Amanda Conroy Final Expenses
On Friday June 22, late in the afternoon, Amanda Conroy (aka Dreams, Niamh, or DreamsNiamh) collapsed in Colin Smith's (aka Amadan or ColinAmadan) arms at home with no pulse or respiration. Just before, she had awakened feeling odd and not acting normal. She wasn't talking or responding as usual. Colin was concerned that she had experienced a stroke in her sleep. He was already in the process of calling 911 to take her to Stanford hospital for that medical condition, when she collapsed with no pulse or respiration. Colin, being made of pure awesome, didn't panic and performed CPR to keep her alive while the paramedics arrived. The paramedics arrived very quickly and took over. They got her to Stanford and performed many, many tests. The cadre of doctors determined that for some reason all of her internal organs were shutting down: her liver, kidneys, intestines and spleen. She was unconscious for the entire time at Stanford. They placed her in the ICU on life support to keep her alive while her blood brother could be located in the US Air Force. This time in the ICU also allowed Colin a chance to say goodbye as well. On Sunday morning, June 24 at approximately 0330, her body finally gave up and she passed to the other side. Colin is working at this time to see if any of Amanda's organs can still be donated, as Amanda was an organ donor.
As you all know, Amanda was the love of Colin's life and they have been together for the better part of 20 years. He is going to need our help now with many things: physical, emotional and financial. Amanda was 39 years old and this event was completely unexpected. Everything was normal when they went to sleep on Thursday evening.
The first thing that we must do is help raise money to cremate Amanda's body once the organ donation process is complete. This is the most time sensitive need, obviously. We have a local mortuary already selected that is very reasonably priced with an excellent reputation, that I have used previously.
Colin is also going to need funds to clean out and close down Amanda's Sacramento storage unit and transport everything back to his storage unit in Redwood City. He needs to sort through it so he can find some important documents of hers, like her birth certificate. I have already priced this out exactly so that we can ninja a crew in and out in one day with minimal expense.
Of course, Colin feels like he has been hit by a rather large, unexpected train. He is going to need time to grieve - quite a bit of it - without having to worry about his basic monthly bills. So there is some money built in to cover his most basic bills for two months while Colin adjusts to his new life without Amanda.
In general, Amanda wanted a memorial / wake campout. So there is a small amount of money included for that. Details are TBD at this early point in time.
And of course, there are still a bunch of random minor medical bills and other unexpected expenses that will be dribbling in and need to be covered.
If you can't help financially, we completely understand. Please DO NOT donate if it will impact your ability to pay your bills and live. Colin does not want that and neither do I. There are other ways to help.
Other ways to help include sharing the link to this fundraiser, sending Colin a message of support (no calls yet please), and sending me a message offering to help with other things. I will catalog folks according to Colin's needs. Please don't message him with anything other than messages of support. He won't remember any specific offers of assistance at this time. He is in overwhelm mode. I will put all offers of help into a spreadsheet (including current contact info) that I will share with him once he is able to process that information. If you have already sent him a specific offer of assistance, please resend it to me and I can include you in the spreadsheet.
Who am I? I am a friend of Colin's who has had the unfortunate experience of going through this process several times before with other friends. I have some time right now in my calendar to assist Colin with this process.
Thank you for reading, donating, and sharing this request!
