The Steele Family

We are raising funds to help the Steele family during this tough time. Tyanna has stage 4 throat cancer, and is still awaiting acceptance to a hospice care program. We are hoping to raise money for family bills, and end of life costs.

Some words from Lee (Ty's oldest son):

Hello, friends. This is a really difficult post for me to make.

As most of you know, last summer my mom, Ty Steele, was diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 throat cancer. She lost her ability to swallow and while being seen for that she was diagnosed, had a PEG feeding tube installed, and shortly after had a tracheostomy. Life since has felt like a hazy, awful, waking nightmare.

After a brief 6 week run at radiation & chemo, we had to end treatment because her kidneys were rejecting the chemo. Renal failure was on track to take her before the cancer had a chance to. Since then we've just kind of been coasting downhill towards a brick wall we can't see, and trying to make the best of the time we have left. How much time that is, we're not sure. The official prognosis is "weeks to months".

Lately we've had a couple of tough battles. She came down with the flu which landed her in the ER a couple of times. We've had a handful of infections around the site of her tracheostomy and feeding tube in her stomach. And after a recent visit one doctor is fairly certain the cancer has started to metastasize into her lymph nodes and possibly her chest. They're not very eager to do further imaging since we're no long actively treating it, and that's the primary reason for imaging. So we don't know how far it's progressed or how aggressive it is. I'm working with the doctors to try and get at least one more scan done, because not knowing how fast this is moving is a major source of anxiety for the family.

We're just starting work with the palliative care team at UW to help us organize and provide counseling, but at the rate this is progressing it's looking like they're going to hand us right over to hospice care. Needless to say we're struggling on many fronts. Emotionally, physically, financially, you name it.

Some of our dearest friends are leading the charge on some fundraising to get us through this. Kelsey & Devon have set up a GoFundMe and there's been talks of a benefit show as well. We're also collecting donations via PayPal for our more immediate needs and wants. Bills are stacking up and there's things we'd like to do with mom before we say goodbye to her, but spending money outside of necessitates just isn't possible right now, and we're fighting to cover those needs as it is. There's also things that insurance will probably cover once they get off their asses and approve it, but some of them are immediate needs that we're coming out of pocket for.

If you've got any way you can help us out, we'd greatly appreciate it. I know many of my close friends aren't in the position to be providing financial help, and that's a big part of what makes this ask so hard. If you can't afford to help, please don't compromise your finances to help us We'll also be asking for a handful of items (ie: mom could use a decent sized TV with bluetooth transmitter as she spends a lot of time tethered to a 50psi compressor nebulizer that's loud as hell) and help with things like rides to Dr appointments, or maybe just coming thru to get me or my brother out of the house for a few hours (neither of us have been out much since we got back from PITW and we've both been operating in fight-fight crisis response mode the entire time. We're fucking tired, y'all, on so many levels).

We greatly appreciate any and all help we can get, on any level. The GoFundMe link is below, and if you'd like to PayPal a donation for our short-term needs & wants, drop it to me via [email redacted].

I'll post details about the benefit show when I know more. Hopefully we can get mom to it for at least a little bit. She really misses the punk community, especially everyone she connected with at PITW 2019.

Mom's not spending a lot of time on social media, it's emotionally exhausting for her (I think we can all sympathize there). But if you want to drop her a message she reads them and they brighten her day, just don't be sad if she doesn't respond. Most of her energy is spent just going about her day and even that's becoming more of a challenge as this goes on. We're not receiving many visitors right now, but if you'd like to see her drop me a message and we'll see if we can work something out.

In closing: Fuck cancer, and thank you for listening.