Help with Sam’s End of Life Expenses

UPDATE Feb 2, 2025

Samantha’s Obituary and Last Call for Any Donations for Final Expenses (Goal is Almost Met)

Karli Samantha Nelson  ( July 22, 1992 - January 26, 2025 )

                 

Sam Nelson, 32, of Princeton, WV passed away due to complications of stage IV breast cancer on January 26, 2025 after 7 years of defying all the odds.  Born July 22, 1992 in Martinsville, VA, she was the daughter of David Walker Nelson, Sr. and Lisa Toler Nelson of Orange, VA.

She was preceded in death by her maternal grandparents, Charles William “Bill” and Norma Jean Toler (Ashford, WV), and paternal grandparents, Charles and Shirley Snodgrass (Racine, WV).

Left to celebrate her memory is the love of her life and devoted husband of nearly 6 years, Wesley Samuel York, parents David and Lisa Nelson (Orange, VA), biological father Zane Snodgrass and wife Renee (Martinsville, VA), her siblings, Kyle Nelson (Mineral, VA), Hailey Snodgrass (Orange, VA), Hannah Snodgrass (Richmond, VA), step-siblings David Nelson, Jr. and wife Jamie (Jeffersonville, IN), Katelyn Nelson (Louisa, VA), Ashleigh Nelson (Gordonsville, VA), Shannen Nelson (Gordonsville, VA), Jacob Nelson (Charlottesville, VA), and Taylor Snodgrass (Greenville, NC), her most precious niece and nephew, Madison and Waylon Nelson, their mother, Samantha (Hanover, VA), her best friend, Elizabeth “Liz” Lipkovitz (Jacksonville, FL), dear friends Santana Strickland (Princeton, WV) Marcus Murrell (Princeton, WV), and Reiley Simpkins (Princeton, WV), her “Uncle” Charles Hunt (Charlottesville, VA), the best pup to ever live, Mason, her 4 cats, Zoey, Sebastian, Amelia, and Baby, many many grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins from her husband’s family that loved her so much, and innumerable friends, coworkers, and students.

Sam graduated Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, VA in 2010. There began her passion for cheerleading, theatre and making pottery. Sam knew she wanted to be a teacher from middle school, after high school graduation, she attended Concord University in Athens, WV where she earned a BA in Elementary Education in 2014 and an MA in Special Education in 2020. She loved being part of the Princeton community and made it her home. Her love for her students was tremendous. She taught at Mercer County Schools starting in 2014, primarily in the English department at PikeView High School. In addition, Sam’s influence was integral in the success of the PVHS cheerleading and theatre programs. She directed countless theatre productions, cheerleading routines, competitions, field trips, and the like. She was also involved in SCA and was always willing to do anything she could for the betterment of the students.

In addition to this, she enjoyed waitressing at Macado’s on the weekends in her early teaching career, working with the AmeriCorps Energy Express program in the summers, and of course, coaching not only PVHS Cheer but also Concord University Cheerleading. She was actively involved in the Mercer County Education Association and served as the chair of PVHS Faculty Senate. There was never a wasted opportunity for her to do what she thought was the greater good.

Sam believed that Disney World’s label as “The Most Magical Place on Earth” was absolutely true and vacationed there as much as she possibly could. She loved to travel, visiting France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Italy, and Greece, not to mention many trips throughout the United States. She was a notorious foodie, especially when it came to Mexican and Asian cuisine. She loved to paint, craft pottery, and plant flowers. She enjoyed going on movie dates with her husband, niece, and nephew, watching trashy reality TV, and playing nostalgic video games.

Her memorial will be held on Sunday, February 16th from 2:00 to 6:00 pm at the Chuck Mathena Center in Princeton, WV.

There will be a memory box available for anyone wishing to leave a note of comfort, a funny story, a favorite picture, etc. as a reminder of what she meant to you. Your outpouring of love has already been a comfort beyond what words can express.

The family would like to recognize the staff of Princeton Community Hospital and her entire oncology care team for the care and love shown through her journey. She loved you all.

Lastly, Samantha had tremendous love for the fur babies a the Mercer County Animal Shelter and her wish would be for you to consider adopting an animal in her memory or to donate to the shelter in her name.

