Man with Terminal Most cancers Spends First Vacation Out of the Hospital in 2 Years

• Keith Martin, a 59-year-old former DEA agent, is relishing his first Christmas with household in two years, after being out and in of the hospital for 2 years with severe well being challenges
• After being recognized with lung most cancers in late 2022, Martin underwent varied therapies whereas grappling with issues comparable to blood clots, pneumonitis and congestive coronary heart failure
• Regardless of these challenges, he stays optimistic and grateful, specializing in spending vacation high quality time together with his spouse, Amy, their two daughters, Allie and Addison, and his supportive household

Keith Martin’s spouse is treating him like a fragile decoration this vacation season after hospital journeys consumed his final two Christmases.

“My spouse advised me I’ve to put low till Christmas is over so I don’t get put into the hospital once more,” Martin, 59, tells PEOPLE in an unique interview about his lengthy well being battle. “She’s like, ‘Simply do not do something round the home. Simply calm down, take it straightforward.’”

However Martin’s household is feeling optimistic after a brand new focused remedy by means of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio seems to be holding his stage 4 terminal lung most cancers at bay after going after the lethal cells. The therapy, which works past customary chemotherapy, makes use of a number of medicines to focus on a selected mutation of the most cancers. 

“Terminal.’ That’s a scary phrase,” Martin’s oncologist Dr. Daniel Silbiger tells PEOPLE. “However being two years right into a most cancers journey, he’s really in one of the best form I’ve seen. I feel this can be a large story of hope.”

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No stranger to adversity in his life, Martin was 8 years previous when he misplaced his 44-year-old mom, Shirley Martin, to breast most cancers and leukemia. His dad, George Martin, was a trucker, so he was unable to supply day by day look after them. His twin brother, Ken, and youthful brother, Jim, then 4, all went to dwell at Milton Hershey Faculty, a personal boarding faculty in Hershey, Pa., designed for low-income households.

They have been allowed to return dwelling for 2 weeks at Christmas and a month throughout summer season. “My dad made certain we had good Christmases,” Keith says. “We’d make one thing in wooden store. It was at all times good to take a wrapped present dwelling, even when it was junk. However he handled it prefer it was gold.”

He went on to graduate from Pennsylvania State College and earn a graduate diploma from Indiana College of Pennsylvania, married his spouse, Amy, 50, and had two daughters, Allie, 22, and 16-year-old Addison. He served nearly 28 years with the Division of Justice within the Drug Enforcement Administration earlier than retiring in 2021.

He then took on one other job as a supervisor of investigations for a utility firm. However on his strategy to his second profession, he was waylaid by an sudden sickness.

One morning in June 2021, Keith received off the bed and instantly thought he might need a blood clot in his left leg. Nevertheless, he says he ignored it for just a few days earlier than going to have it checked out. The emergency room docs confirmed his clot and put him on blood thinners. Then, in August, he developed one other clot in his different leg regardless of being on treatment.

Satisfied he had gotten meals poisoning after going out to eat together with his brother and experiencing bother respiration, he went to the hospital.

“I went to the emergency room and so they scanned me and stated I had a pulmonary embolism,” Martin says. That led to a fast journey to the hospital the place he was seen by Dr. Silbiger, who advised him they have been going to do a biopsy for most cancers.

On Dec. 23, 2022, throughout a snowstorm that stored his household from being with him, he was sitting alone when he was advised by Silbiger that he had most cancers and it had metastasized. “I held my composure pondering, ‘What will we do subsequent?’” Martin says. “I had by no means smoked, however the scans confirmed I had lung most cancers, in all probability stage 4. I may see the disappointment, the empathy, in his face as he advised me two days earlier than Christmas.”

Though Martin was discharged that Christmas Eve, he didn’t know precisely what sort of most cancers he had or the place it had unfold. It wasn’t till later that week when Silbiger confirmed he had non-small cell lung most cancers, ALK-positive, which is a uncommon kind of the illness.

ALK-positive most cancers happens in people principally as lung most cancers, however it will possibly additionally originate in lots of different components of the physique, together with mind and breast. ALK-positive lung most cancers happens in roughly 5% of all lung most cancers sufferers. 

However it may be handled by focused remedy. “The preliminary analysis was, clearly, surprising,” Silbiger says. “In Keith’s state of affairs, it gave us a glimmer of hope that we didn’t have a conventional lung most cancers, however one which supplied [other] therapies.”

Sadly, the primary focused remedy had an sudden facet impact of inflicting pneumonitis in Keith’s lungs. “It was like both the most cancers’s going to kill you or the pneumonitis, in order that they took me off the remedy,” he says. 

His well being started to say no dramatically. He was hospitalized in October 2023 after which, two days after Thanksgiving of that yr, he was watching a university soccer recreation when he couldn’t breath. He advised his spouse he would go to the hospital after the sport was over. “She is aware of I’m nuts,” he says.

When he received to the hospital, he knew it was unhealthy. He had been on 5 liters of oxygen at dwelling and now wanted 9. He says he was hypoxic, had congestive coronary heart failure and had a stroke. “It was the bottom level in my life,” he remembers. “I feel [the doctors] thought that was it for me. Dr. Silbiger stated I used to be a Christmas miracle.”

He spent final Christmas within the hospital, battling for his life. His tumors had gotten worse and his physique was shutting down. Keith says that previous to his 2023 hospitalization, he was taking high-powered ache meds as a result of the most cancers had unfold to his bones and stomach.

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“In September, the most cancers was spreading and the chemo wasn’t working,” he says. “Being DEA, I stated I’d by no means take oxycodone, however that was the extent of ache I used to be in.”

So he was cautious of what a brand new remedy, on the Cleveland Clinic, would convey. “This was actually my final possibility for extending my life,” he says. “I used to be on it for 3 days and stopped taking the oxycodone. I advised my spouse it should be working as a result of the ache went away.”

Not solely the ache, however he was additionally largely weaned from oxygen — and his tumors started shrinking.

Via all of it, he credit his family and friends for serving to him navigate his illness, which has been responding to therapy though it’s nonetheless thought-about terminal. “My spouse is phenomenal, my youngsters, my brothers and nice, nice buddies,” Keith says. “I’m really blessed. I’ve no complaints.”

He’ll get a brand new scan in January and each he and Silbiger are optimistic concerning the findings that might lengthen his life for years.

It doesn’t matter what, he tells his youngsters that he’s had a very good life with no regrets. “Don’t really feel sorry for me. I’ve gotten to do issues that many individuals want they might have finished,” he says. “That doesn’t imply I’m able to die. It simply means I’m grateful and appreciative.”