Beyond Brave
Meet Kyla and Lyle Thomson, co-hosts of Beyond Brave. As parents to Bella Brave, who inspired the world with her courage, they spent over a decade navigating her rare medical challenges. Together, they've channeled their experiences into helping others find resilience and healing. On Beyond Brave, Kyla and Lyle share stories of hope, love, and the lessons they've learned—both through Bella's journey and in their everyday family life. Join them as they honor Bella’s legacy and inspire others to find light even in the darkest moments.
Beyond Brave
#07 - Q&A Part 2: Meeting Ryan Reynolds, Halsey, and Other Wild Adventures!
In this episode of Beyond Brave, we share stories about Bella’s journey, including hospital memories, her time with nurses and doctors, and spending Christmas in the hospital. We also talk about Bella meeting Ryan Reynolds at SickKids and getting support from Halsey during her recovery. We cover grief counseling and offer a special discount on Bella Brave merchandise for our listeners.
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Q&A Part 2: Meeting Ryan Reynolds, Halsey, and Other Wild Adventures!
[00:00:00]
Introduction to Beyond Brave
Kyla: Welcome to Beyond Brave. I'm Kyla, and here's where we dive into stories of hope, bravery, and laughter. Millions followed our journey with my daughter Bella, but now it's time to go beyond the headlines and highlight reels to those raw, real moments I haven't shared anywhere else. So are you ready to go beyond brave?
Let's dive in.
Podcast: But if you want it to be perfect, you can make it perfect.
Q&A Session Begins
Lyle: Hey, uh, welcome back to part two of our q and a.
Kyla: Yes. We, I have conjured up some questions and we are going to com. We are gonna touch on all of the questions I had for my Instagram community
Lyle: is this, and so you went on your Instagram mm-hmm .
Kyla: And
Lyle: you said, give us q and a.
Kyla: Yep.
Lyle: Are you doing every single question?
Kyla: Yeah.
Lyle: So no matter what, the next time you put it out there, uh, you will read their question. [00:01:00] This is like, uh, in. Ron Burgundy. Remember Ron? No. What? What's the movie? The Anchorman?
Podcast: Yeah.
Lyle: If you, whatever you put on the t, put a last case of
Podcast: motion, ,
Lyle: whatever you put on the teleprompter, you really, Ron will say
Kyla will, whatever you put in the Q, q and a Kyla will. Hundred percent.
Kyla: Hundred percent.
Themes of the Q&A
Kyla: Well, I, I just, I, so in part one, I had a list of questions there that kind of related to each other, and so. When I looked at like all like 30 to 40 questions I had from my question box on Instagram, I kind of picked some out for part one that kind of meshed together.
And then I picked some out for this part that meshed together. There's
Lyle: themes.
Kyla: Themes. Yeah.
Lyle: Okay.
Kyla: This one is a, this is the first part one. It was a little heavier. Okay.
Lyle: So, oh, was that the heavy, I was going to guess what the themes were.
Kyla: Okay. We'll go.
Lyle: But you don't have a word. Do you have a word attached to it?
Kyla: Yeah. Like the first one was more like marriage and us. And this one is more [00:02:00] memories and Bella.
Lyle: Okay, I guess I won't bother guessing then.
Kyla: Okay. Yeah, I just told you. I'm so sorry.
Lyle: No, I'm glad I don't know why I would try that the pressure is too much anyways.
Kyla: All right Yeah, this one's more light and fun and has to do with memories of our Bella and everything like that They're real good questions.
I really like them and I want to answer them.
Lyle: Okay.
Favorite Hospital Memories of Bella
Kyla: All right We're gonna start off with our favorite hospital memory of Bella I could not think of one. I literally have six written down.
Lyle: That's okay.
Kyla: Do you want me to go through them or do you want to start and see if they're any one of my six favorite hospital memories?
We
Lyle: had one Christmas in Calgary hospital and it was just probably the most special Christmas. I think she was only four and I was so down. No, she might even have been even just three. And I was so down about all of it. I was like really miserable because we couldn't get home to be with our family for Christmas.
And then It
Kyla: would have been our third Christmas in hospital.
Lyle: Was it? Yeah. I don't know why, I [00:03:00] don't know why this one stuck out so much to me. But then with what the Roll McDonald House put on with gifts and activities and really bringing everyone together. And then we decorated Bella's room and she was, maybe she was just more aware about all of it.
She was really into the Christmas activities.
Podcast: Yeah.
Lyle: Uh, it just Turned in this really nice vibe and then at night probably a lot of people don't know it But like if Bella was sleeping well, if she was feeling well, she would have overnight nurse We wouldn't have to stay in hospital every single night if things were going tickety boo.
