Help Ease the Burden for Jim's Family

My father is James Vernon Sharp, Jim to most people. He's done pest control most of his life. He loves bowling, traveling and coaching. Like, from when I was 5 until I was grown, he was coaching. Not even just me, just coaching kids in general. How many baseball, basketball, soccer and bowling games did we go to? And right beside him the whole time, my mom, Barbara Sharp. Always always by his side, true love. And these two people gave me, honestly, the best childhood I could have asked for. Like, really, looking at how much can go wrong, especially for kids, I've had one of the luckiest lives I can think of. I wouldn't trade a minute of it.

We found out dad had vascular dementia a few years back. It's been completely debilitating and there's no cure. Millions of Americans suffer from this, it's just a tragedy in itself. The idea that some day, he was going to lose his access to his memories. That he would forget places and people. That he would stop learning new information, that he would eventually forget how to take care of himself even. Like, imagine that. Losing your independence and your hobbies and your ability to connect with your friends.

At this point, he can't stand up any more. He doesn't know where he is. Even at home, he was always asking me, "Where are we?" He wouldn't even believe it until he would have his dogs begging for his attention. That always anchored him. You could point to his dogs, he would pet them and be home.

More than just that, he's had dialysis three days a week for the last few years, end stage renal disease (kidney failure). He has an A-fib, he's battled sun cancer, diabetes, everything.

Then he got really sick, a few weeks ago. Really horribly sick. And we're still a little in the dark on exactly what's going on. We knew a while back that he most likely had cancer, but to be honest, the dementia was going to take him out before all of that. So we didn't follow up. We just wanted him to live the rest of his life happy.

But about four weeks ago our entire family got a virus. Just, you know, a stomach bug that made everyone awful. And it took a week or longer for us to recover. But for dad? That recovery never came. It just got worse and worse.

He's been in the ER for a long time now, and just recently switched from Lawrenceburg's hospital (Who was amazing btw) to Murfreesboro's. And honestly, we're barely keeping it together. Last text I'm getting is that he couldn't breathe on his own and needed a ventilator.

Heartwrenching, gut punching. Like..

My mom has stayed in his room every night. She'll break her back sleeping on a chair before she leaves him alone. Because he won't understand. He can't process that new information, you can't say "I'll be back" because he'll forget that you said that. He'll wonder where you are, where he is, and that's misery. To be alone and feeling forgotten and having no way to understand the world that's going on around you.

This also means she hasn't been able to work in about a month. And it doesn't matter what happens to us in this world, bills don't just stop. But how is she supposed to make anything without leaving him, and how could she possibly leave his side?

Even right now, she's up there at the hospital, miles away from home and with no car. She said she would pack a suitcase and sleep in the lobby if she had to. Just enduring beside the love of her life before he slips away.

We have no idea how long he's still going to be at the hospital. Hopefully this will just somehow miraculously blow over, but even then, it's another two weeks in a care facility for physical therapy rehabilitation. Which is why as soon as it was mentioned, I signed up for the first CNA class available. If I could work there or at least be there, he would have someone next to him, making sure he's okay. Right?

My parents have already lost so much. Life keeps on, they still have to pay for food, water, electricity, everything as much as anyone else does. And so this gofundme is to help them out, especially my mom. She's a nervous wreck, barely keeping it together.

If you can give a dollar, it helps. Anything, literally anything. And if you have no money to give, I know exactly what that's like. Then please just keep us in your thoughts. Honestly, we thought we had already lost him. It was horrible. Horrible feeling and then another horrible thought following that was, "We can't afford a funeral cost." We would have no way to pay for it.

But then he got a little better. He ate some food, on his own, which he hasn't been able to take a bite in days. He was able to stand up, to go pee instead of being incontinent. The prayers have been working. I swear to you, I feel it happening, it's working. And I'll keep them going every day and every night.

So please, give what you can and if you can't, pray. And if you just ain't the praying type, just send positive energy, put them in your thoughts, in your sympathies, anything you can spare.

Thank you.