say, okay, well, you don't want to do this because it's uncomfortable. Whereas a caregiver, like one of things she hated was the chest vest. The chest vest, it vibrates and hits you to move the mucus and stuff like that around. It's like a big life vest with motors. She hated it because it messed with the trach and all that and it ran for about a half hour.
Ellie Ledin (23:58.685)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (24:10.784)
As a caregiver, you have to kind of force that on because you know, and it was things like that. But with that, with having nurses in 24 seven, that helped me switch from a caregiver role to that loving husband role. Not that I wasn't loving or anything, but it was just a different dynamic. And we were good. None of the nurses or anything like that saw anything coming.
Ellie Ledin (24:14.036)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (24:29.576)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (24:38.926)
And on April 6th, around 7 in the morning, one of the nurses came up to me, because I was still sleeping on the pull-out couch, maybe 10 feet away from her. The nurse was going to give her morning meds. And she said, she's not answering my questions. I thought it was the eye gaze device, because there's a tendency to.
if our dog walked by and knocked into the stand it can move it just a little and the way the eye gaze device works there's lasers on the bottom and that you can't see in the infrared but they constantly flicker across the face mapping the face and then there's a camera I guess it picks up the glint of the laser in the eye and it calculates where it's looking at on the screen so if that gets moved that's a calibrated device so it throws it off and you gotta recalibrate and all that stuff
Ellie Ledin (25:19.508)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (25:28.82)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (25:35.662)
I went over and I'm like, April, you gotta start at least trying or whatever. I get over there and her eyes were unfixed, so looked like she was asleep. I started trying to wake her up and nothing. I grabbed her and smacked her in the face. Not hard, but just trying to wake her up because I didn't know. I grabbed my stethoscope, no heartbeat. So I called 911 and the started CPR. Then we started, I used the Ambu bag on her. The nurse gave her CPR.
Ellie Ledin (25:52.018)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (26:05.454)
The kids were down here sleeping because we did something on the weekends. I always call it a family sleepover. So one of the kids would be up in bed with me. The other two would be around April and they'd rotate. So when all this was going on, they were still asleep. I'm trying to be quiet so I don't scare them. by the time the EMTs got here, she still didn't have a heartbeat. We're still working on her. The kids are waking up. They're seeing everything going on.
Ellie Ledin (26:13.853)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (26:35.458)
the EMTs took over. I pulled the kids into the back room and I remember hugging them and I said mommy might not wake up and just as I said that I heard an EMT say we found a faint heartbeat. I said thank God and my neighbors took the kids so I could go to the hospital and they
And she didn't wake up yet. And I was scared because I saw her eyes. Her eyes were pinpoint, unfixed, and unresponsive to light. So the pupils weren't working, which typically means there's something going on neurologically. And she was at least 10 minutes without oxygen to the brain. So I didn't think she was waking up. I made my calls to everybody and all that. And then by 3 o'clock, because during that time, I found
Ellie Ledin (27:23.475)
you
Bill Kerner (27:34.348)
I went back up and I used my flashlight on my phone just to look at her eyes praying that I'd see something. And there was slow movement. I told the nurse and that got them to come back in because I think they thought she was kind of on her way out too. So they were giving me my time and I was calling her priest to come up and do last rites and all that. Or well, they call it anointing of the sick now. But when I saw that, I told them they got in an ICU room and on the way up to ICU.
Ellie Ledin (27:49.715)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (28:04.096)
she woke up and she was she doesn't remember she didn't remember anything. She couldn't really use her eye gaze device very well. I wound up calling a bridging voice who is an organization that helps with all the communication aspect and a really great organization. And they dialed in set up a new eye gaze board. So instead of having a qwerty keyboard, it would be like a big block.
Ellie Ledin (28:06.109)
Bill Kerner (28:30.786)
and it had ABCD on it, then she would select that, then it would go across with a big block of A, a big block of B, or and so on. And that sort of worked. Then we had little things set up with like, I need suction, I love you, that type of, just random phrases that were frequent so she could look. And she wasn't very accurate with that. And she had three wishes that she wanted to keep. She wanted to be cognitively functional, which.