Podcast: Yeah,
Lyle: and so We got out and we just went and had a totally different Christmas than any other Christmas. And we remember we went out and
Kyla: we
Lyle: did like, tried different drinks at a
Kyla: hotel, a fancy hotel lobby hop.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: Yeah. That was really fun. In downtown Calgary. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Bella was maybe,
Lyle: but she was so, I think she was, yeah, two or three, but she, [00:04:00] it was my first, it was the first time I really saw her getting what Christmas was.
Yeah. She got really excited about the gifts and
Kyla: she dressed up as a little elf. It's cute.
Lyle: I think
Kyla: We decorated. I remember your
Lyle: I remember even how you have videos of them on your phone Even and so that sticks out to me as one memory that I love Yeah, and it's kind of appropriate considering the time of the year.
Kyla: Well, yeah, it is. Yeah good. Yeah, I had yours, huh? Okay, I'm like I couldn't pick just one you guys I got a few I got a few well I'm, not
Lyle: sure that's why that was just one that popped in my head.
Kyla: Okay, maybe more i'll come up as we chat hospital memories There's so many memories. Uh, her being, I remember the first one that came to my head was her, she was around the same time.
She was two, just old enough to like, you know, uh, walk. And of course she learned how to walk later. So yeah, she would have been two.
Bella's Social Nature in the Hospital
Kyla: I remember us walking down the hallways at Alberta Children's Hospital and she was so [00:05:00] social. I mean, this would have been two years on isolation in hospital. This was really her first chance of like walking around and like seeing people in public.
She would not miss a person. She's waved and said, hi. To everyone. And I remember walking down this one hallway back to the unit and was, there was maybe 10 people. Hello. Hi. Hello. And it didn't like, it didn't matter. Like it was everyone and their dog. She would stop and it was so cute. And people would stop and look at her and just be like, Oh my gosh, she's so cute.
Everyone. Uh, another one that was really special for me is when we were living on the oncology unit. So Bella had a bone marrow transplant. We were one of the few on the oncology unit. That was not their dealing with cancer. That was the year or two that we went through Bella's bone marrow transplant.
For her
Lyle: immune system.
Kyla: For her, for having been born with SCID. Yeah. And so she was getting a bone marrow [00:06:00] transplant and we were all in the oncology unit before, during and after. And I remember, so she would have been between the ages of like one and three. And I remember her walking around the unit. And so these are kids that are on strict isolation.
So like the 200 days we had went through on strict isolation, like nobody enters your room unless they are fully gowned, gloved, booties. And it's for a little bit of time there. It was literally only you and me allowed nobody else, not even grandma and grandma. And the
Lyle: rooms were even pressurized like positive pressure.
Yeah. It was like a bubble.
Kyla: There was, yeah. And so you had to limit the amount of people going in and out of the room and the nerves.
Lyle: COVID everyone gets us. They're like, Oh yeah.
Kyla: Oh yeah. This is the, so we, then
Lyle: again, like totally sealed off. Yeah. It
Kyla: was COVID protocol before COVID. This was like 2015, 16.
Anyways. I remember. the faces of the older kids, like the teenagers and the older kids on [00:07:00] that unit living in the same isolation that Bella did, like behind these glass doors that you, you know, it was like walking down a corridor and it's like, you could see the other kids in their rooms and she would walk down this.
Because
Lyle: you would get a minute to, you had to leave your room to go do. You know, uh, an x ray or
Kyla: you
Lyle: get a chance to go maybe to the playroom.
Kyla: You could walk if you, if you were not sick or you were not on isolation, you could walk down the hallway to the playroom. You had to stay on the unit.
Lyle: There's protocols.
Yeah.
Kyla: And I saw her just waving or like tapping on their doors and waving. Cause there was windows like on the bottom of the doors and tops. And these teenagers would like be so happy to see her. And I just, I would talk to some of their parents, and some of them had a chance to talk to me, and they would tell me how this little tiny human, Bella, this little [00:08:00] girl, Was so happy and smiling and they could see her going through what they were going through and they They saw hope and it just gave them hope she gave them hope and she gave them a fight because they saw this little human in the same situation as them and it it It gave them joy, and it gave them hope, and I think that just, that will stay with me forever.
Special Moments with Ryan Reynolds
Kyla: Um, and then there's her telling Ryan Reynolds that her bowel transplant was meh.
Sorry baby, I'm making you cry.
Lyle: No.
Kyla: Uh, that was a, that was a great hospital memory. Ryan Reynolds, which, okay, I need, I keep, you know, uh, what do you call it? Frontin Keep frontin I'm going to ask all these celebs to be guests on our podcast. I actually have to put like that to, to be like, I got to do it.
Lyle: Put the wheels in motion, but
Kyla: the wheels in motion, Ryan, if you hear this, will you be a guest?
This is your first invite. [00:09:00] Uh, so Ryan, in person, that'd be awesome. Uh, so our Blake, I mean, Blake would be, Amazing.
