Pope Meat Company<\/a> in Lockney just six months ago. They had one of their busiest months in September, but just before it was over, Brayden experienced a severe migraine episode.<\/p>\n\u201cI was on the processing floor. We were breaking down the first beef of the day and I started getting the auras from my hemiplegic migraines,\u201d Brayden said.<\/p>\n
He called Kyra, who was already on her way to the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really remember much after that except for waking up in the hospital,\u201d Brayden said.<\/p>\n
Kyra had planned to take him to pick up their daughter and go home to let him rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time we got to Canyon, he had the facial droop, you know, mimicking stroke symptoms, which is normal for his migraines, so we really didn\u2019t think anything of it,\u201d Kyra said. \u201cWe were going to let him rest. And then he started getting combative. And, you know, me and his mom were like, let\u2019s just take him in.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Brayden had suffered from hemiplegic migraines before, this one was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time, he could only say three words. Yeah, okay, and no,\u201d Kyra said.<\/p>\n
After a few days at the hospital in Plainview with no answers, Kyra decided to bring him to Lubbock. For an entire week, Brayden couldn\u2019t even say his own name.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis neurologist says that he\u2019s a red herring. Like, you know? They probably won\u2019t ever see another in their career,\u201d Kyra said.<\/p>\n
Doctors diagnosed him with familial hemiplegic migraine, meaning the condition is genetic. They also discovered he has a small hole in his heart, which may be contributing to some of his issues. <\/p>\n
After he was released from the hospital, it was time for therapy several times a week to get Brayden back to normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had lost all, pretty much a bunch of my motor skills and stuff, so handling a knife was all new to me again. The first few days, especially,\u201d Brayden said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, their family helped keep the business going while friends they\u2019ve only known since June jumped in to host fundraisers and a benefit cookoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, Braden has made such an impact on people in such a small amount of time. And then they\u2019ve turned around and done the same for him. I mean, it\u2019s just crazy,\u201d Kyra said.<\/p>\n
Kyra says this has only brought their family closer together and strengthened their faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cWrenly, she just turned three yesterday. Anytime we pray before our food or anything, you know, at the end, if we don\u2019t pray for daddy, \u2018Hey, pray for my daddy,\u2019 you know, or if he is laying around, she\u2019ll come and ask me, \u2018Does daddy have a headache? We need to pray for him,\u2019\u201d Kyra said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re still waiting for answers to see how to keep these migraines at bay. At 28 years old, Kyra says Brayden shouldn\u2019t have to worry about falling asleep one night and not waking up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have little kids and we\u2019re expecting another one and they need their dad and he needs to be able to be who he wants to be for them,\u201d Kyra said.<\/p>\n
Brayden says responses like \u201cit\u2019s just a migraine\u201d and \u201cyou have to learn to live with it\u201d shouldn\u2019t be the only options for patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s, especially after seeing cardiologists and neurologists, I mean, there\u2019s deeper reasons why migraines occur and there are cures and a lot of people just don\u2019t have somebody to advocate for them,\u201d Brayden said.<\/p>\n
To hear about future fundraisers for the Pope family, follow their Facebook page here<\/a>.<\/p>\nCopyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A young Lubbock man hopes his story will encourage others to advocate for their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[21753,5798,20365,17006,26019,7990,447,5589,26018,26011,26017,541,17116,584,26016,26020,26013,168,170,169,97,16775,26010,25248,1810,26015,1148,26012,26014,12316,12556,25356,2142,26009],"class_list":["post-44421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-advocate","tag-advocates","tag-after","tag-answers","tag-brayden-pope","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-community","tag-company","tag-cure","tag-episode","tag-familial","tag-family","tag-for","tag-health","tag-hemiplegic","tag-kyra-pope","tag-lockney","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-man","tag-meat","tag-migraine","tag-more","tag-motor","tag-packing","tag-patients","tag-pope","tag-processing","tag-severe","tag-skills","tag-stroke","tag-support","tag-than"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}