Ellie Ledin (28:33.523)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (28:39.411)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (28:48.167)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (28:59.542)
I get she wanted a way to communicate and she wanted to be home. There were three demands that she had to keep fighting. And after this, I didn't know where she was cognitively because she was having trouble communicating. There were times where she was coherent and times where she wasn't. And a couple days later we came home. They didn't know what caused it or anything like that. Through my research, what I believe it was,
and very advanced in late stages of ALS. When the autonomic nervous system gets hit, it can cause things like an autonomic storm, causing like a circulatory collapse and things like that, if I understand the research that I did on my own, because there was a lot of nights where I was studying on ALS. And when we got home for that month, I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out if she was there, because if not...
Ellie Ledin (29:42.385)
Mm.
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (29:56.755)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (29:57.898)
In order to maintain her wishes, I would have had to call a hospice in. And if you're on a vent with hospice, they disconnect the vent and give you, they call it a dignified removal. They give you drugs so you don't feel it or anything and then let you pass naturally. Because unless your lungs pick up, they weren't going to pick up if that happened. Luckily, towards the end of April, like the last week of April of this year,
she was able to get a little more functional where I could put my hands up and she could look. Like I'd say, my right hand means yes, my left hand means no. There'd be about a 30 second delay from whatever question I asked to the answer. And she was able to do that. so I knew that she was still sort of there and she said that she was there and she started getting better.
Ellie Ledin (30:53.876)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (30:56.354)
with her eye gaze device also in early May, which gave everybody hope. I'll never forget because it hurt when she said it, but she said, Bill, I'm still here. Don't give up on me.
Ellie Ledin (31:14.665)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (31:17.922)
That wasn't my plan. I didn't want to give up on her, I wanted to maintain what her wishes were. Because she didn't have much of a quality of life except what we could provide.
and
She thought that I was giving up. I wasn't.
But then later, she was doing good and she was getting better. And then she started having like a downturn. It was Memorial Day weekend of this year. Something similar happened. The kids were down, we were watching TV and the nurse was with the same nurse that we had on the 6th of April was here. They were doing flexation so they were moving our limbs and stuff around.
at this point i had a wrist monitor that went around her thumb and it would show me her heartbeat and her uh... action levels as an early warning so april six didn't happen again without advance knowledge. i had an ipad set up so no matter where you were you could watch the monitor. and she was having a little bit of issues she was going from ninety five to eighty nine with her
Ellie Ledin (32:22.804)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (32:35.862)
O2 levels I just got up getting ready to suction while the nurse was doing the flexation and then all of sudden everything just dropped and I'm like okay this looks like there's a problem because with the like the oxygen stuff that they put on your fingers and that can you can move or have something move so I didn't think anything when everything stopped and I grabbed my spare one that I had because I had two of them that way when one is charging we could keep her monitored
put it on the same thing, okay maybe it's just the hand so I switched it over to the other hand, nothing, I looked back and I saw her skin color turn gray and the eyes have a very telling way of when you're not there anymore
and I told the nurse, said we need to call 911 and start CPR immediately, which is what we did. Once again, I started with the AMBU bag while the nurse was doing compressions. I was having trouble with the AMBU bag, so I knew that there was a plug or something in there, but I was still able to squeeze so there was oxygen getting to her. Then we switched off, the nurse did that, and then I started with the CPR. Again, I used a stethoscope to verify that there was no heartbeat. Called EMTs, the nurse and
Ellie Ledin (33:37.812)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (33:51.84)
I did CPR for about 10 minutes. The EMTs did it for another 15 to 20 minutes.
At one point the AMBU bag got too much. It wouldn't squeezed anymore So they said do you know how to change her trach? I said I've seen it many times I'll do it because they don't the EMTs either didn't know how or they did they didn't feel comfortable doing so I undid the cuff pulled out deflated or I ended the collar deflated the cuff pulled it out grab my new one and nurse wound up doing a quick push in
And from there, they were able to squeeze the AMBU back in. The plug moved. And her heart started back up. But we couldn't tell what was going on with her. She was still kind of out. We went to the hospital and she was still non-responsive or anything like that. I noticed in her mouth that there was an extra liquid and I used the suctioning at the hospital. And I wound up pulling out a huge plug that was in, that got...