Lyle: Come again?
Kyla: Blake Lively, his wife.
Lyle: Oh, I had no idea.
Kyla: Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So Ryan was right after Bella's bowel transplant, Ryan was in Toronto because he is a huge supporter of SickKids Hospital and that foundation.
And so he, if you haven't seen it, he does commercials that support them and they're really funny and they're really fun. And we've worked with Ryan to help support, uh, SickKids Hospital through his Ugly Sweater campaigns. And so he knew Bella and he, I remember that morning we were in her room and the communications person, SickKids people came into our room and I was like, Hey, and they're like, [00:10:00] uh, Ryan Rentals is here and he wants to see Bella.
Cause we'd only talked to him online before this, like worked with like his people and our people and whatever through our TikToks and stuff. And she's like, but nobody can know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he only has time to see Bella and like one other patient and he, we, you can't say anything because as far as the public knows, he's here shooting a commercial, but he wants to make time for Bella.
The commercial doesn't come out till December. This was in September, August, September, and the commercial didn't come out till December. So I wasn't allowed to say anything for like 4 months. And it was really funny because you, I remember you had just left Toronto. You were literally just getting on the plane.
Podcast: Yeah.
Kyla: And Ryan was coming into our room to say hello. And he came in just to see Bella and it was just the sweetest conversation and, and, uh, he Bella knew exactly who he was and they just had the sweetest [00:11:00] conversation. But a part of that conversation was Ryan asking Bella how her transplant went. She's like, man,
Lyle: she's playing all coy.
Kyla: She's playing coy. It like went amazing. It was awesome. She's happy about it. She went on to like be more chatty and it was just really, really funny. That was a good memory.
Lyle: Yeah. No kidding.
Kyla: Cause Ryan, the way he is just so funny. He like took that and ran. It was just like hilarious conversation after that and made us all laugh.
And
Lyle: yeah,
Kyla: it was great.
Lyle: He, he, I think he knew what he was kind of getting into with her.
Podcast: Yeah.
Lyle: I think that he could play a little, play it up a little bit.
Podcast: Yeah. Like be fun. Yeah.
Lyle: Well, I guess of course, how, of course you're going to be fun. You're at a children's hospital. Oh yeah. What else are you going to do?
Yeah. You have to.
Kyla: Yeah. I'm like, Bella wasn't nervous or anything. She was just, she knew who Ryan was. And so they just like the perfect little chat. It was really cute. I also have on here. Oh, okay. The love she had for her child life team [00:12:00] and remembering the names of all of her medical teams and actually who the boss was, which was Maria and Dr.
Fitzer. I remember her telling people, Maria is the boss, Dr. Fitzer is the boss and she, she would remember names of her nurses and her doctors from all of her care teams. They were a comfort to her and, and just the way she would remember their names, I think, meant a lot. All right. And the way she would remember specific situations, like we'd go in and out of hospital and we'd come back in and it maybe had been a few months and she would remember their face, remember their name and remember a funny situation and bring it up in conversation and make them laugh.
And they'd be like, what? You remember that? I really liked that. Those are, those are really good memories. And then lastly
Lyle: when she was asking the nurse
Kyla: Maria, no Krista.
Lyle: Yeah. And, and she was remembering that when Bella, One of the doctors went in and she quizzed [00:13:00] the doctor. What's your credential? Bella asked, what are your credentials?
Kyla: Yeah, literally. Get
Lyle: in. What are you doing? Find somebody who knows
Kyla: what they're doing. I want Dr. Ravitzer. Just like, find You're not the boss. Find someone who wasn't in that
Lyle: moment. Was she joking or was she, I think she was joking around though.
Kyla: Well, there was someone, she was joking, but there was someone she wasn't.
She was like, I'm not putting up with you. You don't cause sometimes like I would feel bad for the newbies or the people like new to our situation. Cause I would, she would sense that I was nervous that they, I was exhausted and sometimes I couldn't hold a conversation and I would say out loud in front of her, like, I.
I don't want to explain this or it was something I'd already explained to that doctor. You know
Lyle: what it was? Because a lot of doctors, a lot of the time, almost all the time they do, they have to do their assessment of
Podcast: her.
Lyle: They have to, you know, get the blood pressure, you know, listen to her lungs, all that, all [00:14:00] that stuff.
Well, yeah, that, but they still need to do it and they would just be repeating every single day, four times a day. But then when she had had enough
Podcast: and
Lyle: then they'd have a doctor come in and they would try to be really. Sensitive and soft and Bella, just like, just get it over with, put the cuff on, get my blood pressure done, listen to my damn heart and get the hell out of here.
And they're like trying to treat her like, not an infant, but like close. You know what I mean? Because she's so tiny. They're, they're just trying to be gentle and soft. And she's like, just get out of this. Come on, let's roll.
