A GoFundMe campaign for a man with terminal lung cancer is gaining national attention after his wife was killed in the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas last week.
William Tisdale of Dickinson, Texas, suffers from end stage idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal form of lung cancer that plagues victims with "chest pain, depression, reduced lung function, disturbed sleep patterns, and becoming housebound." Last December, Tisdale was given 12-18 months to live, and began crowd-sourcing in order to pay for life-saving treatments.
"Pulmonary Fibrosis is a disease marked by scarring in the lungs. Tissue deep in the lungs become thick, stiff and scarred. The scarring is called fibrosis. As the lung tissue becomes scarred it interferes with a persons ability to breathe."
Launched on March 28, the GoFundMe has raised over $130,000 of its $150,000 goal. But tragically, Tisdale's wife Cynthia, who returned to work as a substitute teacher so they could pay for health coverage, was shot and killed in Friday's school shooting in Texas.
On May 18, a 17-year-old student murdered eight classmates and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in Texas after he stole his father's shotgun and revolver. There have been more than 20 school shootings in 2018, taking more lives than those lost in military combat so far this year.
In an emotional update to the GoFundMe page over the weekend, Tisdale's children thanked supporters for their donations, which they said would have made their mother proud.
"Today has been a very overwhelming and busy day for our family as we are making preparations for our mothers funeral that will be held later this week, but as we stopped and saw the amazing countless contributions that were given today we wanted to say how appreciative and thankful we are to every single one of you. Our mothers main priority was to make sure our father was taken care of and now he gets to have his stem cell treatment and the true blessing is now he has a chance at long term health care. Please continue sharing and praying for our father and our family in this horrific time of our lives. We feel all the support and thank you all so much. We will continue to send updates and we will make sure to send a picture of him after his stem cell treatment procedure! Thank you all again so very much!"
As donations continue to pour in, Twitter shared its thoughts, and people are nothing short of angry.
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