Ellie Ledin (34:59.976)
Wow.
Bill Kerner (35:00.63)
from CPR I dislodged and shot up into her throat once the trach was removed. And we waited, waited, nothing, nothing. They put her up in the ICU. Her heart rate was up, her blood pressure was up. She was stable, I guess you could say, but still not awake. They sent her for a CT. They came back. The doctor told me that she had...
hypoxic injury which is due to lack of oxygen to the brain and it's pretty large apparently because the doctor said if she doesn't regain cognitive function in 72 hours she's gonna be in a persistent vegetative state and that April never wanted that I don't want that for her or anybody else because you're not alive at that point you exist but you're not alive and
Ellie Ledin (35:49.16)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (35:56.824)
from that I started noticing her eyes start dancing around and I told the nurse that and they said they're seizures but because she couldn't move her muscles her muscles didn't work that was the only way that you could tell and the seizures became more more frequent by now it's four or five in the morning it was
Ellie Ledin (36:07.284)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (36:19.15)
the 23rd, 9 o'clock on the 23rd of May when all this started. It's the 24th of May, around four or five in the morning when the seizures became more frequent and longer. I remember there was one that went on for about 10 or 15 minutes and then time just kept progressing. And you could just see the eyes jumping around. I was afraid she was in pain.
Ellie Ledin (36:36.606)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (36:44.742)
And just as I was ready to talk to the doctor, the doctor was coming to talk to me. And I said, we need to call it. It's time. I need to get hospice involved because I don't want her to suffer. She's clearly not there. The damage was done too much. So I called my neighbors around six or seven in the morning. They brought the kids up so they could say their goodbyes.
Each one of the kids climbs up onto the bed.
Bill Kerner (37:19.436)
I took her hands and she gave them a hug.
They called everybody else. They came up around 9 o'clock in the morning. Hospice came in, did all the paperwork, talked. And then around 11, 30, it was probably a little later than 9 o'clock in morning, but around 11, 30 hospice came in for a final time. And we were all gathered around. They gave her the drugs. They removed the trach and
I could see her heartbeat flex her jaw and as it was starting to get slow I put our wedding song on.
Bill Kerner (38:09.996)
went cheek to cheek and we had one last dance.
Bill Kerner (38:30.902)
I wanted her to go out in comfort.
Bill Kerner (38:35.308)
knowing she was there with people that loved her. I don't know if she was aware, but...
Ellie Ledin (38:43.476)
Hmm
Bill Kerner (38:50.572)
And by 1140 she was gone. Which changed her lives forever. My kids will never truly know their mom. Because when she was diagnosed my oldest was five and my twins were four. So they didn't really have a whole lot of time knowing who she was.
All she wanted to do was have kids.
Bill Kerner (39:20.94)
Her biggest goal was to be a mom.
Bill Kerner (39:27.34)
That's a lot of our story. There are harder times, or not harder, but there are different things that happen and all that. We just didn't think that it was gonna happen that fast. Because once you go on a trach, it takes kind of ALS off the table. it still rears its ugly head. Yeah, that was the last few moments of her life.
Ellie Ledin (39:51.988)
you
Ellie Ledin (39:57.46)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (39:58.166)
hope she passed in comfort
Ellie Ledin (40:02.419)
It sounds like she did. Being with you all and getting that song and the last dance was... Yeah. Probably can't pick a better way to end that part of the story as with the people she loved most.
Bill Kerner (40:26.318)
The kids weren't there for that part. Once the hugs were done, they went back. didn't want... It's enough that I got to live with it. I don't want... I thought... One of her favorite days was our marriage. So I put me and you by Kenney Chesney on and we danced one last time.
Ellie Ledin (40:28.436)
Okay. Okay.
Ellie Ledin (40:36.38)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (40:54.036)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (40:59.086)
I forgot to mention in October we got to do the Nashville Legacy and up until she died that was one of her favorite things that she got to do. She's always wanted to go to Nashville and thanks to Inheritance of Hope we were able to. She got to go to I can't think of the Grand Old Opry.