Kyla: Yeah, I got lined
Lyle: up.
Kyla: I got things to do. You're the thing that was coming on
Lyle: the TV in five minutes.
Get out of here.
Kyla: Yeah. You're the 10th person that's been in here today. I don't need you taking another blood pressure. You
Lyle: would get mad at us because if I were in the room, Bella would look at me and we'd go, just be like, get [00:15:00] out of here.
Kyla: She could, that's what I was going to say earlier. She could sense our frustration if a little bit of like, I am done with you came out in my eye roll.
She'd be like, she'd be on them like white on rice. Like, get out of here. You don't know what you're doing. Get go, go. My mom's annoyed. I'm annoyed. Peace. Peace be with you.
Podcast: It's funny.
Kyla: Yeah. Okay. Uh, funniest. Okay.
Bella's Funniest Memories
Kyla: Meg dot grace 11 is wondering what our funniest memory of Bella is. Funniest memory.
Lyle: Do you have some I do?
I do. I should have prepared.
Kyla: I that's okay. I remember this. This is funny to me. This wasn't maybe Bella. This wasn't Bella trying to be funny. But for me, I found it funny when like, of course, I knew she had dwarfism. She was wise beyond her years. She actually, she's like 96 percentile and expressive and [00:16:00] receptive language.
I remember I had an SLP tester. She learned to talk really early. Like she was using words, more words than normal at 10 months old.
Lyle: I think cause she was thrust into our conversations all day. She's
Kyla: around adult conversations from the moment she was born, right? Like living in hospital. It's just 20 adults talking in front of her and around her every day.
Lyle: So what's funny about that?
Kyla: So I, she has dwarfism. She looks younger than she actually is. So when it actually came to the time where we could go out in public, like walk around a mall. And she was talking full sentences and looking like she was like a couple months old. Not only would she be walking, but then people would be amazed at her talking to me and people would overhear me talking to her.
Lyle: Six month old. Yeah. Talking to you. Which is probably the same reason she got so popular on TikTok. Look at this [00:17:00] six month old drawing. Yeah. Right? Same thing.
Kyla: Same thing, but it was like, Our first experience with that, like in public where I would talk to her and, you know, I would notice these people, they'd be like, Oh, this lady's talking to her baby or whatever.
And then she would talk back in a full sentence and they would stop in their tracks and be like, what did I just witness? And their faces would just be like this shock. And I'd be like, I have a genius. What's
Lyle: wrong with your kid? Why are they doing this? Yeah. It's
Kyla: just like, Oh, the amount of times that happened.
I was just like, this is hilarious. Like people are just like, It was so funny. Yeah. I
Lyle: remember at New Year's just last year, she had this crazy poofy dress on. Oh. We were downstairs. And, and when she was going upstairs, all you could see was her butt sticking out the back end. Just
Kyla: floof. Hopping up the stairs.
Lyle: And she heard us all laughing at her. Yeah,
Kyla: yeah, yeah. And
Lyle: she couldn't stop laughing. Yeah. And then she went down and up and down and up a bunch of [00:18:00] times. Like. Yeah. When she noticed that she was. She had a funny bit happening. Yeah. She would do it over and over just to keep Keep the giggles. Yeah, keep the giggles.
Yeah. Oh, she'd get the giggles so bad.
Kyla: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lyle: Yeah. She would.
Kyla: We would always It was what made her laugh a lot. She invented this game. We kind of invented this game, but she I would say she invented this game. It's called What's Inside? And sometimes she would even start laughing, and I would start laughing, because we both knew what this game meant.
And It started with her realizing that I found it really annoying that she kept asking the same question over and over. She was passed.
Lyle: She did that to me too all the time with other things.
Kyla: But then I would be like, Oh, you're going to ask me. And then I would just keep coming up with things. And then I would Google and I would try and like research what is actually inside.
And then it would always get in this cycle. And she would howl every time I came up with something new, but it was all, it would be like, mom, like out of nowhere. She knew it was like, she's like, I'm going to [00:19:00] get her. She'd be like, mom. What's inside a shoe? And I'd be like, fabric. What's inside fabric? And I'd be like, fibers.
What's inside fibers? And then we'd keep going and then I'd be like, Googling on my phone, like, What's inside fibers? And then I'd tell her the scientific words, she'd be like, and then she'd just start howling because she's like, I'm gonna get her. I'm gonna get her. That was a good one. Uh, okay.
Disneyland Adventures
Kyla: Favorite memory from Disneyland.
We were able to, Bella not only had a very, very successful bowel transplant in July. And we were able to be home by end of December
Lyle: for Christmas
Kyla: in 2023. We were also given the okay to take her to Disneyland. So that close to just having a [00:20:00] bowel transplant is like unheard of, but that's how well she recovered.
