Help Larry's Kids During Stage 4 Cancer Battle

“Man!” “Book!” “Booker!” “LaRule” Or - my personal favorite “pain in my ass” ( if you know my dad’s personality, you’d know he’d appreciate that joke. I’ve been trying to joke with him as much as possible right now) WHATEVER you refer to him as… most of you know our favorite Mr. Larry Booker. None of his kids can walk around in public without being asked “are you Booker’s kid?” . You’d be surprised how many people I’ve met just off of that one question.

Anyway. My dad needs anyone and everyone who loves, ever has loved, or cares about him to come together right now.

This all started with his kids seeing a post on Facebook to find out he had a seizure and was sent to the hospital alone. We all jumped into action making phone calls and connecting with eachother (Eli, Keisha, Alex and I) and coordinating to find out where our father was sent, and get one of us to him so he wasn’t alone. When Keisha arrived at dad it was obvious he was mentally incoherent. He was confused, none of us kids really knew what was going on. Dad couldn’t remember anything so he couldn’t tell us anything, he didn’t even know where he was. He kept calling Keisha “Andrea” and that’s when it all really began to hit her. Keisha and I stayed in contact all night coordinating with each other, doctors, and our brothers. Keisha stayed with dad until they transferred him to southern Maine.

keisha and I met at the hospital the next morning, to find out that his children are granted Power of Attorney with me making final say and being first call (just as oldest). We were able to get both of our brothers to the hospital the same day to see day as soon as possible while he’s still remembering bits and pieces. As soon as he saw Elijah and heard his son cry a little light sparked and he sat up on his own and reached out for his son. Even in my father’s weakest moments he is trying to take care of all of us kids. If you know Larry Booker you know he lives for his kids… even when we’re a$$holes.

3/24/25

As we approach day 4 of Dad being hospitalized, we are receiving more news by the day. Tomorrow (3/25/25) Dad will be getting a biopsy on the two spots on his lungs. That biopsy will definitely confirm whether this is cancer (his doctor says that he will be surprised if it shows otherwise, just by looking at his MRI and CT scans he is very much sure this is cancer but we need this biopsy done for final confirmation).

because of the 2 spots on his lungs and 4 giant lesions on his brain, it is probable that this started as a lung cancer that has spread to his brain and it has quickly progressed. They do not think this is something that has been building up for years, they believe this happened rather quickly and seems to be progressing quickly as the days goes by.

due to placement and size of the tumors and his inability to regulate his own blood pressure Dad would not survive a brain operation.

His children (Elijah, Keisha, Alex and I) have together decided that radiation therapy will be our next step. After Dads biopsy tomorrow they will be mapping him and prepping for radiation treatment. He will start radiation Wednesday. This will be a Monday-Friday treatment for 10 days. So, two weeks.

we will have results of the biopsy about 3-4 days after the procedure. This will give us final prognosis and an idea of how much time we have left with Dad. what we know for sure is there no cure for this, and once the cancer metastasizes to the brain it is now considered stage 4. BUT we will know 100% sure accurate information when biopsy results come back.

the hope for radiation is to shrink the tumors some, give him some memory back, give him some mobility back, get a little bit of Larry Booker back.

we had to make a final choice about radiation quickly to get dad started as soon as possible. And we all did that this morning and signed all needed consent forms.

there is a lot up in the air right now but ONE thing for certain is that dad does not have any life insurance policy, nor has he prepared for this type of thing yet and unfortunately none of us kids have either. My dad is far too young, we all thought we had more time.

Us kids have collectively decided that because we have no plot ready, and really just we’re not prepared for this it would be best to have our father creamated WHENEVER that day does come. RIGHT now we don’t know when but as his oldest daughter I need to find a way to be prepared so everything can go smoothly and I can try to bare the burden of most of this stress so my family and all of the people who love my father can just be there for him while he’s here, and grieve him when he’s not.

i am the only one who lives close enough to Larry where I do not have to worry much about getting to him. But my 3 siblings live over 2 hours away so the commute is becoming rather difficult. A portion of these funds will be used to get a room to ensure my siblings have a place to rest near dad while this is going on. We are trying to keep atleast one of us as close as possible. Right now my sister is in a room across the street from the hospital, I am 20 minutes away and our brothers are 2 hours away. We unfortunately are running out of funds for right now very fast and could greatly use help, even if someone were to call and book a room for us.

all in all, we need help. We need emergency funds for “after life” care so that we are not scrambling last minute, this will include cremation and any memorial services. We need help with a room closer to the hospital because we have no idea how long our dad is going to be there right now and we don’t want him alone.

I will be planning some sort of fundraising dinner and I will keep everyone posted on details as I get it together. It will be in the Waterville area as that is where all dads “people” are.

Please, reach out to me (Andrea) with any questions about dad or visiting him. My siblings are struggling and really need to focus on holding themselves together and taking care of dad. We are all working together here trying to do our part to help our father.

we appreciate and love all of you so much for the amount of support we have already recieved. I will keep this updated as we receive more information. Thank you SO much.