Hello. My name is Mackenzie Relaford and I am collecting funds on behalf of my dad, Mike Fitzgerald. This is a hard thing for my Dad and I to ask for. But we are at this unfortunate step in his health journey.

My Dad is a father of three, myself (26), Maggie (16), and Mason (11). My Dad lives alone in a rental house in Ellis. He has and still is, a Dad first and foremost. Everything he does is for his kids, always putting their needs above his own. After his divorce, just like before, he refused to leave the area his children lived. He could have moved closer to his hometown to be near his mother and siblings, but he did not. He always wants to be nearby for when they need him.

In May of 2025, my Dad was diagnosed with stage 2 rectal cancer. Having next to no cancer history in our family, this came as a huge shock to us all. We met with a surgeon who wanted treatment before surgery. He did 28 cycles of radiation at the Hays Med Cancer Center over the summer, while also taking chemo pills at home. He then started 8 cycles of IV chemo, which were completed at the end of 2025. January of 2026, we traveled to his surgeon in Wichita and learned what we unfortunately always knew in the back of our minds, we now need surgery to remove the last of the cancer. It is scheduled for February 9. Due to the location of the cancer, my Dad will have a temporary colonoscopy bag. We are hoping all goes well, we can then head down to Wichita and get it removed. We don't know what the future will hold beyond that. This situation is also best case scenario. We also know that the rest of my Dad's life will be filled with lots of doctors appointments to make sure this cancer never comes back.

We hate to even have to ask, but we are finally at a point where the hospital wants to start payments. Somehow, my Dad has managed to continue working an average of 30 hours through all this. We are so grateful for his job letting him switch to work from home and giving him the time off needed for his treatments. He is hoping to keep working to avoid further lapse in PTO, but he is already in the negative. He could take temporary disability but he would have to take a certain amount of time off unpaid in order to do that and financially, that is not very realistic.

5000 is our initial goal. It would be half to medical bills and half to living expenses. It would not cover everything but it would allow my dad to get started on payments and take time off if needed for his surgery without having to worry about a lack of income. Traveling is also getting expensive for his care. Even just going to his basic cancer doctor is minimum 30 mile round trip, as he lives the next town over from the hospital. The surgeon is 3 hours away, which requires a day off work to go see her. We do not have any bills from surgery yet, so we still need to apply for aid and see what will even happen with those accounts. Of course extra funds would be set aside as we know surgery is expensive. Plus, my dad will need life time care to make sure his cancer is not coming back. We have applied and been approved for aid at Hays Med, but now is the time to start making payments on his accounts.

Thank you for even taking the time to read this. Thank you to those who have already helped my Dad. We are eternally grateful to each and everyone of you. We appreciate everyone who can help us some more with this next step in this journey. We have done everything in our power to avoid this, but unfortunately we must now ask for help. Thank you, Mackenzie and Mike.