And, uh, Yeah, we got to go to Disneyland in February 2024.
Lyle: And what was the best
Kyla: part of the trip? I, what, my What would
Lyle: Bella say?
Kyla: My favourite memory, well that might be different for me, but maybe the same. I remember the way that she hugged and embraced Princess Ariel when we went to visit the princesses.
Lyle: Oh, right. That's your breakfast.
Kyla: No, not the breakfast. It was the one before that where you have to line up and they have this special like princess house and you can go in and you can see she saw Mulan, she saw Ariel, she saw Belle. Cinderella.
Meeting the Characters
Lyle: You guys were all about the signatures and meeting them.
Meeting the characters. Which is a perfect balance. She can't ride on a lot of the rides.
Kyla: Yeah, that was her. And you didn't want
Lyle: to anyways.
Kyla: She, yeah, I can't handle those fast ones. Yeah. She, it was so important to her [00:21:00] to, she loved shopping and she wanted to see as many characters and get them to sign her book as she The way She ran to Ariel.
She had a little Ariel stuffy. She had her Ariel dress and the way she ran to her and the way they hugged you and Waylon weren't there. This was, oh, it was right. It was right close to where you first come in. Like there's the Dumbo ride and it was right behind there in that little nook right before. If you kept going to the right it was the western town.
Lyle: Okay.
Kyla: It was right before that in that little nook.
Lyle: Frontierland.
Kyla: Maybe. Well it was before Frontierland. Yeah the western. Is that the western one with all like the.
Lyle: I can't remember what it's called.
Kyla: I forget where the the princess house was but um I remember her running up to her and it was just, it made me cry.
Lyle: That was your favorite memory. Oh yeah. Well it was ballads.
A Special Encounter with Halsey
Lyle: I bet you it was meeting Halsey.
Kyla: Oh, [00:22:00] my word. Another celebrity is that we are like, I, yeah, I have no words. It was. She wasn't just a celebrity. She was Bella's friend, like from the beginning, uh, she messaged us and support Bella through her bowel transplant and took the time, like I messaged her.
I said, Hey, we're in your neck of the woods. If there's any chance you're around, we would love to see you. And she's like, actually, you know what? I can make this work. And she made it work and we got to hang out with her
Lyle: at our hotel room, at
Kyla: our hotel room for an afternoon,
Lyle: a sweet hotel room.
Kyla: Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Lyle: How did
Kyla: that?
Lyle: I booked it. And then they, they found out, I don't know how they found out that the booking was, but they reached back to me, they reached out to me and said, Hey, we want to upgrade you. And they put us on like, Pantos suite and it was so cool. I
Kyla: think we need
Lyle: a full
Disneyland Adventures
Kyla: episode dedicated to our Disneyland experience.
Podcast: Oh, [00:23:00] okay.
Kyla: That would, I think that would take like from start to finish, that would take a whole episode because there's so many amazing details to that. That I would love to. You can
Lyle: show, show everyone a slideshow.
Kyla: Oh, we could do a slideshow, you guys.
Lyle: That'd be the, that's not, that's like the worst thing though to do.
Kyla: Well, or they could just like. Make people sit through everyone's
Lyle: slideshow of their vacation.
Kyla: They could just scroll back in time on my Instagram to.
Lyle: No, you can do something cool.
Kyla: Or a slideshow. We totally could. We totally could.
Lyle: Was, Bella would have picked, probably, I think I remember asking her and she said Halsey was the best.
Kyla: 100%. Yeah.
Lyle: I remember that one evening, uh, we went out for the steak, or we went out for supper.
Kyla: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lyle: They treated us. What, our
Kyla: hotel was JW Marriott, but what's the Marriott, right? What's the chain name? Is it Marriott? Or? Anyways,
Lyle: we went out for supper and we got back, it was like 9pm and Waylon was still wired.
I was like, wait a minute, let's just go [00:24:00] back. We'll go. You guys
Kyla: went and rallied.
Lyle: Yeah, we rallied. Bella and
Kyla: I were like, we're going to bed. You guys went to like, you guys went on like Space Mountain at 10 PM.
Lyle: We went on Space Mountain twice and like all the roller coasters, we were just pals that week.
That's right. Cause we did all that. He wanted to do all those things and so did I. And it was kind of funny. We were just pals. Yeah.
Podcast: That's awesome.
Lyle: But we, I mean, we didn't spend. Too much time. We pretty well did everything together as like the four of us. Oh, yeah, And then we would just like split off for okay.
Well, we want to do this and we'll do this maybe Yeah,
Kyla: yeah, that
Lyle: was fun.
Kyla: Yeah That's amazing.
Dream Travel Destinations
Kyla: Where would we travel if money was not an issue?