 

Update 1/24/2025

I have an incredibly difficult post to make. 

 Sam’s situation has deteriorated and unfortunately, her fight is nearly complete. 

 Since Tuesday, her blood work has been all over the place with several set backs and complications.

 Her uncontrollable nosebleed, where she literally lost 2/3 of her body’s blood, brought her the ER. She was intubated, by her choice, because she could barely breathe. 

They have had her greatly sedated up until yesterday and there has been limited communication with her. 

 Test after test, scan after scan has continued to give us negative news. Her liver continues to fail at a high rate of speed. This is causing jaundice and severe fluid retention. Medications to reduce fluid are having minimal results. 

 Bleeding complications, because her platelet count is so low, has compromised all her IV ports and continues to impact her nose bleeds as well although somewhat under control at the moment due to the packing they use to compress it. Her body is not strong enough for the procedure to cauterize the vessels. 

 She had a scan around midnight last night that reveals the root of her nosebleeds, and in hindsight, some subtle changes in her behavior ie: occasionally staring into space, confusion we thought was related to exhaustion or chemo brain, inability to concentrate even to watch tv, and the single episode she had back in December with her vision. The scan reveals severe metastases in her brain. Pressure in her head/sinuses from the swelling and tumors attributing to the nosebleeds Remarkable actually because she was teaching till the end of December, put on the production of Beauty and the Beast, planning a trip to Disney in February for her theater kids, pushing full speed ahead as only Sam can do.

 On top of this, her body has turned septic. She has also developed pneumonia. All this is just too much to combat and virtually everything they are trying to do to help in any way is proving to be ineffective. 

 The decision was made yesterday to begin reducing her meds and dependence on oxygen from the ventilator. She has tolerated this gradual reduction well. She has become more coherent and able to communicate for brief moments through our family’s knowledge of sign language since verbal communication has been impossible due to the vent. 

Her body is tired. She has been comfortably resting most of the time but periodically wakes up to let us know she is still here with us, she needs her nose wiped, her ear is itching, or the o2 sensor is agitating her because the tape is too tight. In normal Sam fashion, she expresses herself in her normal spiciness. She was signing to me the sign for “soft”. I’m trying to figure out what she needs…pillow adjustment, wrinkles in sheets, tissues (btw…hospital tissues are the worst). She looks at me sharply and rolls her eyes at me and wants to FaceTime Hannah who has stepped away briefly. In the moment, I had overlooked the fact that “soft” and “wet” are basically the same sign ‍♀️. Hannah to the rescue! Her nose packs were drippy and wet inside! We cleaned them up and she was happy and satisfied! A second example, she was signing to Hannah and due to the swelling in her hands and all of the IV lines, etc, it was difficult to know what she was trying to convey. She grabbed Hannah’s hair and jerked her down toward her face and pointed to her nose. Her nose was itchy and felt like hair was tickling it! She was relieved when we finally understood and took care of the issue at hand. A thumbs up was given. A final example, although there are others, it’s the sweetest of all… she was visibly aggitated, singing, but Wes could not guess what it was, finally, after 20 questions, all she needed was a hug and kiss from Wes ❤️ 

 She is fully aware of her new diagnosis, the severity of the situation at hand, and in typical Sam fashion, she is just matter of fact. 

 We are awaiting the morning rounds of the doctor. The plan, with her consent and blessing, is that the ventilator be removed whether her body is ready or not to handle to stress of breathing on her own. All day yesterday, her labs, BP, O2 levels, etc has been stable so that’s encouraging. The doctor is hopeful that her body will be ready to tolerate the demand of working on its own accord, but, there is no guarantee. It will be a terminal extubation. This means, regardless of her body’s ability to tolerate the removal, she will not be reintubated. We are hopeful she will remain with us for awhile longer, we all would love to be able to take her home and continue to enjoy our time with her with the aid of hospice care. She would like to go home as well but is also very much aware of all the possible complications and outcomes. If her body can not tolerate the stress of removal and working on its own, the doctors and nurses (who are phenomenal by the way) will be able to deliver comfort medications immediately to eliminate pain and suffering until nature takes it course. 

