Please Help Me (a permanently disabled retired veteran) give my dad the ability to Experience Life Before Stage 4 small cell Lung Cancer Takes It

Hi, my name is Ross(age 36), and I’m raising money for my dad—the best man I’ve ever known—to help him experience even just a little bit of life before it’s too late and to help cover the mounting bills.

My father (age 64)has stage 4 small cell lung cancer that has spread to his liver, spine, skull and now his brain. He’s been fighting hard since October 2024 with chemo and immunotherapy, but we’ve been told he’s almost out of time.

He’s never had a real vacation, ever, all he’s known is hardship and loss. He’s Never had enough money to live anyway but paycheck to paycheck. Never had peace. Never had security.

But he’s always had heart.

And he’s always given everything for everyone else. Both of his sons joined the military in 2006, one of which, me, was permanently disabled from a severe spinal cord injury and my brother who was honorably discharged after completing his service as a prison guard at fort Leavenworth.

⸻

A Life of Sacrifice

When my dad was 13, his father abandoned his family. My dad dropped out of school to support his mom, four brothers, and sister. He worked whatever jobs he could find—fixing cars, random manual labor, pumping gas, taking the hardest work no one else wanted just so they didn’t starve.

Later in life, when I was about 10, while helping his retired pa state trooper friend with Parkinson’s go to his hunting camp one last time, my dad had to lift him into a truck by himself when he got stuck getting in and my dad weighed about 150 pounds and he weighed over 300, rupturing five discs in his back. The spine fusion surgery that followed went wrong, and he’s been disabled ever since.

At the same time, my mother developed giant tumors on her legs and couldn’t walk for the next 12 years. My dad—injured, in pain, and destitute because he wasn’t injured at work or in a way he could get compensation besides SSDI(which he only makes 1700 a month)—took care of her by himself every single day and raised two young sons. They were married for 29 years before She passed away at age 55 Because she never qualified for health insurance and by the time she finally got approved for it, it was too late. He’s never dated again in the 12 years since. She was his one and only love. I’ve seen my dad cry twice in his life, when his mom died and when my mom died.

⸻

My Turn to Help—But I Can’t Do It Alone

When I turned 18, we would lose everything. My parents were about to become homeless because they would lose half their monthly income without having me as a child dependent anymore, so I joined the Army in 2006 at 17 immediately after high school to pay their rent, which I have done every month since to this day.

I was permanently disabled from a severe spinal cord injury in 2007 at age 19 while serving in the 10th Mountain Division as a military police officer and medically retired at age 21 after spending two years trying to recover in a warrior in transition unit(military hospital), I had to do speech therapy, cognitive rehabilitation, physical therapy and occupational therapy . I had a massive CSF leak that ended up causing a brain bleed and brain injury and short term memory problems. A few years later a disease formed in my spinal cord called adhesive arachnoiditis that’s so rare it’s in the rare disease registry. One in a million chance of it forming after a spinal cord injury. Basically I will lose bowl and bladder control as well as cognitive function over the next few years and possibly the ability to walk(Ive been able to walk short distances with a cane for the last 16years). It causes severe pain at all times and is a progressive disease like MS and is untreatable and incurable. Since then, my dad has helped take care of me. We’ve been together ever since, two broken bodies holding each other up. We’ve been best friends my entire life, he was even my best man at my wedding.

We survive on a fixed income: my VA disability and his SSDI, just enough to scrape by and live with dignity but we are forced to stay at home because we can’t afford to do more and I don’t want that to be his final months.

I need your help, so I can help him do more than just sit at home and wait to die. The bills have been piling up and I’ve spent everything I have trying to take care of him and give him as much time as possible.

⸻

I’m ashamed to admit I can’t give him this on my own because of my disabilities preventing me from being able to work and supplement my disability income to do this for him because I need to lay down every 30min to an hour for a few hours so I can walk with my cane again because of my severe nerve damage and pain in my spine.

I don’t have much time left to try and give him a few weeks or months of being able to experience more than just suffering and stress for the first time in decades.

⸻

Why He Deserves This

• He worked on people’s cars for well below minimum wage just to try and feed us growing up and make sure we had clothes for school. He also just wanted to help other poor people be able to have a car to be able to work and support their families. At night I used to hear him laying on his recliner just moaning in pain all night from doing everything he could even while physically broken, so he could take care of his family.

• He’s never been to a dentist in 50 years and all of his teeth have been broken for decades because he can’t afford to even get dentures and after chemo he’s now struggling to eat anything.

• He took care of everyone, and a lot people used him and took advantage of him—because he was too kind to say no and because they knew he couldn’t say no if he wanted to feed his family.

• He’s never complained. He’s never asked for anything. He’s never asked me or anyone else for a dime in help, everything I do, I do because I love him.

All I want is to give him a few good memories before this cancer takes him from me, not only for him but for me to be able to remember him happy again and have a few good memories with the only person I have left in this world.

⸻

How You Can Help

Im asking for finical help so I can use it to help with his medical needs and final comfort and let him experience whatever he would like to before leaving this world and also have a way of finding a place to live when he passes and be able to take care of his remains when he passes.

If you can give—anything at all— even just a dollar it would mean the world just so I can show my dad how many people want to help him and care about him. You’ll be helping the kindest man I’ve ever known feel like his life mattered. That he mattered. If you can’t give that’s ok too, if you could please share this with someone who might be able to donate or help, it would mean everything to me and my father.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for believing that people like my dad deserve something good just once in their lives.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and anything you can do to help. I can provide any documentation as proof for everything I’ve said.

I have never asked anyone for help before and I am ashamed to have to ask anyone to take pity on us and help, but I’m pleading, please… please help me, please help my father.

—Spc Ross A Keim us army disabled retired 10th mountain division 1BSTB 2006-2009

These are my military retired Id as well as the mri of my spine