CIBOLO, Texas — The Cibolo and Schertz community is rallying behind a local mother who is not only battling stage four brain cancer, but doing it without her husband by her side.
In the last ten years Nicole Hampton has lost both her parents, her brother, and on September 26, she lost her husband.
“She's just selfless and would never ask for any help,” Her friend of 30 years, Jeanna Butler said. “We all want to be there for her.”
Butler helped organize a bake sale Sunday afternoon at Old Main Ice house in Cibolo for Hampton and her daughter.
“It’s just been, it’s a story that you hear that you just think this is a bad movie and this is unreal,” Butler said. “And so how much stuff can one person go through?”
Nicole Hampton insists her story is not just about hardships but about a fight.
“I have to fight my hardest now for Jaxson,” Hampton said.
Hampton was married to her husband, Chance Trip for 17 years. She said he died in a car accident in Hondo while he was visiting his mother. Now she is left raising their 8-year-old daughter without his help.
“I thought I was preparing to have a hard conversation about me with her and I had to tell her about dad, and that was the worst moment of my life,” Hampton said.
Hampton’s battle with cancer started in 2007. She had been in remission twice since then but recently was diagnosed with stage four. Doctors are treating her with chemotherapy in hopes of keeping the tumor from growing.
Her friends were already raising money before her husband’s death to help pay the medical bills, but are now hoping to raise even more.
“Having a mortgage and a child to raise is hard when you're going through chemo and then not having that support of your husband, so really any donation helps,” Butler said.
Her friends are hoping the money raised will allow Hampton to focus on her daughter.
“She’s keeping me together, like sometimes I'm hugging her because she's crying and sometimes, she's saying mama, don't cry,” Hampton said. “She’s the best thing that we ever had together.”
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family.