Lyle: Go back to Disneyland.
Kyla: Yes, a hundred percent. I want to go back there. Also the cars ride wasn't working. We're so creative
Lyle: and, uh, adventurous. Oh, Disneyland,
Kyla: Disneyland, a hundred percent. Well, there was, your favorite ride [00:25:00] wasn't ready. Or wasn't working, or were they renovating the haunted house? No, my
Lyle: favourite ride, oh, and that was Bella's favourite ride too.
Kyla: Oh, sorry, your favourite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean. But you wanted to do the haunted house, and it wasn't open.
Lyle: Yeah, that's fine. I think Disneyland's always that way. There's always going to be something.
Kyla: Something. And Weyland's wasn't either.
Lyle: Yeah. I would love to go back to the Bahamas. That's where we had our honeymoon.
That's
Kyla: 100 percent what I was going to say. I want to go back to the Bahamas. We had our, we were there for our honeymoon, two weeks. It was amazing. The beach is there. I want to go to the South Keys. We were in the Northern part. We were, I want to check out the Southern where it's like just beach.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: Like, yeah, that would be
Lyle: like Jamaica.
Kyla: Jamaica would be fun. Bahamas or Jamaica. I don't know. I've never been to Jamaica, but oh no, Hopetown, [00:26:00] Hopetown, Bahamas. Remember? That was like our best day. It was this bright, beautiful, colourful town and we, you could bike around it. And we did the kayaking. And when you go out, when the tide's out, you can go to these sands that.
Lyle: I know. And
Kyla: the sand, and then the tide comes in. It was gorgeous.
Lyle: I know from a hurricane five, six years ago, and I don't think it's quite up.
Kyla: Hopetown? Yeah. Oh my goodness. There's a lot of
Lyle: devastation. So we'd have to look and see what it's like.
Kyla: Yeah. Cause that, they were literally living on like a little key set, like that one hotel we stayed in.
I don't want to
Lyle: say that they, it's completely flattened, but I'm sure they've rebuilt, but I mean, I just, you just don't know what's, what's what right now. When you could
Kyla: like lay across, like, basically the houses were the width of some of the islands.
Podcast: Yeah.
Kyla: You know, that one hotel where you stayed in and where there was a bad windstorm, like the first night we started island [00:27:00] hopping.
Remember that? Yeah. It was like, we were right on a harbor and I was like, Are we legit going to blow away? Cause then you could walk to the other side of the island. It was like walking across your house was walking across the island. That was scary.
Lyle: I'd love to go to like, uh, Germany or the Netherlands or like Belgium, that whole vibe.
Kyla: If we went to Germany, we can meet Inga and her family.
Lyle: Oh,
Kyla: Bella's bone marrow donor. That would be amazing. I think if Bella wanted to go anywhere, I think for sure, a hundred percent, she would want to see Paris, France. For fashion and New York City for the vibe. Yeah. That's what she would say for sure.
Lyle: What would Waylon say?
Kyla: Disneyland.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Lyle: 100%. You know why? Because cars wasn't open.
Kyla: Yeah. I was saying that. Yeah. Earlier.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: Cars ride wasn't open.
Lyle: You were saying that earlier?
Kyla: I did say that. I said the cars ride and the haunted house weren't open.
Lyle: Oh, sorry.
Kyla: So we got to go back. [00:28:00] Yeah.
Waylon's Future Aspirations
Kyla: What does Waylon want to do when he grows up?
Lots of people are wondering this. And we asked him the other night, do you remember that? I was completely shocked. He said, police officer.
Podcast: Yeah.
Kyla: I thought for sure he wanted to be a race car driver and then a mechanic.
Lyle: I think at six, you don't really know what a profession is. It's like, I've heard cops are a thing.
Kyla: Maybe he had
Lyle: a cop in his class, like come in, talk to him. It was
Kyla: Mr. Curdy, but
Lyle: I
Kyla: don't know if he ever sees him in uniform. I
Lyle: really
Kyla: don't know where he would have got that from.
Lyle: Yeah, it's cool.
Kyla: But please, he was like, I was like, are you sure? Oh yeah, he wanted to be a police officer.
Lyle: First time we ever heard it.
Kyla: We didn't ask him why, though. We need to ask him why. You'll
Lyle: never get it out of him.
Kyla: Oh, next pod. Why, Waylon? Maybe it'll change completely.
Lyle: Yeah, it won't be. It
Kyla: might be. It might be something completely, completely different.
Lyle: He said race car driver before.
Kyla: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then he said mechanic the other day.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: But when we specifically asked him, [00:29:00] he said police officer. So we'll see. Not sure. That's where he's at.
Messages from the Community
Kyla: Do you like when Bravelings, so we're talking about like our Bella Brave community or Beyond Brave community. Do you like when people message you randomly? Or does it make you sad?