 Although this is not the outcome any of us want, we all knew we would eventually be here. She is and has been surrounded by her family. She could not have had a better support system than all of you. She is such a motivation to so many. She has touched so many lives and so many have touched hers.

 I will update as soon as I am able as I know so many love her and are “Cheering for Sam” 

 Her unselfish thoughts in these final days has been in regards to her theater kids going to Disney. They’ve worked so hard. It’s a once in a lifetime trip for most of these kiddos and it’s of great importance to her to make sure their Disney Dreams comes true. I promised I’d do everything in my power to help make that happen for her kiddos. I’m in process of getting the trip information to the principal in order to get the final payments completed. I know there are some that have balances that need to be resolved. You have been so generous with your love, prayers, calls, texts, gift cards, food, and money it’s overwhelming and so comforting to know how much you care and love my girl. As you know, there is a go fund me set up for her. It has been a tremendous asset in this time of need. I wanted to let everyone know that remaining balances will go to end of life expenses first. If there is any additional funds available or you’d like to specifically donate to her final wish to get the kids to Disney, I know she will be smiling knowing her final act with her magic wand got these kiddos to their Disney destination. 

 On behalf of our entire family, we are so grateful for you.

UPDATE! We are so overwhelmed by your generosity! I am so grateful to all of you! We were able to get her a chair TODAY! New Year’s Day! It will be tremendously helpful! It lays completely flat, lifts almost completely vertical, has separate leg and back adjustments, heat settings and even a little “massage” setting. She is now comfy, more so than she’s been in quite awhile. Exact quote: “this is so freaking comfortable!” THANK YOU ALL from the bottom of my heart.

As many of you know, (and likely some who do not) Sam has battled fiercely for 7 years now and has done relatively well, continuing to teach full-time, run the theatre department, coach cheerleading, etc full-speed ahead but this year has been a year of significant struggle.

There has been progression in her lungs and liver again. They have started new chemo to try to contain the growth but she is having significant difficulties. The condition of the liver is causing significant fluid build up in her abdomen, making it almost unbearable to sit up or eat and sometimes even breathe. She has had fluid drained but it is short lived relief. Hopefully, the new chemo will prove effective.

Earlier in the year, she had continued loss of function in her legs (some of which was of unknown cause, but more recently, attributed to as a side effect of the previous chemo regime). She progressively required the use of a walker, relying more on arm strength than leg function to move around. However, for her safety, after a few falls, she has transitioned to an electric wheelchair which has been most helpful to keep some level of independence, and of course, to carry on with her teaching and production of Beauty & The Beast with her theatre kiddos but barely made it through. She’s such a fighter and loves her students so much though, she was relentless in her pursuit to make it to the holiday break.

She was able to see her family, and most importantly her little mini-me niece and adorable nephew, over break for a couple of days but struggled to participate, needing many naps and was in a lot of pain. Break has been filled with new chemo, MRI’s, brain scans, lab tests, abdominal drainage, etc. Movement is difficult. Getting in and out of bed is difficult. Sitting up/getting up out of a chair is difficult. She has an adjustable bed which helps at night; however, a lift chair has been recommended because the current furniture in her living room makes it almost impossible to get comfortable with her “stegosaurus spine” (as she calls it) and her limited mobility also make transferring very difficult.

In addition to all of this, until her new chemo hopefully kicks in to alleviate at least some of her symptoms, she will need to take some time off work. I know this is a disappointment to her because she loves teaching, loves theatre, loves cheerleading, loves those kids, but it is what must be done at this time. Her husband, Wesley, has been her rock, taking such good care of her this whole time; however, he must return to work shortly. I will be helping as much as I can, back and forth from VA to WV, assisting with whatever is needed: transportation, meals, housekeeping, etc.

I have been asked by several folks “What can I do?” or “If you need anything, please let me know”. If you feel compelled, please make a donation, no matter how small, it will be used for the needs at hand and very much appreciated. The first order of business will be to get her a lift chair ASAP ($800ish). After that, donations will be used for general living expenses as needed.

Thank you for the time you’ve spent reading this update on my incredible daughter’s hard-fought journey through this nightmare diagnosis. Her perseverance, determination, spunk, and even, at times, humorous attitude over the last 7 years has been nothing short of extraordinary.