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Each day, Brenda Fraser brings a little container to the Endocrinology Clinic at CHEO that carries a lot of meaning.
There’s a collection of bracelets with beads from the entire colour wheel. They’re called “BRAVE bracelets,” and the endocrinology nurse shares them with children to help them through difficult procedures in the clinic.
The bracelets symbolize resilience and strength, and their name comes from Fraser’s daughter, Erin, whose bravery and dedication to helping others shone bright.
Erin was a talented young musician, a pianist and songwriter who once performed at Ottawa’s Bluesfest. She also busked with her brother and friends, playing music around Ottawa to raise money for various causes.
She never let obstacles silence her passion. At 15, she underwent surgery due to Spondylolisthesis because the condition made her legs go numb when she walked.
That surgery forced her to miss an important music trip to Italy, but she never stopped singing and playing piano.
Two years later, in April 2018, she managed to attend the music trip, this time to Austria.
On the trip, the University of Toronto’s music program presented her with the highest scholarship ever for a first-year student. It was an exciting moment she shared over the phone with her family.
She would also share, in a separate phone call, that she was experiencing a sharp squeezing pain in her side.
The morning after Erin returned home, her mom — who used to work in oncology at CHEO — discovered a large mass. It was solid and didn’t hurt. She knew it was cancer.
Erin was hospitalized that evening and diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma, which often affects young children but rarely teens or adults.
Erin underwent several rounds of chemotherapy that decreased the size of the tumour from a boa constrictor to a caterpillar, her mom said.
During Erin’s treatment, she continued to advance her music education completing her Grade 10 in Royal Conservatory of Music, and she started a piano teaching business in September 2018. She did so while fighting side effects including neuropathy, which affected her ability to walk.
“We were all really hopeful, but by February of 2019 the treatments were no longer stopping the relentless growth of the cancer,” said Fraser.
Sadly, in August of 2019, Erin had a series of grand mal seizures caused by metastasis to her brain. She died the next month at the age of 19.
During her life, Erin would grow out her blonde hair and donate it to make wigs for kids with cancer. Her last donation followed her third round of chemo in 2018 when she had her head shaved.
“She was just a really bright light. She never stopped giving. She was always thinking of others,” said Fraser.
And for many years before Erin became ill, she and her mom would make and sell jewellery to raise money for causes that were important to Erin, including Candlelighters, Operation Smile, Progeria, and to fund a support group for patients with Turner Syndrome, who Fraser sees in the Endocrinology Clinic.
When she returned to work in the spring of 2020, Fraser started making and sharing the bracelets that now carry on her daughter’s legacy. The family also helped create a memorial scholarship to honour Erin, given to two graduating students each year at her former high school, Glebe Collegiate Institute.
Making the bracelets, in Erin’s preferred style, brings strength as her mom copes with the grief of losing her daughter at a young age. She also hopes, through compassionate care, giving the BRAVE bracelets to her patients will also give them strength as they cope with their medical procedure.
“This is something from her, through me, that will help someone else,” Fraser said.
Each time Fraser opens the container of bracelets, kids’ faces light up and she tells them about Erin. Her story is like theirs, from a fear of needles to having to deal with many medical procedures. The bracelets serve as Erin’s way to tell them they are brave.
When kids return for appointments, often injections, the BRAVE bracelets warm Fraser’s heart.
She has also shared her daughter’s legacy across the country by giving bracelets to nurse colleagues at national conferences.