Help Janie & Happy Lathrop Wake Up from a Nightmare

Hello, my name is Happy Lathrop and I created this fundraiser for my mother, Janie Lathrop, and me because we are in a serious ongoing crisis.

Our nightmare began seven months ago when I took my mother to a doctor’s appointment for chest pain and shortness of breath. Inside the doctor’s office, her appointment rapidly turned into a medical emergency. She was quickly transported to the Emergency Department at Oregon Health Science University in Portland, Oregon.

Upon our arrival at the ED she was immediately admitted for hypoxia. We spent 27 grueling hours in the ED before they moved her upstairs to one of their Cardiothoracic Care Units. My mother spent almost three weeks in the ICU.

While she was there, her care team conducted a battery of tests and they made several shocking discoveries:

Two weeks after my mother came home from the hospital, my father, Robert Lathrop, died unexpectedly on August 12, 2024. He suffered a massive coronary event. One minute he was passing my mother in the hallway, the next minute I found him unresponsive on my parents’ bed. I tried to revive him but I was unsuccessful. Emergency Services worked on him for 27 minutes, but even they couldn’t bring him back to us. His death has been unimaginable. Not only have I lost a father, but also one of my best friends.

Three days after my father’s death, my mother and I both tested positive for Covid. It was by far the worst Covid infection either of us have ever had. My mother’s Covid infection was so severe that she spent four weeks in bed because she was so weak. It has taken her six months to recover from this debilitating infection through a combination of rest and at-home rehabilitation exercises. She can now walk without my assistance.

Now that my mother has recovered from Covid, we can continue on her journey towards recovery. Which is great news because over the past few weeks my mother’s breathing has worsened. When we left the hospital, her oxygen saturation was at 93%, now her oxygen saturation is at 84% unassisted. If it continues to worsen, I’ve been instructed by her primary care doctor to call 9-1-1.

My mother has an upcoming endoscopy procedure. Hopefully, this endoscopy procedure can help shed some light on what’s going on inside my mother’s airways and lungs.

Even though my mother has insurance and supplemental insurance, my family’s finances have taken a massive hit from my mother’s hospitalization and my father’s death, so much so that we are facing eviction. Unfortunately, I am an only child and I don’t have any kind of support system. There is no one else to ask for help. There is nowhere else to go. This fundraiser is my Hail Mary.

I am my mother’s sole caregiver and I desperately need help caring for her during this transition period. We are seeking $14,000 in donations for my mother's medical care and living expenses.

How these donations will be spent:

Critical Date:

February 19, 2025 - Eviction

Writing this GoFundMe was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do because it’s deeply personal and very public. But I would do anything for my mother, including swallowing my pride, because not only is she an incredible mom, but she’s also a marvelous person. I wouldn’t be the young woman I am today without her kindness and selflessness.

Any contribution, no matter the size, will bring us closer to finding out why my mother is in respiratory failure and will also prevent us from being evicted. I hope you consider sharing this campaign across your social media so that it can reach a greater audience.

Again, thank you so much for reading!

XOXO,

Happy

*My mom has been a non-smoker her entire life.