Help with Bobbie's Final Expenses and A Family's Need

Rob Thomas is organizing this fundraiser.

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My name is Rob Thomas and I am here on behalf of my aunt, Bobbie Webb. Bobbie was many things to me, but, even though she was my aunt, she was also the closest thing I had to a big sister. I was raised by her and my grandmother after my grandfather passed when I was still young. She was also disabled and in the care of my grandmother for the whole of her life, until my grandmother passed from lung cancer in 2008, at which point her care passed to me. There have only been two years of my life without the two of us living together - starting when I first moved away from home in 1999 - but by 2001 I had moved both her and my grandmother back in with me in order to better be able to take care of them.

Bobbie was a lifelong wrestling fan. A lot of the earliest music I was introduced to as a youngster came from her and the albums she played. She loved coming up with various sewing projects and collecting assorted trinkets and knick-knacks. And for the last seven years, her near-constant companion was a one-eyed rescue cat who took a much greater shine to her as opposed to myself and my roommate, who originally brought the cat home.

This past December, Bobbie was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. It was very advanced but was, thankfully, still localized and hadn't metastasized outside her colon. We had a long and difficult road ahead of us with months of treatment and, eventually, surgery later this year on the horizon. But we still had a decent chance of beating it. We were scared, but hopeful and optimistic. She started chemotherapy on Tuesday, February 4th.

On the morning of Saturday, February 8th, things started off like normal. I made her some food to take with her morning chemo meds. She only ate a couple of bites and didn't finish it, but took her pills as usual. Shortly after, she began breathing hard. This had been happening off and on for the last week and we didn't think much about it. She got up to go to the bathroom, so I returned to my bedroom nearby.

Only a minute or two later, we heard a loud thump of something hitting the bathroom floor. We rushed to the door to find her face down and unresponsive. Her legs were blocking the door from opening more than a few inches and while I struggled to get inside, my roommate called 911. I managed to finally squeeze in and got her over onto her back. She was unresponsive. I was able to lift her legs, open the door and we dragged her out into the hallway, where I began performing CPR while on speakerphone with the 911 dispatch until the paramedics arrived.

Emergency services took over when they showed up and, despite working diligently on her while we stood nearby answering their questions, they weren't able to get her heart restarted by the time they left to take her to the hospital. While I already assumed the worst before they left, when we made it to the hospital soon after it was confirmed. She was gone. She was my last living close blood family.

While I had been preparing myself mentally for the idea of losing her ever since the cancer diagnosis, nothing prepared me for losing her this way. The last four days have felt unreal and despite all of that, there are still choices that have to be made and life keeps on moving, even if we wish we could pause it all and take the time we need to process all that has happened and that which we still need to do.

While I didn't want to have to come to GoFundMe to seek help for this, we really don't have many other options. As it was, our household budget was already fairly tight and now we find ourselves in even tighter circumstances, with the loss of her fixed income from social security and disability each month. My roommate and I are currently in the process of trying to cut corners where possible: selling off some things, downsizing/consolidating expenses, looking to move to a smaller/more affordable place when our lease is up this summer (if one can be found). But even with these concessions, we still need to come to you for any help you can provide.

Your donations will go toward:

Bobbie's Funeral Costs and Unpaid Medical Expenses, First and Foremost. We haven't decided on a funeral home yet, but we can't have the hospital holding her forever. When we lost Bobbie's mother/my grandmother in 2008, we were in such dire financial straights at that time that we couldn't even afford the lowest cost funeral or cremation costs available and, consequently, had to forfeit her remains. I can't have that happen again.
Household Expenses and Debt, Secondly. My roommate and I are both employed but I'm limited in the amount of hours I can work each month. The loss of her income is a major blow to our long-term finances and we're in danger of falling back into debt, which we were just beginning to claw our way out of at the start of this year. Any reduction of our debt will allow our existing income to go toward filling the void caused by the loss of hers.
Moving Costs, Lastly. Our current place feels too large and empty with just my roommate and I in it. However, our lease is not up until this summer. We will likely try to find a smaller, cheaper place to live if we can (though cheaper is somewhat unlikely as most rents around us are already more than what we pay now). That said, moving comes with a whole other set of costs - deposits, moving truck rentals, etc. - that we can't afford to save up for now.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this and, hopefully, to share it so others can see it as well. Bobbie always worried later in her life about feeling like a burden to the ones around her, despite my constant reassurances that she was anything but that. I don't know what the shape of my life going forward is going to look like without her in it, but the very least I can do is to maintain those reassurances I gave her by asking help from all of you to lighten the load we find ourselves now having to carry. Any help you can provide is appreciated more than you can ever know.

Thank you again,

Rob

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