Ellie Ledin (41:14.066)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (41:25.64)
And that has always been on her bucket list, so to speak. So she got to see that. That was awesome. thank you guys for everything that you do. Through the ALS support group that she was on, the caregiver group, everything that you guys offer, we've tried to take advantage of. And it helps immensely. not, I know it sounds, after everything that I've said,
Ellie Ledin (41:29.064)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (41:46.804)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (41:52.931)
probably sounds untrue, I'm usually not an emotional person. I'm more stoic. I come from being raised. Men don't feel. Men provide. They suck it up and they move forward. So that's what I've always had. Through the caregiver group and things like that, it's allowed me to kind of shed that and deal with emotions.
Ellie Ledin (42:10.516)
you
Bill Kerner (42:20.686)
It's helped a lot. I didn't think I'd ever want to do or participate in anything like that. But once I started, it was very therapeutic. And I can't thank your organization enough for what you provide to those who are going through a hard time. Because I know I felt like I was on an island by myself with nothing. And then I get into the groups and I start hearing the stories that
Ellie Ledin (42:28.2)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (42:50.496)
are very, very similar to ours. Different terminal illness, but caregiving is caregiving. And that helped me a lot. And it's helped a lot of us a lot. So for that, we're very thankful.
Ellie Ledin (42:56.724)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (43:04.276)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (43:08.148)
Well, first off, thank you for sharing that story and all of its rawness. think people listening will resonate with that because when you're talking about something as atrocious as ALS, that's not something that's pleasant. Like that has grief and sorrow. And so showing up to the conversation with grief and sorrow feels so appropriate.
And I don't know, do you know Miguel Tolentino? Yes. Yeah.
Bill Kerner (43:40.194)
Yes, he's in the caregiver group. He's one of my buddies we text and stuff.
Ellie Ledin (43:46.389)
He was a previous guest on this podcast and he shared the same thing because he is also a male caregiver who was raised like you don't show emotions, just kind of push through it. And he talked about how the caregiving or caregiver hope at home group through inheritance of hope has just through connecting with people like you shared.
sharing people's stories has opened up, you know, his ability to be emotional and to feel the hard and to process it in a way that he never has before. So it sounds like that's similar to you as well.
Bill Kerner (44:29.506)
very much so and it helps too because all those emotions that you don't deal with a lot of times especially for men come out as anger because I know as a man when I feel those emotions I feel weak and I don't want to feel weak I want to empowered and that I'm not a weak person so it comes out wrongly as anger and but and it's unhealthy too
Ellie Ledin (44:58.196)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (44:58.536)
in doing things like this has helped me realize that about myself as well and be able to deal with things that I normally wouldn't deal with.
Ellie Ledin (45:09.096)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I heard it put one time that emotions in the most simplest way are just indicators. Like if you can view emotions from a non-judgmental place, you can be like, okay, anger is coming up and why? It's because there's grief and there's sorrow and you're missing your person. it's not, anger isn't bad, it's just like indicating like, hey, this is
Bill Kerner (45:32.6)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (45:38.62)
big thing and this requires attention and it's going to come up it's gonna force you to pay attention to it in unhealthy ways unless you just like look at it and are like this is just indicating something that means a lot to me
Bill Kerner (45:52.982)
Yes. And me having two boys after April's passing, one of the things that I've made sure to do to show them that's okay is not run and hide when I can't control myself. Not angrily or anything, but with my sadness.
Ellie Ledin (46:11.316)
you
Bill Kerner (46:15.348)
Anything that triggers a memory or a raw emotion or something like that can affect me. I've been depressed since her death. It's just sadness. And I want them to know that that's okay to feel. It's not like somebody takes a toy or something like that. This is real. This is okay. You loved your mother. And I know I get through it by thinking about how much it hurts now.
Ellie Ledin (46:25.47)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (46:44.674)
But that's only an inverse to the light and the happiness that she added to our life. Now, because we're mourning, we're in darkness and grief and sadness. Like that's only so vast because of the vastness of happiness that she brought. And we know that we won't get that anymore. So that's where that comes from. We wouldn't be emotional now if we didn't have that before.
