Hello everyone;

RAYS CONTINUED FIGHT AGAINST STAGE 4 COLON, LIVER AND LUNG CANCER...

Thank you for taking the time to visit this page, to read our story, and to hold us in your thoughts.  Your presence here already means more than we can fully express.  The love, encouragement and support we have received from friends, family and kind strangers have reminded Ray that he is not walking this journey alone.  We are incredibly grateful for every message, prayer, share and gesture of kindness.  It is humbling to feel surrounded by such compassion. 

Today we are reaching out with hope and humility.  We are starting another campaign as life has thrown Ray some unimaginable curveballs this last year up to current.  He has had to fight back harder than ever with some unexpected setbacks.   We want to share with you the story of this fight. 

On June 16th last spring Ray was rushed to the hospital with a large blockage in his colon. It was a long, complicated surgery, but it caused him to come out of the surgery with a colostomy bag.  Try and imagine the lifestyle change for Ray just in getting used to something like that.  We know many cancer patients have them, it was just a sudden surgery he was not prepared for.

There seemed to be some excitement in the air from his GI doctor who agreed to do the reversal surgery on his ostomy bag with a date of September 2nd.  Surgery appeared to go great; or so we thought.   He was 5 days in the hospital.  The day Ray was being cleared to come home was on the morning of September 8th.  Within an hour of his release (thank God he was still in hospital, or he would have died) he had severe pain in his abdomen, spiked a fever and shook uncontrollably.  His GI doctor was rushing Ray to the OR immediately.   The doctor found blood clots, air in his stomach and holes in the intestine.  Very scary.  The loss of blood was excessive; many transfusions were needed.  We were told later that he almost died on the table.  Unfortunately, Ray had to come out of that surgery with another ostomy bag.  We were told he was septic and they had to take out his spleen.  A very frightening experience for the entire family.  That is why we are so thankful for all the prayers.

The next unfortunate event and surgery happened on September 21st.  He had a LARGE infection that blew out his staples.  Again, very sick and still not recovered from the 1st two surgeries.  The ER visits continued.  Another infection on October 4th, another infection on October 21st, and another on December 17th.  There were 3 more ER visits through January 2026.  

The recovery from all of those surgeries was very difficult and isolating.  Ray's place of employment was very understanding, but in time, they unfortunately had to cut his health insurance. Ray left TURBO-CAM permanently in January 2026.

We want you to know as a family we recognize all the amazing and loving friends Ray has, who have helped him immensely in different areas.  Everybody's prayers have been so uplifting. The Good Lord is still seeing Ray through this.

Ray's only alternative was to apply for Medicaid health insurance, and for SSI which will help supplement some of his living expenses but not all.

We are doing another fundraiser to help with added expenses, and medical bills.  Ray currently is back on chemo.  We are on round 4.  Oncology will do a scan after round 7 of chemo.   His current scans show that only the lung tumors have shrunk, not the liver.   We are praying by round 7 all the tumors will have all shrunk.  Ray continues to fight his way each day.  He is strong in his Faith and has such an amazing attitude, and he is still very thankful for every one of you.  

We want to thank you in advance for your kindness and generosity.  As always, your support makes a world of difference.

Much Love,

The Lewis/Parino family