I am fundraising for a friend, James Dalpee, to assist with the end-of-life and funeral expenses for his mother, Mary "Susan" Dalpee. Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, and while it was in remission for some time, it was discovered that it had metastasized in 2019. After several years of battling the disease with endless rounds of chemo, she passed away on July 21st, 2024. It was a long battle, but throughout it, Susan always maintained a positive outlook and enjoyed life. James is in the process of laying his mother to rest, and all end of life costs and expenses fall solely on him, her only child. Susan was not able to work at the end of her life and did not have life insurance or assets. I seek to help James during this difficult time with this fundraiser with the hope of removing some of the financial stress and worry, during a time where his focus is on his mothers final arrangements. I can only imagine how hard it must be to bury one’s mother. As an only child, he bears all the responsibility and pain of his loss. It should go without saying, but all funds raised through this LFEBridge will go to James Dalpee (minus any payment processing fees charged by credit card companies to LFEBridge). The funeral will be held at St. Peter's Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Saturday, August 12th at 11:00 am. Susan will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on a date TBD, as the waiting list allows. Here is what James wrote on his Facebook page in the days following Susan’s passing: "It's with a heavy heart that I write that my mom, Mary Susan Dalpee, passed away on the afternoon of Friday, July 21st, 2024, after a long battle with cancer. Exactly four weeks prior, we went to the ER at Sibley Hospital after a visit to her cancer doctor's office. Her Nurse Practitioner, Rachel, sitting in for the doctor, who was on vacation, recommended we go to the ER, due to my mom's racing heart rate and difficulty breathing. She was afraid her heart was failing. After some convincing, Mom agreed to go to Sibley Hospital's ER, where she got seen almost immediately. It still took 10 hours to get admitted officially, and when the doctor said you're going to the ICU, she said "Hooray!" The doctor looked puzzled, and said "Going to the ICU is not a great thing," to which my mom responded, "Oh, yes it is! Yay!" As they wheeled her up, she put her hands up, cheering. You see, my mom always put a positive spin on everything. She knew she would be getting the best care at the ICU, and that was cause for celebration. That was a wonderful quality of my mom. She was always cheerful and could maintain good spirits in the most difficult of situations; she was like that throughout all the years of chemo (which we started in 2019 and did continuously until we went to the ER). Of course eventually, the ICU doctors said she could not recover, and she ended up at inpatient hospice at Sibley (Capital Caring). She was actually quite happy and comfortable there, and said "I love it here" more than once. She rebounded for a while, and seemed like her normal self, and symptoms were under control; but suddenly she took a turn for the worse a few days ago. It is comforting to know she's not in pain anymore, a cliché, but true. I miss her greatly, but I'm so glad I was able to go everyday to see her over the last few weeks, and just enjoy her company. We even had fun watching Wimbledon together at the hospital last week. If you knew my mom, you knew she loved sports. I love you, Mom. Funeral arrangements to follow. (This photo was taken when she visited for Christmas, just before the chemo took her hair and the cancer in her knee forced her into a wheelchair.)"
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