Ellie Ledin (46:49.652)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (47:00.66)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (47:08.692)
Yeah, it just speaks to how big of a life that April lived and what a great wife and mother and friend she is. And that's, it just shows like the deeper the grief, I think the more, yeah, it shows that how incredible of a person she was.
Bill Kerner (47:32.216)
She was a magnificent person. She's helped out with a local organization, the Berganz Brigade. We did some advocacy work for them.
Berganz Brigade is O.J. Berganz's organization. He was a Ravens player that has ALS. He's vented. He's had it for quite a few years now. They've helped us. They helped us be able to put a ramp in our house and get in and out, or could get in and out. Otherwise, I don't know what we would have done. There's a lot of organizations. And like I said, I'm going to give you a list.
We didn't, as I said, we didn't have any help. I did wind up with some help for four hours a day, four days a week. And that was only because of different organizations that provided grants. And that'll be the list that I give you. And even that, it wasn't full medical care. was a CNA who was trained to do trach care, essentially, and feed. But that was still...
Ellie Ledin (48:29.609)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (48:45.198)
$2,500 on the cheap end of the month. That's an incredible sum of money. And that was only for 16 hours a week. So once we got the 24-7 care, if it wasn't for Champ V.A., we couldn't have done that. That was incredibly expensive. In-home care is so much, and there's no help out there for anybody that I was able to find. And I went down every rabbit hole I could.
Ellie Ledin (48:51.76)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (49:02.494)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (49:14.026)
It's an unfortunate thing because when the families are at their lowest, they need the most help. And when it's not there, you get frustrated.
Ellie Ledin (49:18.9)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (49:23.22)
Yeah.
Yeah, and we were talking before we started recording this episode, but Bill is going to send me a list of the resources that he has found. So if you are listening to this episode and you are feeling, you know, helpless or you don't know where to start for some resources, we're going to put that in the show notes. So please look at that and yeah, just kind of piggyback off of all the work that Bill and April have done.
to get support for their family.
Bill Kerner (49:57.33)
In fact, with Frederick Home Health, the people that were coming out into the home to do like the bathing, the assist with bathing, PT, speech and all that, because of insurance, every month we had to play the insurance game until they were ready to stop because insurance were like, can't do that. But I found through my research that there's...
There was a lawsuit that was put up where you can't be denied for maintenance, for like physical therapy or anything like that, just because you're not showing advancement because in some diseases you won't show advancement. They can't do that. It's the GMO lawsuit, I believe, GMO or something like that. And I was able to bring that up and fight with the insurance company. And April and I were able to fight and get together with Frederick Home Health. And we all worked as a team to get...
Ellie Ledin (50:33.973)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (50:48.598)
the in-home care continued without having to get that renewal or anything. In fact, Frederick Home Health, because of the work that we put in, was able to create a maintenance section. And one of the...
Ellie Ledin (51:02.099)
Okay.
Bill Kerner (51:04.414)
people that were coming out told us that there was somebody else in Frederick that they were starting to do and they didn't have to do that fight because we did that fight for him and they were able to set that up and that made April incredibly happy that her journey was able to help somebody else going through the same journey.
Ellie Ledin (51:14.229)
you
Ellie Ledin (51:23.561)
Yeah, I'd love for you to share more about that because again, before we were recording, you were sharing like some of your hopes and how you're kind of channeling all of the grief and lessons that you've gone through through this journey into this purpose and this passion. yeah, talk a little bit about that.
Bill Kerner (51:45.676)
Yes. April, she had a big heart and she wanted to help as many people as she could. We wound up working with an organization called Bridging Voice who helped us from everything from voice banking. It's where you have a conversation like this, you record your voice and then it gets synthesized. So when you no longer have your voice, it goes onto a computer and then
The original one was close, but it had the robotic monotone sound, so it was talking straight through kind of like that, where it misses the natural inflection of the voice. They were coming out, they were doing a collaboration with another organization called Eleven Labs, and April volunteered to be a beta tester for it.
