National Scotties a sweet reprieve for Silvernagle after her son’s year in intensive care
Robyn Silvernagle will be making her third appearance at the national Scotties Tournament of Hearts next week in Kamloops, BC, just weeks after her team was put together.
The 35-year-old says she had curled in just five games in the fall before getting together with lead Kara Thevenot, second Sherry Just and third Kelly Schafer.
After just one practice ahead of the last chance qualifier, the foursome won their way to the provincial Scotties and ended up hoisting the trophy after an 8-4 win over Nancy Martin in the final.
“This one is sweet just with everything that myself and my husband had been through in this last year, not even knowing if I was going to get to curl at all,” Silvernagle said.
She says she and her husband Chad spent 304 days in the hospital—most of them in intensive care—after her son Kolt was born without his esophagus attached.
“They had to do surgery at 10-days-old to attach his esophagus and then it was dilations after that, and he ended up getting pneumonia quite a few times,” she said.
“Then he had open heart surgery in May and that was a pretty rough road to get out of that, and then he had a couple more surgeries after that.”
She says there’s still another surgery to come, but Kolt is now doing well.
“He's growing and progressing,” she said. “He's a strong little fighter.”
Silvernagle was able to sub on a few teams in the fall, and the decision to form another team happened quickly.
“We started talking more and more about it and who we wanted to play with and we just asked the right people and it all came together,” said Thevenot, who added there’s nobody else she’d want throwing skip stones.
“I was definitely a little bit of a driver behind it and made it happen I would say, it's just we had talked about it lots and then just put it into action and here we are today.”
Silvernagle says the experience has put curling and her life in perspective, and is looking forward to having her family in the crowd at the national championship.
“It’s been quite the year, like 2023 has to be better than 2022 was because that was a shaky year,” she said.
“It's been a journey and looking back at the times in the hospital and you're like, “Will my life ever be back to what we think of as normal” which is just getting to go play and have grandparents watch your child and those sorts of things. So it feels like a real blessing to be able to get to be where we are today, and get to go to another Scotties. We'll definitely cherish I think every moment of it.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'They needed people inside Air Canada:' Police announce arrests in Pearson gold heist
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
House admonishes ArriveCan contractor in rare parliamentary show of power
MPs enacted an extraordinary, rarely used parliamentary power on Wednesday, summonsing an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons where he was admonished publicly and forced to provide answers to the questions MPs said he'd previously evaded.
Trump lawyers say Stormy Daniels refused subpoena outside a Brooklyn bar, papers left 'at her feet'
Donald Trump's legal team says it tried serving Stormy Daniels a subpoena as she arrived for an event at a bar in Brooklyn last month, but the porn actor, who is expected to be a witness at the former president's criminal trial, refused to take it and walked away.
Why drivers in Eastern Canada could see big gas price spikes, and other Canadians won't
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
'A living nightmare': Winnipeg woman sentenced following campaign of harassment against man after online date
A Winnipeg woman was sentenced to house arrest after a single date with a man she met online culminated in her harassing him for years, and spurred false allegations which resulted in the innocent man being arrested three times.
Customers disappointed after email listing $60K Tim Hortons prize sent in error
Several Tim Horton’s customers are feeling great disappointment after being told by the company that an email stating they won a boat worth nearly $60,000 was sent in error.
Woman who pressured boyfriend to kill his ex in 2000s granted absences from prison
A woman who pressured her boyfriend into killing his teenage ex more than a decade ago will be allowed to leave prison for weeks at a time.
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
Attempt to have murder charge quashed against alleged serial killer dismissed by judge
A motion filed by the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg to have one of those murder charges quashed has been dismissed by the judge – weeks before the start of his trial.