Lyle: This goes back to our Q& A the last episode where are they, I think probably the same thing.
Kyla: That was more in public. What do you want people to say to you in public? I think the
Lyle: same messaging
Kyla: as well. This is like, do you like it when people message you randomly? Like, I'm like, you know, personally, I try to check all my DMs. I like responding personally and it matters to me to get to everyone that I can.
There's been times in my life where like, that's impossible and I hate to admit it, but yeah, I've deleted like hundreds of messages at a time, but it's like, You just can't get to everyone, especially when they're all story replies. But when I go into the, when I finally have a chance to catch up, I really do love to [00:30:00] go in and read these messages.
And some, sometimes I find these messages and they are so healing and so meaningful. And they're my whole purpose. They're my whole purpose of what I've wanted to do from the beginning is help other people with our story. So when I get that feedback saying, Hey, I'm not very active on social media, but I need you to know this is what your story did for me.
This is how you helped me through. That's, that right there is everything to me.
Lyle: I'm getting a yes? Is that what you're saying?
Kyla: Yes. And I, cause I hate the fact that like on TikTok, there's like, it's impossible to Message people on TikTok. It's just like, that's not what it's meant for. Instagram has organized it really well.
So I can, I find it easy to reply to messages on Instagram. So I don't mind at all when people message me there. And Facebook has also kind of been similar to TikTok where it's just like so overwhelming. [00:31:00] So I actually included a highlight. Highlight circle on my Instagram titled purpose. And if you go through my highlight circles It's the one with a heart and it says purpose and there I've saved some of these key messages that really really touched my heart
Podcast: Hmm,
Kyla: unfortunately, they only let you save a hundred in a circle, but I have more saved in my phone
Lyle: It'd be hard to delete some I
Kyla: you do but yeah,
Lyle: yeah,
Kyla: I could probably delete a lot of my highlight circles I got highlight circles from when I used to do Bellas Austin meet Karen I would share that to help other medical parents and
Podcast: yeah
Kyla: Um, yeah, if you really scroll back I have, even in there, I think I have like, just like old, old memories.
That you can go through. But I, I don't mind at all. It doesn't make me sad. It heals my heart to hear from people. Well, you wouldn't be
Lyle: on it if you did mind.
Kyla: Yeah, yeah. You know, and, and I do take the time. Like there's, there's, like, Especially recently, like with, with grief being [00:32:00] as heavy as it is, uh, I'm, I'm just not your typical influencer or social media person.
I will feel the fatigue of being online and just put my phone down and not post that day. But also like, of course that's okay. But also some people don't. Look at their Instagram every day. Like, one message I put out on Tuesday that's so meaningful to me and I had the energy to do it and put it out there on my stories, say, someone on Thursday is not going to see it.
It's gone. Right? So it's just like, do things as they come. Don't put pressure on yourself. I don't. Don't feel like you have to post something every day or share something every day. You know, it's when it's too much.
Lyle: Oh, I don't.
Kyla: Yeah. I'm talking to you guys. You know what I mean? So like, if, if things were making me sad, I would, [00:33:00] if I'm in that state, I already don't have the energy to reply.
So I'm just, you know, it'll probably just be left for a couple of weeks. And then when I do have the energy to reply, then I'm happy. I I'm happy about it. I'm not sad about it and I'm happy about it.
Lyle: I don't think that question was for me.
Kyla: you like to, you like when I catch you up on some of the messages, Ruthie? Yeah, I
Lyle: do.
Kyla: I definitely share them with Lyle and if you guys want to message him as like a medical dad, maybe just DM
Lyle: Kyla and say, Hey, this is for, let Lyle know. Let Lyle know. Oh yeah, that sounds nice. Or
Kyla: you know, now that you have a, you have an Instagram.
Lyle: I know, I think I saw six messages on there. I'm just, I'm trying to get to 'em.
Kyla: So did the messages make you sad? I just can't
Lyle: get to it. It makes me sad that I'm No, they don't.
Kyla: They definitely don't.[00:34:00]
Recent touching on grief. We are, yeah, where are we at for
Lyle: Keep going, what were you going to say? That,
Kyla: okay, those were, that wraps up our Q& A questions. That wraps them all up. And then I just had one little bit left on here to say if we wanted to touch on anything related to grief.
Coping with Grief
Kyla: I know we didn't in the last episode, but any useful advice and information from our grief counselling session this week that may be helpful for anyone out there who is grieving a loved one.
Lyle: Well, you go. I, I mean, I went into the day feeling pretty good, and so I delude myself, like, I don't know if I necessarily need this. And then we go, and I'm like, wow, that was great to go to.
Kyla: I found that It's like, we had talked about it a couple of episodes back about the seasons of grief and how I have that sort of like worker bee mentality.