Ellie Ledin (52:21.653)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (52:36.458)
So they synthesized her voice from recordings that we had of different videos, the recordings that we did for the voice banking, and it synthesized her actual voice. It had all her inflections and all that. And that was awesome. To my understanding, they based a lot of the licensing for the amount of characters that get used a month.
off of her because she used the eye gaze a lot because she was able to with chat GPT which they also integrated into their the Tobii the eye gaze device she would create stories for the kids and things like that and be able to read them with her voice the first time she ever heard it she started crying because it was her mean she she wanted to help people even when she couldn't help herself she wanted to still help people
Ellie Ledin (53:09.471)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (53:20.821)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (53:35.998)
and I want to help those who can't help themselves either because when you're going through this you have a finite amount of time. Life in general is finite but this is even more so instead of trying to find all these resources due and
all this extra leg work and all that, trying to find what you need, knowing what you need, or knowing what you might need, or knowing where to find it. You shouldn't have to do that. There should be a resource for you to do that. And one day, once I get myself back to normal, and we find our new normal, I want to create...
in an organization called April's Army and it's going to be to help the person afflicted but also their family. Trying to find the resources for in-home help. Trying to find where Foyer lifts There are places like you got the big boys on the block like the ALS Association which I'm not a big fan of because the one here isn't...
They don't help very much. focus more on the future. They don't really have a lot for the patient going through it. So I want to be there for the people and the family going through it. And it's going to be April's Army is what it's going to be called eventually. And I want to do that in honor of her and the help that she wanted to provide to others.
Ellie Ledin (55:00.221)
I love that.
Bill Kerner (55:08.394)
She did interviews with ABC News to help try to promote the 11 Labs voice with Bridging Voice. We did back to school campaigns for the Brigands Brigade. Anything that we could do to help bring light onto ALS because it's not as talked about. I mean, if you follow baseball, you've heard of Lou Gehrig and Lou Gehrig's disease. A lot of people know that. If you've seen...
Stephen Hawking's, that's what he had for 50 years. He lasted, think, the longest of anybody who's ever had ALS. But you don't get a real sense until it's right there in front of you. And you watch that person go from a whole person, like you or I, to a shadow of themselves. You watch them slow. Well, in her case, it was a little bit faster. But in some cases, it's very slow progression. And you see them.
Ellie Ledin (55:44.149)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (56:03.648)
not be the person who you knew them to be because it changes you as a person. You're going through all that. I want to give a shout out to all the caregivers that are out there doing it because all you're doing is showing the unconditional love that you have for the person that you're caring for because you wouldn't do it if you didn't love them because you're giving up yourself, your time, your whole essence especially with ALS when they're locked in and they can't move. You give up everything.
for that person and that's not something you would do unless you had unconditional love for that person. it's all the caregivers out there take a moment and pat yourselves on the back for being outstanding people that put selflessness first. Because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of unthanked work. Not that we're looking for thanks or anything like that, but it's...
Ellie Ledin (56:50.057)
Yeah.
Ellie Ledin (56:56.873)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (57:00.211)
you do everything you can for that person that you love and you care about.
Ellie Ledin (57:04.297)
Mm.
Yeah, and that was so evident through everything you were sharing, like even making sure that she got the taste of holidays with the rest of the family, even though it was these extra steps. But the fact that, you know, you did those things, I'm sure that's just one of many examples of all of the steps that you took to go out of your way to make sure that April was still like an active part of your family, got to enjoy these things in a very different way. But I
think that's what was just so touching to hear the selflessness and the commitment to someone that you committed to spend the rest of your life with and to step into that marriage covenant together. You really showed that in now being a dad of three. just throughout the whole story of everything you sharing.
I just was struck by the fact of how much the sense of identity probably shifted so much from like you are working and now you have to work from home. You're part of a two income family. Now you're down to a one income family. Now you are not just a husband, you're a caregiver. And now you're, you know, a single dad of three. There are so many things.
that takes so much resiliency. I know I want to be aware of our time, but how has your wife's journey with ALS affected your sense of identity?
