My name is Ashley Gebauer. I am the eldest daughter of my father, Joseph Carl Gebauer. My siblings and I lost our father yesterday; he was 57 years old. We are devastated. My dad meant the world to us.

He has lived with me for the last 10 months, becoming an everyday part of our lives after living in Florida for years. We were just getting our dad back. Aside from being a dad to us, his favorite role was “Pop-Pop.” He spent his days while living with me spending time with his grandchildren and grandpup, Aubrey (14), Ava (14), Alivia (11), Jaxon (9), Aroura (6), Artie (2), and recently adding a 5th granddaughter, Everleigh, who is 3 months old. He did what he could to help me out and make my life a little easier. He was always willing to lend a hand; he would give the shirt off his back if he could to anyone who needed it. He was always optimistic, fluent in sarcasm, and always up for a laugh.

Over the last 7 years, my dad has been battling chronic osteomyelitis. He has endured many hospital stays resulting in multiple amputations. At first, it was an amputation of one toe, giving him the nickname of ‘9 Toe Joe,’ dwindling down as he lost all of them, gaining the nickname ‘No-Toe Joe.’ His new nickname was going to be ‘No-Toe Peg Leg Joe.’ My dad, no matter the situation, always tried to make the best of things. He was a funny guy, even leading up to the surgery that ultimately resulted in his passing. We thought our dad was going in for the amputation of his right leg to rid his right leg of the infection that kept making him sick. We wanted our dad to have a better quality of life. The plan was he was going to get the amputation, go to rehab, and get a prosthetic leg.

On Tuesday, 4/29, my dad went in for the surgery, which went well, but then everything went south. He got out of surgery and was put into the ICU for low blood pressure, respiratory distress, and VTach.

On Wednesday, 4/30, he had a heart attack in the morning where he was rushed to the cath lab where they found his heart with 100% blockage. They were able to go in and clear out some of the blockage. Things began to get gravely worse. Hearing my dad, the big strong man that he was, tell me he was worried and scared broke my heart. His kidneys were failing, his potassium was rising. They put him on dialysis to assist in helping filter out the toxins. His lower extremities had decreased blood flow, which he needed a stat CAT scan with contrast that ended up showing he had a blockage in his aorta. He needed emergency surgery. He was life-flighted from Holy Redeemer to Capital Health Hopewell where he was to undergo an Axillary Femoral Bypass. When he arrived at the hospital, the surgeon called me and told me that this surgery to save his life had a high mortality rate. We thought he had more of a chance. We got to talk to him and tell him how much we loved him before he went into surgery. We went from Holy Redeemer to Capital Health Hopewell where we anxiously waited for good news. We sat in the waiting room for hours until we were able to see him. We didn’t get to see him until about 4 AM. Our dad wasn’t on life support; he didn’t wake up from surgery.

On Friday, 5/1, they worked on him relentlessly trying to save his life. Unfortunately, it came to a point where he was on the max doses of the medication to keep his blood pressure up. He coded a few times where they performed CPR, breaking his ribs. There was no coming back for him. We made the decision as a family to stop treatment. My big strong loving father passed away. We as a family were not prepared for this; we were prepared for my dad to have this surgery and go to a rehabilitation facility.

We are asking if you could please donate money to help us give him a proper service for us to say goodbye. We want to give the kids a chance to say goodbye to their loving Pop-Pop, as well as us getting another chance to say see you later. Thank you.

Sincerely with a broken heart,

Ashley