Man Spends First Christmas Season Out of the Hospital After 2 Years of Complications and Treatments. It's a 'Story of Hope,' His Doctor Says (Exclusive)

• Keith Martin, a 59-year-old former DEA agent, is enjoying his first Christmas with his family in two years, after being in and out of the hospital for two years with serious health problems
• After being diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2022, Martin underwent various treatments as he battled complications such as blood clots, pneumonia and congestive heart failure.
• Despite these challenges, he remains positive and grateful, focusing on spending quality time off with his wife, Amy, their two daughters, Allie and Addison, and his supportive family.

Keith Martin’s wife is treating him like a fragile ornament this holiday season after trips to the hospital consumed his last two Christmases.

“My wife told me I had to lay low until after Christmas so they wouldn’t put me in the hospital again,” Martin, 59, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview about his long health battle. “She says, ‘Just don’t do anything around the house. Just relax, take it easy.’”

But Martin’s family is feeling optimistic after a new targeted therapy through the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio appears to be keeping his terminal stage 4 lung cancer at bay after hunting for deadly cells. The treatment, which goes beyond standard chemotherapy, uses multiple drugs to target a specific cancer mutation.

“Terminal.’ That’s a scary word,” Martin’s oncologist, Dr. Daniel Silbiger, tells PEOPLE. “But being two years into his cancer journey, he’s actually in the best shape I’ve seen. I think this is a huge story of hope.”

From left, twin brother Ken, younger brother Jim and Keith Martin.

courtesy of Keith Martin

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Martin is no stranger to adversity in life, Martin was 8 years old when he lost his 44-year-old mother, Shirley Martin, to breast cancer and leukemia. His father, George Martin, was a truck driver, so he could not take care of them on a daily basis. His twin brother, Ken, and younger brother, Jim, then 4 years old, all went to live at the Milton Hershey School, a private boarding school in Hershey, Pennsylvania, for low-income families.

They were allowed to come home for two weeks at Christmas and a month during the summer. “My dad made sure we had a good Christmas,” says Keith. “We would make something in the wood shop. It was always nice to take home a wrapped present, even if it was junk. But he treated it like it was gold.”

He graduated from Pennsylvania State University and earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, married his wife Amy, 50, and had two daughters, Allie, 22, and 16-year-old Addison. He served nearly 28 years in the Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration before retiring in 2021.

Then he got a job as a manager of investigative works in a utility company. But an unexpected illness stopped him on his way to a second career.

Left, Keith Martin with his wife Amy.

courtesy of Keith Martin

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One morning in June 2021, Keith got out of bed and immediately thought he might have a blood clot in his left leg. However, he says he ignored him for a few days before going to check on him. Emergency room doctors confirmed his clot and put him on blood thinners. Then, in August, he developed another clot in his other leg despite taking medication.

Convinced he had food poisoning after going out to eat with his brother and having trouble breathing, he went to the hospital.

“I went to the emergency room and they scanned me and said I had a pulmonary embolism,” Martin says. This led to a quick trip to the hospital where he was examined by Dr. Silbiger, who told him he was going to do a biopsy for cancer.

On December 23, 2022, during a snowstorm that prevented his family from being with him, he was sitting alone when Silbiger told him that he had cancer and that it had metastasized. “I pulled myself together thinking, ‘What are we going to do next?'” Martin says. “I’ve never smoked, but a scan showed I had lung cancer, probably stage 4. I could see the sadness, the empathy, on his face when he told me two days before Christmas.”

Although Martin was discharged that Christmas Eve, he did not know exactly what type of cancer he had or where it had spread. It wasn’t until later that week that Silbiger confirmed that he had ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer, a rare form of the disease.

ALK-positive cancer occurs in humans mostly as lung cancer, but it can also occur in many other parts of the body, including the brain and breast. ALK-positive lung cancer occurs in approximately 5% of all lung cancer patients.

Keith Martin after radiation treatment with his support dog Barron, a small Labradoodle.

courtesy of Keith Martin

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But it can be treated with targeted therapy. “The first diagnosis was obviously shocking,” says Silbiger. “In Keith’s situation, it gave us a glimmer of hope that we don’t have traditional lung cancer, but one that offers [other] treatments.”

Unfortunately, the first targeted therapy had the unexpected side effect of causing pneumonitis in Keith’s lungs. “It was like cancer is going to kill you or pneumonia, so they took me off therapy,” he says.

His health began to deteriorate dramatically. He was hospitalized in October 2023, and then, two days after Thanksgiving that year, he was watching a college football game when he couldn’t breathe. He told his wife that he would go to the hospital after the game. “She knows I’m crazy,” he says.

When he got to the hospital, he knew it was bad. He was receiving five liters of oxygen at home, and now he needed nine. He says he was hypoxic, had congestive heart failure and had a stroke. “It was the lowest point in my life,” he recalls. “I mean [the doctors] thought that was it for me. dr. Silbiger said I was a Christmas miracle.”

He spent last Christmas in the hospital fighting for his life. His tumors worsened and his body was shutting down. Keith says he was on strong painkillers before being hospitalized in 2023 because the cancer had spread to his bones and abdomen.

From left, daughter Addison, center Keith and daughter Allie.

courtesy of Keith Martin

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“In September, the cancer was spreading, and the chemotherapy wasn’t working,” he says. “Being the DEA, I said I would never take oxycodone, but that was the level of pain I was feeling.”

So he was wary of what the new therapy, at the Cleveland Clinic, would bring. “This was really my last option to prolong my life,” he says. “I was on it for three days and stopped taking oxycodone. I told the woman that it must be working because the pain was gone.”

Not only because of the pain, but he was also largely weaned off oxygen – and his tumors began to shrink.

Through it all, he credits his friends and family for helping him cope with the disease, which has responded to treatment even though it is still considered terminal. “My wife is awesome, my kids, my brothers and great, great friends,” says Keith. “I am truly blessed. I have no complaints.”

He will receive a new scan in January, and he and Silbiger are optimistic about the findings, which could extend his life for years.

Regardless, he tells his children that he had a good life with no regrets. “Don’t pity me. I got to do things that a lot of people wish they could do,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to die. It just means I’m grateful and appreciative.”

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