I am Jennifer O'Brien Illingworth. The wife of 26 years to Frederick Henry Illingworth. I am reaching out to all, near and far, to help our cause. My husband, my children’s dad, passed away at 8:51 am CT on Wednesday, November 20th, 2024.

This is my story. I am a mother of 18-year-old twins, Liam and Nora, who are in their first semester of college. My husband, their father, Fred, was in the hospital in Minot, North Dakota. How did a family from Boston end up in North Dakota? Well, it is interesting. Fred was a Trust and Estate attorney who had worked all over the country. For the last eight years now he has worked and lived in Texas, New Hampshire, Vegas (twice) and now North Dakota. Throughout the kids schooling in Texas, I would stay with home them, and he would go and live in the places he was working. I told him that once the kids graduated high school; I would go with him to the place he chose next. And that was Williston, North Dakota.

So, our current situation is that the kids went to college in August this year, 2024 (Nora, Seina College in New York and Liam, A&M/ Blinn College in Texas). Fred headed out with our dog Charlie to drive up to his new job in Williston. I gave my notice at the Catholic Preschool where I had been the director for 6 years. I loved my job, my church, my people, the families and the kids. But I was willing to do as I promised and join Fred in ND. Not exactly a place you move to when you are closer to retirement than just starting out. I gave away most of our furniture and items we had had for a while. Retaining the keepsakes that we have from our life of 26 years together.

I headed out at the beginning of October and arrived on the 10th. Fred called me from work and said I need to pick him up because he couldn’t walk. I took this as an ache and pain that he has a lot of the time from old football injuries amd arthritis. I basically said suck it up buttercup I just got here and don’t even know where you work. He called back 2 hours later and hand only gotten about 6 feet outside his office building. Needless to say I went and got him and he was in bad shape and in a lot of pain. Fast forward 2 days and he finally let me take him to the ER in Williston. Look it up on a map, it is not too far from Canada. It is very rural.

Fred spent the next week in the Williston Hospital (CHI Alexius Health Center). He was diagnosed with cellulitus and MSSA staff infection. He had to have a pic line put in so we could take him every day after work at 5:30 to get an IV infusion of antibiotics. Oh, did I mention that at this point we were staying in an extended stay hotel with our dog Charlie till our apartment was ready on October 30th. Trying to get movers for a specific date in Williston is a nightmare. I had some scheduled for the 30th and was ghosted. I was able to eventually get some guys to come and unpack my 3 U-Haul boxes on Monday, Nov 4th. In the meantime, Fred was not getting better. He was not able to walk, shower or take care of himself without me. His swelling was getting worse and had been in a wheelchair barely able to use the walker he had. I got a call from his boss on Monday, Nov 4th to come get him because he wasn’t well. When I got to his office he was very disoriented and confused. Date: 1965, President: Reagan, Location: Boston.

I called an ambulance to come get him. They took him back to CHI Williston Hospital. He was med-flighted to Trinity Hospital in Minot, ND which is 2 hours away. I immediately went into survival mode. I went back to the hotel and packed a bag and grabbed the dog and headed to Minot at 1 am.

The next 2.5 weeks were a roller coaster. I was staying with the dog at an extended stay hotel in Minot. I had no family or friends to support me locally. Fred was put on a regular medical floor. I was beginning to get worried that this was not just a simple infection that was not going away. I was able to get a flight for my daughter Nora to come out from NY on the 6th. She stayed a week and was my rock. We visited Fred every day, all day and only went back to the hotel at night to sleep and take care of the dog. At this point I was paying to live in 3 places: the extended stay in Williston, our new apartment in Williston and now the hotel in Minot. Fred seemed to be getting better. He had to have a biopsy of his kidney to find out why it was not working properly. They were able to diagnose it as a rare kidney disease but treatable. They started dialysis and infusions of blood products because his numbers were not good. The outlook from the doctors was that he would be in the hospital for a while, we were looking at it in increments of weeks, not days or hours. So, Nora went back to school in New York. I figured we would all be together for Christmas so no need for Liam to come out as well. I went back to the hotel the day Nora left and felt hopeful.

I arrived back at Minot hospital on the Thursday the 14th to find that he had been moved to the ICU overnight because his core body temp went down to scary levels and his blood pressure was also awfully low. I’m not sure who knows this who is reading our story but when the doctors call you out into the hallway to have a conversation about the patient, it is usually not good news. On Friday the 15th the doctors proceeded to tell me that they had done all they can and that it was most likely days at this point. Wait, what? I thought things were good. They said his liver is also not working. When you have that along with the kidneys it is not something someone could recover from. How had things gotten so bad in 2 days?

I called my parents…I called my sister…I called Liam…I called Nora…

Time to circle the troops. Now we did not know how long we had. Mind you, Fred has been sleeping through all this. He was alert when Nora was there but since she left, he had not woken up. I had to get my people with me. My sister dropped everything and flew out that day. What an awesome gift of selflessness. And thank God her company was very understanding. I then moved on to try and get tickets for the twins. We did so and had friends and family help with that. When the kids arrived, we thought that was going to be that. But no, that was not Fred’s plan. He rallied and was able to see the kids and talk with them. He was still in ICU. Still getting blood products, a feeding tube, blood pressure meds to bring up his blood pressure and dialysis. He received the anointing of the sick by Father Sylvester. The doctors and nurses and social workers were great. Very caring and understanding. I was so glad we were all together. Then Fred decided to go back to sleep. During that time, he was moved back to the regular Med floor. We talked about Comfort Care with his doctors and decided to take him off all his meds and feeding tube. The only thing left was oxygen. While waiting for the move to the special room that was big enough to accommodate all of us with beds and recliners, Fred woke up. He stayed up for 12 hours. He entertained us and told us how much he loved us, and Charlie of course. We cried and laughed. We were punch-drunk. We didn’t want to fall asleep because we didn’t want to miss a minute with Fred. At exactly the 12-hour mark Fred fell back asleep. Unable to rouse him we let him rest. We rested as well. We took turns leaving the room and got food from the hospital café. It was now Tuesday the 19th. Fred did not wake up. The ending process is to slowly reduce the oxygen he was getting and to finally stop it all together.

On Wednesday morning the 20th of November at 8:51 am CT, Frederick Henry Illingworth, age 59, left this earthly world to become our forever guardian angel.

Yes, this is sad and I am sure you have known people who have passed away and the families have not asked for help. My plea is because Fred left us with nothing. Not even money for his cremation. We are destitute. No savings. No stocks, No bonds, No life insurance. I had not even had a chance to look for a new job. I haven’t even updated my resume. I have been living on the kindness of my family. This is a very hard thing to do, to ask for money.

So many people have asked what they can do. Well, this is it. We need money to survive this, and I need to get back to a place of supporting myself and my kids. I want them to feel confident that they can remain in college without any worries. They will both be getting jobs next semester. I have stored what is left of our lives in Williston with the intention of going back in 6-8 months to finish up. I feel like I am in a twilight zone episode. Very surreal.

I am here in NY with my aging parents. I am using this time to help them and figure out what to do next. There are so many other parts to this story, but I will end it here.

Anything will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and God Bless,

Jennifer, Liam and Nora