After combating crime and violence for 20 years within the South Bronx, retired NYPD Lt. Eric Dym bought his residence and set off along with his household on what they deliberate as a dream journey – backpacking via Asia to study jiu jitsu, research Buddhism and benefit from the outside.
As a substitute, Dym and his spouse Luiza discovered themselves in a residing nightmare when their son Derek, at age 7, was identified with a uncommon, aggressive mind most cancers.
For the previous yr, the financially-strapped couple and their two children have been residing in an RV camped close to Los Angeles Kids’s Hospital, the place Derek has undergone grueling checks and remedy.
“We have no idea how this happened – he’s a healthy kid one day, and his life changed in a second,” mentioned Dym, 45, an ex-Marine and co-host of a podcast on policing.
“We’re not giving up. We refuse. We have to stand up and fight against cancer.”
The household was in Bali when Derek started to undergo complications. At first, an area clinic brushed it off as nothing severe. Sensing one thing incorrect, the Dyms introduced their son to the hospital the place a CT scan confirmed a mass.
The couple, who even have a 3-year-old daughter, Ellie, left all their belongings behind and headed to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. However they stopped in LA, the primary US metropolis, to hurry Derek to an emergency room. After the household spent a month in a resort, then three months as company of the Ronald McDonald Home, Dym purchased the RV, and a truck to drag it, to make their residence.
The Dyms have cashed out their 401Ks and maxed out their bank cards to ensure Derek will get something he wants in a determined bid to save lots of his life.
His inoperable tumor, positioned beneath a significant space of the mind, hardly budged with radiation and oral chemotherapy.
After a medical trial rejected Derek as a result of the mass had grown, the Dyms paid $5,000 for a 30-day provide of remedy they hoped would sluggish its development. Insurance coverage lastly coated one other drug costing $40,000 a month: “It was a struggle to get approved,” Dym mentioned.
Dym will get an NYPD pension and metropolis medical health insurance, however $50,000 in co-pays and out-of-network medical prices piled up. “We have to start from scratch all over again,” he mentioned of discovering the funds for future bills.
The anguished mother and pa dove into analysis of DMG Glioma, a incessantly deadly most cancers which strikes about 300 kids a yr within the US. They consulted docs in each main kids’s hospital, and skim each research – all with a irritating lack of solutions.
“They don’t have a cure, and they don’t know how it forms. They can’t tell us how he got it,” Eric mentioned.
“I want to know why this is happening to my son, and how to fix it,” Luiza added. “It’s MRI after MRI, prayer after prayer.”
Hoping different remedies would possibly assist, she purchased a $4,000 red-light remedy helmet and a $10,000 sound-therapy machine, however their affect on the tumor is unknown.
With a shunt in his mind to empty fluid, Derek was in a position to play with different children and dwell fortunately for 5 months. He loved Minecraft, a online game he obtained on a toy procuring spree from the Make-a-Want Basis.
However just lately his situation has worsened. At the moment, the 8-year-old can barely stroll, and his proper arm is motionless. Fatigued, he sleeps a lot of the day. Little sister Ellie holds his hand and helps feed him.
But Derek faces his ordeal with wonderful braveness and a thumbs-up, his dad mentioned: “This kid’s my hero. He’s brave. He never complains — and that gives me strength.”
As phrase of Derek’s plight unfold on social media, the Dyms have been overwhelmed by help, and grateful for a flood of donations meant to ease their monetary burden.
A GoFundMe web page launched by associates this week has raised greater than $154,000 to this point.