Cause you're just working to reconstruct your life. Now that your loved one's gone to kind of lessen that pain of [00:35:00] missing them. And, and I found today, That, um, oh, I just lost my train of thought. Oh, I remember. Yes, it's back. Yay. It came back to me that when you, you are in the, you don't give your body and your mind the the let out time.
And I feel like with our grief sessions, like whether it's weekly or every other week, I feel like so much of my state is like holding my body. I'm holding it in and it's like we sit down for these sessions and I'm almost. Like, I'm like, yes, these grief therapy sessions are a need. This grief counseling is a need.
It's, this is when my body's like, let go. And I, I can't say a sentence or a word without starting to cry. And I know it's like a signal to my body to let it out.
Lyle: Yeah.
Kyla: You've [00:36:00] been building it up for the week. Let it out.
Lyle: We always say put time aside during the day and then we don't.
Kyla: And then we don't. And then we get there and our, our group counselor, he's amazing.
And it's just like, The whole hour. I'm crying. Yeah. And I, it's not that I am, like, I could have this conversation outside of this session and not cry, but it's because I'm there. My bo it's like signals to my body and my mind like, okay, this is the time to release. And I do, and I, and I need that and I know I need that.
But also the conversations are so helpful in with everything. And today I, I, I was thinking about it too, and I'm just like, okay. Even visiting with your parents over the weekend and seeing even complete strangers be so vulnerable as soon as they see me and well up in tears and start crying and I'm just like this stone face, like, Oh, it's okay.
Like I'm comforting them and I'm like, don't cry. And I'm like, not [00:37:00] crying, but it's like, my body's just saving it for this like safe place, I guess, or this safe moment to just like let it all out. I, uh, I, the main thing from that today was I realized how effective and how needed journaling can be for me, whether I'm writing it physically or typing it.
I need to remember to take the time daily or when I think of it to journal a memory. Yeah,
Lyle: same.
Kyla: Because I, I think the hardest thing I've been dealing with is the negative memories taking over and not giving me enough of those positive, good memories. And so it's like a cycle in my brain. It's like going over and over and over again on these harsh, hard memories.
And I just want those to stop. And I just want them to stop. I want them to be overlapped with good ones instead.
Lyle: And [00:38:00] I feel awful for you for that, because I don't experience that the same way, but it, it would be infuriating to, to have that occurring. I mean, you had a lot more of those memories. You had more of those instances being in hospital full time with her.
So, I mean, a lot of the really dramatic stuff happened, you know, here too. And, and. And going in between hospitals, but as far as just the volume, it's, it can be overwhelming for you.
Kyla: Yeah. Yeah. So our counselor had said, like, take that time. And then when you feel like those negative ones are just putting too much pressure and too much on you and they don't stop, then I can, I can grab that journal and I can read and I can write and overlap those negative ones with more positive ones more often.
Which was really useful for me today. [00:39:00] And I have a special little outro that I wanted to read today that I think you'll appreciate.
Lyle: Let's hear it.
Kyla: Well, I had two, but now that we did part one and part two, it's just one. So I think if I pick the first one, I think it's the better one. Okay.
Thank You and Farewell
Kyla: I want to say thank you for everyone who has listened to Beyond Brave.
If you've enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It really helps us continue to share Bella's story and keep her legacy alive. You can find us on all major streaming platforms and for the visual experience, check out our YouTube channel at KylaCT hashtag Bella Brave. For a closer look at our day to day lives or to revisit our journey, follow us on TikTok and Instagram at KylaCT and join the conversation on Facebook at Bella Brave.
And [00:40:00] here's the kicker, if you made it this far, the very end, I want to thank you by providing you a code for our Bella Brave merch, which you can find at www. bella brave. com. This has drawings from Bella. Her merch has her fox drawing, that's on her crew neck, her Be Brave shield on her hoodies. Or bunny hugs.
Depending where you're from. Uh, she, we have her drawing of her a little bit of setback stick man on her mugs. Kid sizes. What's the
Lyle: promo going on?
Kyla: Oh,
Lyle: just
Kyla: like an exciting sharing. Okay.
Lyle: Holy moly. I like that.
Kyla: You're the worst.
Lyle: It was really good.
Kyla: Beyond brave 10 to receive 10 percent off your purchase.
[00:41:00] But, um, yeah. I was just really excited to You know, if you made it this far, that's like, that's a feat. So I was like, I
Lyle: almost blacked out there, make it that far. Holy, if you made it this far, hold on for 10 more minutes. While I tell you what I have on my website, here we go.
Beyond brave 10,
Kyla: 10 percent off. There you go.
Lyle: Thanks everyone for tuning in. It was really fun. We'll be back next week.
Kyla: Yes, you bet. Uh, until next time, thank you for being a part of this community of courage and kindness.
