COVID victim: Funeral and Medical Expenses

Friends,

It is with great sorrow that I say my father Bill Moore passed on September 3rd from COVID-19. He was a beloved friend, brother, pastor, dad, and husband. He will be deeply missed. Though we are still reeling from his death and processing that he will no longer be with us, we are also thinking about the future for my mother, Tina Moore. They were planning to build a house they could retire in together, but due to mounting medical costs they had already been cutting into their funds to buy a home. I know my dad would want my mom to finish their dream and to live a happy life in the new home they dreamed of, but now with the addition of the medical bills from his fight with COVID and the funeral, more of those funds are being funneled away from their dreams and into bills. Help me see out the dream my dad had for his wife, help us build a safe place for my mom to rebuild the life she now has to live without my dad.

My dad did try to plan ahead for mom financially, he had a life insurance plan that he had purchased when he was 21 years old from the company he was working for. He had kept it for many years, but when he was in the hospital last October for a month due to an infection, which cost him half his colon, the policy lapsed. The company did not work with him. The policy he had been paying on for 43 years, his plan to cover his medical cost so he would not be burdening my mom, was gone. He tried to start a new one, but he didn't live long enough for it to mature. So, despite his effort, he was not able to leave mom with what she needed to pay off all his bills. There are a lot of bills too. The funeral will cost around 8k or more, his chemo treatments from this year were upwards of 35k, and we still have no idea what 2 weeks in the hospital, plus 1 week in the ICU fighting COVID will cost us. It won't be cheap.

My dad fought hard to live, he worked hard to build a life for his family, and he looked forward to life as a grandpa. Though he may not get to live out the retired grandpa life he dreamed of, I hope you will help him pave the way to leave a good grandma life for my mom. A small part of the life they dreamed of living together by helping pay for his medical bills and funeral cost.

The fight, Dad's longer medical story (where all those bills come from):

My dad has been a fighter for a long time. 6 years ago my dad's kidneys failed after he had a heart bypass. He put himself on many lists hoping to get a kidney before dialysis took its toll on his body. But his health deteriorated to quickly and the chance of him making it long enough to get a kidney from a random donor look dismal. Faced with losing her husband, my mom stepped up and gave her kidney to my dad. It was a deep act of love and an investment of hope that we could have him for another 10 years. That Christmas he faced very serious rejection and we thought we might lose him anyway. Yet somehow he fought his way back to health.

He was doing pretty good, but then in the summer of 2020 he got sick, due to his immune-suppressing medicine for mom's kidney living in him. The doctors thought he had overcome it, but then in October they discovered the infection was still there and it had been destroying his colon. His colon ruptured and he lost half of it. He fought hard and even though the doctors told him he shouldn't be alive- he kept fighting. He was shaken though. Mom and dad's house was not in good shape. They couldn't keep up with the mounting issues and maintenance. He pushed my mom to selling it in hopes they could buy a newer home that didn't need as much maintenance. So he wasn't leaving her with a mess and because honestly, he couldn't do the work anymore. They were going to move into a rental for a few months while they went house hunting, but the house prices shot up far beyond what they had sold their home for. They had to rethink their plans- to buy something smaller. With nothing on the market, they decided the only way they could be in their own home again was to build. This was my dad's hope for both of them. The dream I deeply want my mom to have despite all of the medical costs building up.

In October, they also found out that he had a nodule on his lung, but his doctors told him he needed to get stronger before they could remove it. They assured him it would be okay, that he had lots of time to take care of it, but they were wrong. In April after months of healing from his colon abruption, he returned to take care of the nodule, but due to medicine he was on to keep his transplanted kidney safe- it had expanded into a giant mass in his left lung. Within a month it was clear- he had stage 3 inoperable lung cancer. As a family, we mourned that we weren't going to keep our dad as long as we had hoped, but he was determined he was going to overcome it. He said he was going to be a witness to the miraculous healing of God and kick cancer's butt. He went through 7 rounds of chemo (each round is 5k in bills) and his cancer was responding well to the treatment. His kidneys became stronger, his hair got thicker, he was walking longer distances, and the mass was shrinking. We were amazed, dad was going to do it again. He was going to push through and overcome this too.

Then he caught COVID. My parents had planned one last big adventure when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. They didn't know what the future would hold and so they planned my dad's dream trip- to Alaska. My dad was so excited, that despite the risk, he broke isolation to go out and buy clothes for their grand adventure. Four days before they were supposed to leave he had sinus symptoms and a fever. He didn't want to go to the hospital. He was terrified he wouldn't get to go on the trip they had planned if he went. But that evening he went to the doctor, just to make sure he didn't have COVID- He tested positive. At first, it seemed like dad was going to kick COVID's butt and overcome it miraculously like so many things before, he even got to spend a few hours in a rehab facility before everything started going downhill. The virus was gone, but the inflammation and micro-clots were still doing damage. He couldn't breathe, they put him on oxygen and within a week he was on a ventilator. The micro-clots took the kidney my mom had so lovingly given him and the resulting dialysis was so hard on his heart, that eventually it could no longer keep up. My dad fought 3 hards weeks. None of his kids were able to see him in the hospital because of quarantine until after he was put into a medically induced coma so he could be on a ventilator. COVID is a terrible and heartbreaking sickness. Even though dad had overcome so many other obstacles, after he had fought so hard so he could retire with my mom and be a grandpa, COVID stole him away from us.

Here is the kicker friends- my dad was vaccinated, he wore a mask, and he did his best to stay away from crowded places. But those like my dad who are vulnerable and fighting for their lives are dependent on others to wear their masks, to get vaccinated, and to social distance. You can't do it for my dad anymore, but we hope you will do it for others.

We also hope you will contribute, even if it's a small amount. Even 5 or 10 dollars from many people will help us put a dent in the tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills and funeral costs my dad has accumulated, many just in this past year. We hope, that instead of having to deal with medical bills, my mom will have a peaceful time to begin the difficult journey to figuring out what life without her husband will be like. Thank you for every gift you can give, we also appreciate any and all prayers lifted up on behalf of our family.

May your family be safe and blessed,

Bethany