Daywatch: A free lakeside respite for patients with life-threatening illnesses

Good morning, Chicago.

It was the wording in text messages that had Shannon Delgado thinking that something was off with her ex-husband, Raymond Brown.

She reached out to his siblings in hopes that they could coax him to seek medical help. A CT scan found a mass about the size of a walnut in the left frontal lobe of his brain. His diagnosis: Grade 4 glioblastoma. Brown had brain surgery followed by radiation treatment.

With no one nearby who could care for the father of their four children, Delgado moved him into her home with her new spouse and mixed family.

So when she came across Dove’s Nest — a retreat in Wisconsin that caters to people with life-threatening illnesses and their loved ones — she gathered the family and headed northwest. It was a weeklong break from doctors’ appointments and phone calls with the insurance company so the family could just spend time together, build memories, take pictures and bask in nature along Lake Camelot.

The cabin, about three and a half hours from Chicago, is accessible for those in wheelchairs and offers “lake life” amenities such as access to a pontoon boat, paddleboarding, kayaking, barbecuing and making s’mores. And it’s all free.

Read the full story from the Tribune’s Darcel Rockett.

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