Bill Kerner (58:39.544)
Well, during the journey, I lost my identity because I became her identity. I was her surrogate. So through that, I saw where I was and I went from who I was before to who I am now. I was broken throughout everything and now I'm rebuilding myself. And what I want to rebuild myself is a better person.
to honor her. Not saying that I was a dirtbag or anything like that, but I was very...
Bill Kerner (59:19.628)
not self-centered, but just worried about our small little corner of the world and us, where this opened me up to other struggles. And I want to help people get through those struggles. I want to be somebody that can be relied on to help and show, help give strength to somebody else. Cause I needed that. And I found that through inheritance of hope. And I want to be able to...
Ellie Ledin (59:42.133)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Kerner (59:48.098)
help do that and give back what I was able to get. Because the worst thing that I found is when you're doing it all by yourself and that isolated alone feeling it makes you feel so much worse. I want to be...
person that helps take that away. And that's what I'm trying to become now. And that's why I've been trying to do everything I can to help and advocate and do things like this podcast. Cause I want to get not just her story out there and keep her alive and her memory alive, but let somebody know who was like me where I don't need support group. I can just put my head down and keep muscling through. No, you can't. It's going to kill you.
Ellie Ledin (01:00:07.252)
Mm-hmm.
Ellie Ledin (01:00:33.512)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (01:00:33.55)
It's going to eat you alive and it's going to become very unhealthy. at one point I was pretty close to having a heart attack. My blood pressure was extremely high. was like 170 over 105 just on a normal basis. They were worried about me and I wound up, for my family I realized in order for me to take care of my family I got to take care of myself. Because if something happens to me...
Ellie Ledin (01:00:51.06)
you
Bill Kerner (01:01:01.752)
what happens to my kids, what happens to April when she was alive. So it made me refocus too, kind of on me to help rebuild me as a better person to take care of myself now where I didn't care before. It was just all about them, where it's still about them. But it made me realize I need to look at me as well.
Ellie Ledin (01:01:24.646)
Yeah.
That's exactly what Miguel Tolentino said. He had in the caregiver group at for Hope at Home groups, someone told him like you need to start taking care of yourself because that if you take care of yourself by extension, you are taking care of your family because if you are not well, your family like how are you supposed to show up to your family? So I'm so glad that you have found so much support and community through those Hope at Home groups.
and I really hope that anyone listening, a caregiver or someone with ALS or anything like you look go to the show notes and click on the Hope at Home link and and get plugged in because there are groups that are free, there are weekly meetings to connect with people who get it and this is such a great example of the impact of it and the support you can receive from it so
You've mentioned like the resources were obviously really tight as you're navigating this. So I would love to hear for people who have donated to Inheritance of Hope to make these resources free, like what impact has their generosity had on you personally?
Bill Kerner (01:02:44.896)
I can tell you, I hit a real low point at one time before I was really involved with Inheritance of Hope. So just being by myself in November of 2023, I could feel myself going into a darkness to the point where I wanted to go get checked out in the hospital because I wasn't with everything going on. I was just being
grabbed and pulled down by the darkness, I guess you could say. But I couldn't because of obvious reasons, because we didn't have any help or real support or anything. fast forward to, we started getting involved, but I wasn't really too involved, because I was still, I don't really need this. I was showing up and doing it and just kind of sitting back for the first few watching it. And I got close to doing something stupid at one point.
Ellie Ledin (01:03:19.571)
Yeah.
Bill Kerner (01:03:45.422)
taking a bottle of pills because I didn't know how to handle it or anything like that. But I never talked about it in the caregiver group or anything. This is first time I've said it publicly. But it was through starting to participate and talk and all that through the caregiver group and then other people coming in with ALS and me being able to give my resources, which helped give me a new sense of purpose.
Ellie Ledin (01:03:55.861)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (01:04:13.013)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (01:04:14.998)
And I feel horrible that I got to that point because April's here trying to fight and I was willing to give it all up because I couldn't deal with it myself because I was trying to internalize and keep everything in. But because of Inheritance of Hope, it gave me a way to let a pressure release valve, so to speak, and let all that just go. And it's literally a lifesaver because I was in a real dark place.
