In Memory of Debbie Macclements

I'm completely humbled by the outpouring of love and support from this community.  You have shown me the true meaning of community. As a community you have afforded me the opportunity to give my mother not only the bare minimum services but more.  And  now the ability to bless this community back. Anything received after initial goal and after services are paid for will be given back to this community and their many mutual aid groups.   Giving back is Something that meant a lot to my mother even though she didn't have a lot herself.  

Hi, my name is Matthew Wilkie and I'm now looking to honor the life of my mother who was the closest person to me in this life and by far my best friend.

The past few months have been extremely difficult and an eye opener for me because I have been dealing with tragedy after tragedy.

My grandmother started hospice due to end stage Copd. Mom and I went to visit my grandmother in her home April 23rd. Little did I know that would be the last time my mother would ever see her mother, my grandmother again. While visiting my grandmother that day my mom was saying she was not feeling well and was light headed. Grandma had her use the at home pulse ox machine she had and it was not reading at all. I put it on my finger it read 98% . When mom put it back on it didn't even register. We came home that day and she was still not feeling well or registering o2 on the at home meter. We decided she needed to go to the hospital to get looked at.

Upon arriving at the hospital, she got back into a room and admitted to the ER very quickly. Her blood pressure and oxygen upon arrival was extremely low.

Due to some medications not being able to go into an IV, you have to go into a main line. The ER doctor needed to put in a central line to give her medication to raise her blood pressure. While doing this, the doctor punctured the lining and nicked her lung causing her lung to collapse.

The doctor called me at 2:30AM just after causing her lung to collapse to tell me what happened and she is now on massive amounts of oxygen and might not make it through the night. I went there and stayed with her almost 24/7 for the next 16 days. While there, she made great progress every day. She was making strides the entire medical staff could not believe, so much so that after 19 days, she was downgraded/discharged to the long term acute care facility where she was going to go and do the rest of her therapy and come home.

Mom did weeks of therapy at the long term care facility and was doing well. She was doing all the things she needed to do. Even the staff was saying they don't understand how she was doing so well. Her oxygen went from 85 liters at 100% oxygen down to 3 liters no additional supplement oxygen. She would send me very detailed messages about how she was feeling and if she wanted me to get her something she could text me details of where things were at ect.

On May 15th, mygrandmother passed away. I know it really Bothered my mom that she couldn't be there or say goodbye since she was in the hospital herself.

I truly don't think mom expected not to get out. Everyone did. Even the day she passed she ordered stuff for herself from Amazon on her tablet to be delivered to the house for when she got out.

The last thing my mom did was vote. I received her mail in ballot in the mail and brought it to her at the hospital where she completed her ballot and had me make a video of how to do your ballot and that you can vote even in the hospital.

We did that and I returned her ballot for her. I would have never imagined that would be the last thing she did.

I hung out with mom for a while even though she told me to go to work the next day. She knew I had been taking time off to be with her. She told me she felt fine and to go to work tomorrow. I told her I would think about it and see in the morning. That unfortunately didn't happen. I talked to my mom last shortly after 9 pm. Tuesday May 31st and everything was good and fine at that moment. I received a phone call from the hospital roughly 2 hours later, after 11PM, saying I need to come to the hospital and mom was passing. I ran to the hospital and got to spend the final moments with her. Holding her hand, telling her I loved her. She took her last breathes June 1st 12:22 am.

I have now lost the two most important women in my life in a two week period.

With all of this, I have been left in a terrible situation where I am now responsible for taking care of end of life things. Thank goodness my grandmother had hers prepaid for. However we did not expect this with my mom. She was disabled and lived with me. She relied on me. Now I feel stuck. Almost as if I'm not good enough to give her a dignified passing. Death of a loved one is hard enough. Without knowing they will hold the remains of your loved one hostage until you can pay. I love my mom and I want to give her a dignified passing.

I am asking, please, for help me if you can. Never once would I have dreamed I could ever be in this kind of situation but I am . I am devastated and just don't know how else to put this all together the way that these important women in my life deserve.

If gofundme is not your thing but you still want to help. Venmo is @MattWilkie . I love and thank you all for supporting me these past months