Hello family and friends near and far. On June 18th of this year, we received the unexpected and unfortunate news that my Dad, Kurt West, has cancer.

A month and a half prior to this diagnosis, he was still a very active 73-year-old man. He kept himself busy with things like family genealogy with his Cherokee Facebook pages, running around doing instacart, and growing strawberries, squash, watermelon, and corn for and with his granddaughter, Avery. He was also making plans to attend the Cherokee National Holiday in Oklahoma in August.

For a few weeks, he had some pretty bad pain in his leg that kept him from those daily activities, which led to a trip to the doctor's office. Some X-rays and test procedures were done, and this is how we discovered the cancer.

Since the diagnosis, it has been a pretty quick downward spiral for my Dad. As a family and per his wishes, we decided the best place for him to be was at home. My brother, sister, our mom, his granddaughter, and myself, all help with his care. Avery especially likes to make him sno-cones when he asks for them, as a sno-cone machine was his most recent gift to her and it helps to keep him hydrated. In the span of 4 and a half months, Dad has gone from being active around town and at home, to being bedridden in the last two months.

Dad doesn't have health coverage or life insurance, so as a family, we have been coming together to help pay for all his current daily living aspects: specific dietary needs, medications, and medical supplies such as gloves, wipes, Depends, hospital bed, shower chair, commode. We also have end-of-life expenses to prepare for.

Asking for help is hard. We have always been a family to offer help to those in need. Pre-cooking dinners for a week for families in need, paying a power bill to keep the lights on, or a phone bill to keep communication active.

We need help at this point, especially as we all will be taking time off from work soon to spend whatever time my Dad has left, as a family.

Anything you can do, we thank you greatly for and appreciate. Whether it's through donation, sharing of this GoFundMe, or simply having the family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.