Kathryn Mercers Cremation

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’ll try to keep it short (but it won’t be).

Kathryn was a fantastic woman and loving mom... in her special way. Growing up with her was a pleasure I won’t forget. I would always (well… mostly) tell her what I was doing, where I was going and with whom. One of my favorite things about her is when she always seemed to know that I was about to do something stupid. She would give me a certain look, scoff in a specific way, smile, and make a snarky comment about it. She was a tomboy, an OG stoner and an all-around Gen X’er. We would listen to System of a Down, Tool, and Offspring together on long trips to see grandma when I was younger. She always made sure I was taken care of even before herself.

My mother used to be a heavy smoker. And then she was diagnosed with the lung disease LAM (lymphangioleiomyomatosis-genetic) and I had watched her for years getting progressively worse. She did quit smoking but the damage from the disease was done. Her lungs were no good, damaged beyond repair. Her O2 ran very low if she was not constantly on 10 liters of air, which is about the max a person can get at home with assistance. She could not even walk about 10 feet to relieve herself without looking like she just ran a marathon. She also had trouble walking but that was another complication (a pinched nerve in her spine).

Due to COVID and the LAM disease, she essentially became a prisoner in our house and then ultimately in her bedroom for about 3 years. COVID or pneumonia would be a very long recovery or even a possible death sentence for her. So, she coped as well as she could with assistance from my father and myself.

Unfortunately, due to her lack of movement, she was admitted to the hospital around November because she was having pain in her chest and a swollen foot. She had a massive blood clot that they thought had moved from her leg and settled into her lungs. At about the end of December and the beginning of the new year, the blood clot was clearing up and she seemed to be doing better. Then the doctors announced that they were looking into performing a double lung and heart transplant and beginning to get a team in place to prep her for this surgery. She was scared about having this major surgery but was so hopeful at the same time. She told my father that she was excited to be able to do simple things again like going for a walk in the local park near our house or for a simple drive around just to get out of the house.

Then about 2 weeks before she passed, she started to hallucinate. The doctors began to change some of her medication around as they thought it was due to hospital ”delirium” due to the fact she could never receive any quality sleep as a patient. But I had a gut-wrenching feeling that it was time. On February 2nd around 5:50 am, she passed away due to heart failure. It could not keep up anymore due to the years of overwork because of her low O2. Unfortunately, this was one month and one day before my parents’ 33rd wedding anniversary and one month and three days before her 52nd birthday.

Now you may ask: “Why did it take so long to make this?” We had someone lined up to help us pay. After a few days, they flaked out on us. We then asked my mother’s sister to help. She has helped all she could. So, we asked my father’s sister if she could help. She has still not gotten back to us. So… Here I am... humbly asking for help to cremate my mother. It’s 800$ but I must ask for more because the crematorium has been charging us 19$ a day for… storage.

There are reasons why we cannot pay ourselves. My father was laid off from his job a year ago and decided to take care of my mother due to her declining health. I have recently quit my job because of a hostile work environment and I’m still searching for a job and so is my father. We have a few things of value, but I would like to keep them for memory's sake.

That’s my story. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the support as well! If I can, everyone will get a personal thank you message.

I love and miss you SOOO damn much momma!

Aleksandr Mercer