Ouster

Hey yall!
We haven’t forgotten you all, rather we’ve been going through a major battle regarding a close family members health and recovery with family & personal journeys being impacted along the way.

Des’ father is finishing up radiation on Monday, the last treatment of almost 6 weeks straight 5 days a week spot treatment radiation and 5 weeks of weekly chemotherapy infusions every Tuesday.

This has backed us all up to being financially stretched thin as you all know we had just lost my grandma in January this year and had to figure out the funeral arrangements cremation& logistics etc and have hardly had time to process that yet & we got news in March that dads cancer was back & we needed to act fast and aggressively treat it as it IS still curable at a stage 4B cancer but was very close to his brain stem and they were unable to do another surgery -

We are so proud of him for pushing through his second battle with stage 4 head and neck cancer, he lost his left eye and had a major surgery to remove a base ball size tumor on his face in September of 2025. He did 30 days of radiation in Reno then came to Ohio to be with family and have a support system & to build a relationship with his kids and grandchildren while we navigated next steps.

Since then, He bought a truck, which has helped us in times of need & got a new team of Drs and specialists through UH Seidman Center They told us in January of 2026 he was cancer free hooray!!

Unfortunately on the routine scans a couple months ago March of 2026 he had cancer regrowing again in that spot.

This process has not been easy for him, but he has prevailed and gone even further than that I’d say. For the first 4 weeks you’d never have known he was doing chemo or radiation. He’s lost weight, and the response for the resources he needed while going through treatment were little to nothing or way too late to even help during the treatment.

The specified food bank for supplemental nutrition couldn’t get him in until after his chemo was already over and driving over an hour for the food bank just doesn’t make sense for us if we’re not already out there at the seidman center hospital.

The supplemental program for high calorie shakes that he relied on mostly during this process doesn’t start processing until they see the patient lose weight despite it being a very known possibility that anyone undergoing these treatments will lose weight quickly.

It doesn’t help that his sense of taste and smell is majorly diminished due to the chemo and the spot treatment radiation, especially in proximity to his mouth and taste buds etc. his cancer is literally in his mouth and face so it is fu**ed to me that they had to wait to accommodate this. So alll the supposed resources he should
Be getting aren’t coming until after the treatments are done and we’re kinda all left in the wake of it in limbo waiting.

So he’s been having to buy boost or high calorie shakes with his food stamps & the very little disability that they give him after taking child support back to the state for Medicaid in those states his adult children have lived.

Similarly the rides his insurance was supposed to provide stopped showing up so we drove 50 minutes in rush hour traffic once a week from Elyria to seidman center on Euclid avenue in Cleveland using my vehicle.

Once a week for Euclid, five days a week from Elyria to Avon seidman for his spot treatment radiation. In turn Matt couldn’t be working during the Tuesdays he was getting the chemo treatments because he had to be with the kids & once my alternator (we think) gave up in my car the day after dads last chemo treatment he couldn’t work until dad was finished with radiation completely.

- Thankfully my sister was able to lend us her second car for a few weeks while we figure out what is wrong with mine. So we’ll take the good with the bad. But we are down a vehicle technically.

I would take him downtown and make sure he was supported through that and on time not left with no ride. We had such good nurses and drs. His insurance will pay mileage but only under 30 miles if you drive yourself and of course seidman is 33 miles from our home & they provide rides if you’re further away- but they stopped showing up so that’s a moot point.

So I had no choice but to brave it in my car. Which was already acting up before all of this. And the day after his last treatment the alternator quit in the middle of it he road on 57 and west river.. so thankful it made it to the bigger days of treatment now we are down to the truck. Which he takes back and forth to radiation daily until this Monday yay!!!!

So despite all of this piling up on itself & pushing against us all we still are pushing through, scraping by, but it’s not without a fu***ng fight..

Anyways, I say all of this to say, that we are looking to put on a benefit show to raise money for him & our household. We want to help him feel comfortable enough to rest and recuperate rather than stress during this time, to help make future treatment costs for gas manageable & to play some good fun music for and with our friends, family and anyone else who would be willing to come listen to us howl at the moon.

My dad has never gotten to see us live either & my kids are also wanting to do a special thing on stage for this event.
We do have a few friends interested in playing for it, we have Skyler Keffer, Paul Ryan, Matt Doyle, Rachel Shortt and I think even Corissa bragg mentioned being interested in something possibly were open to anyone who wants to support, whether it’s art,music, food raffle items whatever you can think of we’re game.

A lot of the artists ourselves included RARELY play out anymore & in my opinion this will be something you don’t want to miss out on because all of them are mind blowingly talented & amazing human beings.

We would love it if any of our local friends would be willing to put together some Baskets, gift cards, anything we could raffle for him at this even as well.
We don’t usually try to reach out for help, but we genuinely need our community right now & Des could use help on reaching out to places or people to see if anyone can donate to this cause for raffles baskets, gift cards, whatever you can think of that may help - or help curating the event.

We haven’t decided the venue yet, it’s all still in the beginning stages of planning with friends but both bars, house shows, and other venues are on the table currently we will keep everyone updated. & sending love and peaceful thoughts to you all.

**kcancer **kyeahouster

Happy late birthday to Des yesterday!!!!!! So this is 37! ❤️‍🔥

With Elliott Smith – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

With Fender – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