MESA, Ariz. (CNN Newsource/KNXV) — You can see the love just through the doors of Robert Letscher’s home. Photos of the good times are hung on every wall — his wife, Cathy and their children all smiles.

“This year has been rough and included the removal of the esophagus and the stomach,” Letscher said.

Diagnosed with cancer, Letscher is not only fighting for his life but fighting to stay afloat. However, the medical bills just keep coming in.

“It doesn’t stop, it just seems like each day when you get the mail you always know there’s going to be more of them in there,” he said.

But one thing that’s always kept him going was his love for something else, specifically the “X-Men” series. It all started when he was about 5 years old.

“I remember my earliest memories being so excited opening those bundles of comics and just seeing all the different characters,” he said.

Letscher has been collecting and holding on to almost every one for 50 years.

“For some, it kind of makes you a hoarder but for others it makes you a super collector, so I try to go with the latter,” he said.

He’s ended up with nearly 600 copies, or the entire “X-Men” collection and then some. Comics he used to buy for less than a quarter as a kid are now worth thousands of dollars today.

“It never really faded out for me,” Letscher said. “I kept loving them all my life.”

Letscher told himself when he got old one day, he’d sell them and retire. With that plan out the window, he is now hoping to auction off his most prized possessions so he can pay his medical bills and keep his family afloat.

“I had just invested so much of my life’s energy into that collection, but you know when you think about it logically and as a parent, you know that you have to do right by your loved ones,” he said.

Letscher will be auctioning his collection online at www.comicconnect.com, going live on Aug. 19 and lasting until Sept. 13.