FARGO — Early in their dating relationship, Brandi and Ron DesMarais dreamed of having a large family someday.
They were blessed with six children: five daughters and a son. But for the majority of her mothering years, Brandi has been severely limited physically in tending to her family. For 12 years, a persistent liver tumor, among other health trials, has kept her sidelined.
“It seemed like we were constantly drowning and reaching out for help, and it never really stopped,” she said.
Brandi has undergone over 40 medical scans in the last decade, along with frequent biopsies, surgeries and hospitalizations.
“Not being able to drive or cook or do laundry has been hard, and you feel like you’re a burden on others,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be the one helping others, but I’ve had to let go of that.”
The benign tumor first showed up in the summer of 2013, when she was pregnant with her fifth child. A few years later, in 2015, Brandi was hospitalized with cellulitis and had the first of two surgical hernia repairs. The following year, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and underwent a hysterectomy.
Her medical team decided to address the liver tumor at the same time as the cancer, but the follow-up treatments, which went on for a while, worsened the condition, and a liver-re-section was needed.
In time, Brandi learned it would be impossible to completely remove the tumor, since it’s attached to her bile ducts.
“There are so many things I’ve wanted to do … like helping my kids learn to drive; things that would be so normal for a mom to do,” she said. “But instead, I was often just trying to survive each day — to take a shower and get dressed and maybe cook a meal.”
At one point, Brandi developed sepsis, a pelvic infection and had to undergo a second hernia repair. Her most recent hospitalization at Mayo led to the draining of 20 pounds of fluid from the tumor.
Despite the blow that the tumor may be with her forever, like an unwanted invader, over time, Brandi’s optimistic spirit has taken over.
“We had to teach the kids early how to pump gas, do laundry and cook,” she said, and though it was out of necessity, in the end, they realized they were more equipped for life than many of their peers.
The tumor’s tenaciousness also has been no match for Brandi’s steadfast faith in God.
A few years ago, she and Ron instituted family prayer night, programming their Echo device to announce a prayer time at 8 p.m. At the announcement, “(the kids) all come flooding out into the living room,” she said. “I might not be able to play basketball with them, but I can share my faith with them.”
Indeed, her health struggles have demanded prioritization and perspective. “Just showing them that, even when you’re struggling or suffering, we still put all of our trust in God; he is our focus,” Brandi said.
Her sister, Ashley Friesen, has watched her nieces and nephew grow into responsible kids who are “eager and willing to serve,” she said. “That’s not always so common for young kids. But they have such a heart, when they come to other people’s houses, wanting to know what they can do to help.”
Her sister has always just been a warm, genuine person, she added, so it’s easy to love her. “I think everybody in the family would name her as the life of the party; the person who’s always joking around, finding the fun and being playful in everything,”
She recalled a time when they lived together in college and were low on money. Brandi wanted to uplift them, so she cooked a special, candlelit meal featuring potatoes she’d seasoned and fried from drained potato soup. “It’s always her desire to bless others, even when she doesn’t have much to give,” Ashley said.
When they used to have garage sales, she said, Brandi often would give away clothes to those in need. “We joked for years that we’d have to be watching Brandi at garage sales, cause she’d probably give everything away for free — along with the stuff we weren’t going to sell!” she said.
Her mother, Darlene Burkhardsmeier, said Brandi’s always been the extrovert in a family of introverts, and that, “when she’s feeling good, she’s hilarious!”
As a child, her eldest daughter loved telling stories, and in sixth grade, her teacher didn’t give her a full A because of her chattiness. Since Brandi sometimes helped her father, a salesman, Darlene thought, “Well that gift of gab is helping pay our bills!”
Because of her gifts, during Brandi’s growing-up years, Darlene got involved in judging speech and debate and directing theater. “I was the drama director at church when we did the Halo Project at Bethel,” she said. “That was just a strength of hers. She has a natural leader personality too.”
Which points, all the more, to what a suffering it’s been for Brandi to have to forgo serving in order to be served.
“There was a point that she couldn’t sit in a chair at a 90-degree angle,” Darlene said. “I had eight recliners in my house because of that—two are on my deck in the summer.”
Nevertheless, the family also has witnessed “a bazillion miracles,” she said, like the time her co-workers took up a collection for gas for Brandi’s trips to and from Mayo Hospital.
Jen Schwind, a good friend of Brandi’s, will be among those volunteering at the upcoming silent auction and spaghetti feed to help the family with medical expenses, including a recent emergency gall bladder surgery that Ron endured.
The two mothers met while picking up their kindergarteners from a birthday party some years ago, and realized, delightedly, that they were both mothers of five children, pregnant with their sixth.
“It was kind of an instant friendship; we had so many unique things in common,” Jen said. “What came out of that conversation was, ‘Wow, you’re the same kind of crazy as me!’”
The friendship ended up blessing each more than they could have imagined. When Jen, then in the National Guard, was sent to help with the Dakota Access Pipeline for several weeks, Brandi and Ron came over to help with their children. The favor was returned as Brandi’s health issues emerged, this time with the Schwinds running to their house to help out.
“I truly feel like her suffering is more about grieving how it affects her kids, or the worries she’s putting on her husband,” Jen said. “She’s teaching them how to suffer gracefully and how to pray for others and how to deal with disappointments and fear and uncertainty.”
Brandi said being in the hospital for the various procedures and surgeries has been lonely at times, but it’s also taught her a lot about God. “Whenever I would be released from the hospital, I would feel like my soul had been fixed, too,” she said. “It was like a renewal.”
She’s also learned her worth. “I used to think it’s been in what I’m doing, and (God) is saying, instead, ‘You don’t have to do anything to have value. You’re sick and recovering, and you’re still valuable to me’,” she said.
If you go
[Note: This event is past. But you can still donate to the family using the link below.]
What: Brandi DesMarais Spaghetti Dinner and Silent Auction
When: 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23
Where: Sts. Anne & Joachim Catholic Church, 5202 25th St. S., Fargo
Info: There will also be a 50/50 raffle during the event, must be present to win. For silent auction item donations, or to volunteer, call Cindy at 701-388-4725. For more information or to donate online, visit https://give.lendahandup.org/fundraisers/brandi-desmarais.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Feb. 9, 2025.]
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