A letter from Dean :
Early Tuesday morning, only a few hours after making her final appearance at our Monday night giveaway show during our 10th Anniversary High Seas Rally and getting a standing ovation, Debbie slipped into unconsciousness and died Wednesday Oct 31 at 2:15 pm.in the ships infirmary. She was in no pain. Her last wishes were to be on this 10th Anniversary High Seas Rally cruise
Debbie was the co-owner of the High Seas Rally and sole creator of the HOHS Dialysis Fund. While I (Dean) got the fun part of the job creating the games to raise the dialysis money, Debbie was the heart and soul that made it happen. Until just this year when her health was failing, she handled all patients and all paperwork since the beginning. Raising almost $300,000 on this 2012 Rally cruise alone and over 1.6 million since 2003. A tireless worker and humanitarian, loved by all that met her.
Two years ago almost to this day, Debbie was diagnosed with a rare form of not one but 2 kinds of lung cancer. Since Debbie never smoked, her odds of getting lung cancer were less than 3%. In addition, the 2 forms of lung cancer she contracted only show up in 2% of all cancer patients. That's just plain bad luck. Given only 6 months to live, she bravely fought on for 2 years and beat the one cancer in her lungs but the second cancer moved to her liver and we never did get ahead of it.
During this cruise, we know our veteran High Seas Rally cruisers knew something was terribly wrong because we have been together for 40 years, married for 37 and are rarely seen more than a few feet apart but it was my decision alone to not mention this situation to our friends and passengers. Only myself, my son Cody, his wife Carla and ship medical staff knew of her death. None of our staff knew. It was much too painful for me to mention during the cruise and would have been in direct conflict with what this rally is all about. Debbie also agreed.
She requested to be cremated and have no funeral. Instead, she wished us to have a party in her honor on a future High Seas Rally cruise. She was, is and always will be, the most important person in my life. Although I know you all wish me well, please do not attempt to contact me personally for the next 30 days. Creating the High Seas Rally was easy compared to writing this. I need some alone time to get through this. She was my angel. Once again, thanks everyone for making Debbie's Dialysis Fund and the High Seas Rally a runaway success. Rest assured, the show will go on.
In lieu of flowers or gifts, a donation to the HOHS Dialysis Fund will help continue Debbie's passion and is greatly appreciated.
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Topic: Debbie Anderson The creator of Hog on the High seas (Read 6012 times)