Ellie Ledin (01:04:34.485)
you
Bill Kerner (01:04:46.062)
A lot of it has to do with not just my kids or anything because they helped. Those thoughts kept me here too, but knowing that I had a place and then I started really participating and it saved my life, literally. I believe it helped keep April going as well too because in ALS support group, you become bonded to everybody.
Ellie Ledin (01:05:00.405)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (01:05:15.43)
And it's something that you look forward to. Because when you're going through all this, there is a lot of dark times, a lot of scary times. And that is like your little beacon of hope. Like, OK, next Thursday I know I have this. This week's been horrible. But at least I know I have this. I can put it out and listen to the love and the feedback from the people who actually do care about you, who are going through something similar. It is.
very meaningful and it's a spiritual bonding. I through everything, I reclaim my spiritualness as well. April did as well too, through everything. It's been, it's undescribable. I don't have words to say what inheritance of hope has done for us and just feeling, cause the kids,
Ellie Ledin (01:05:55.913)
Hmm.
Bill Kerner (01:06:12.984)
They get upset if they miss the kids group. They love it. They're always on it. If we're home, they're always on it. Now it's a little different because we can leave the house now or before we couldn't. So it's things like that. But Inheritance of Hope is always, always, always going to have a special place in my heart and the kids heart. And again, we thank you for everything that you guys do. Without you guys, I...
Ellie Ledin (01:06:15.455)
Hmm.
Ellie Ledin (01:06:27.093)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (01:06:35.701)
you
Bill Kerner (01:06:41.73)
things could have taken a really bad turn. Because there was no other support groups or anything. And I've attended other support groups with different places and stuff. This one, the way that it's organized, the layout, the structure, as a metaphor, it's like Cinderella's slipper. And you guys are a glass slipper to a lot of families.
Ellie Ledin (01:06:45.717)
you
Ellie Ledin (01:07:09.141)
Mm.
Bill Kerner (01:07:10.23)
And for that, thank you. I'm indebted to the organization itself.
Ellie Ledin (01:07:15.317)
Hmm.
Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that and leading with such vulnerability because I guarantee you are not the only person who's been in that position and people listening to this episode. If you are in that position, I hope this story is, and Bill's vulnerability is the reason for you to seek this community and to know that this is a fight worth showing up to.
So I just really...
I love inheritance of hope. love that these support groups exist and to hear the impact of it is just so special. So thank you for sharing your story. I want to talk to you so much more. I feel like you could have your own podcast to talk all about this. Just planting that seed. Maybe that's next thing. But I want to end the podcast with a question we ask everyone is whose legacy has impacted you in the way that through their life, through their death has been so
influential in your life that you continue on in their legacy.
Bill Kerner (01:08:23.054)
I'm going have to that it's definitely April because of how kind, generous, full of love and happiness she was. She was all about her family. She went through hell because I can only imagine your body being in prison because your brain works just fine. And for her to want to sacrifice that much just for a little extra time to be with the kids and me, I...
that she's definitely, like I said, the strongest person. Like I said, I served and I would take her to war with me in a heartbeat because she was there for you. She was all about the person next to her instead of herself. That's... April is definitely that legacy. And I just hope that I can honor her moving forward for rest of my life as she deserves it.
Ellie Ledin (01:09:16.117)
Mm.
Ellie Ledin (01:09:24.371)
Yeah. Well, I, I'm already seeing that and I know the loss has been really recent and I, I am already seeing just from this one conversation with you, how you are intentionally living out her legacy. And I really hope that this new organization can come about maybe a podcast or some way for you to share all the resources that you have because your story is so inspiring and April's legacy is just so huge that I know other people are going to.
feel so impacted by the way that you are living out her legacy now.
Bill Kerner (01:10:00.334)
I appreciate that. Even though she's not here, she's always in my heart and in my mind, just like the kids. I live for them and I lived for her. I'll do anything for them. And I want to do as much as I can for everybody else.
And thank you for everything and thank you for letting me part of this, share April's journey and story.
Ellie Ledin (01:10:33.43)
Thank you.
