Bob Keys: Before I was diagnosed with cancer I had this pretty normal life, never really was sick; not with any serious thing. Nothing more than a cold or two, so that was quite a change to hear that kind of a diagnosis. I started out with a routine physical the result of that was that my doctor first said that I was alright. He sent me to a neurologist for a follow up. The neurologist though tit would be a good idea to have an ultrasound. I had the ultrasound and they discovered a few lesions they wanted to, he wanted to check out. One of them turned out to be a positive for prostate cancer.
Marilyn Keys: Well, from my perspective watching my husband get a diagnosis like prostate cancer I was very shocked and prior to that we, I’d helped two of our very dear friends in their battles against cancer here in Huston. And in their cases, I felt that they even though Huston is known for its cancer treatment, I felt in their cases and they had access to the best of the best treatment. I still felt that they weren’t getting an approach that looked at their whole body, and their immune system, and building up their body after the kind of treatments they had post surgery, and radiation, and chemotherapy. When he was diagnosed I thought back to a couple of friends who years before, my good buddy in Florida had breast cancer and her husband happened to be an FBI agent and he looked at hospitals around the country and as a last resort their last trip, I think they had made five or six together, their last trip they had happened to come to Tulsa to Cancer Treatment Centers Of America and then it was at the ORU building so it’s going back about ten years and they walked through the doors there and they spent maybe half a day and my friend said, “this is where I’m going to get my treatment.” And see I followed her after she was had her treatment and saw the things that she was doing that was very different than what I saw my friends who were diagnosed later here in Huston and I thought, “That’s the right approach, that’s the best approach.” one that looks at your whole body. She’s healthy and happy today and that’s, that’s the ideal. So, based on their recommendations I wanted Bob to come and at least look at it. I picked up the phone and called, and the specialist on the line on the other line was very knowledgeable he said, “We’ll do everything possible to make your trip as easy for you as we can. We’ll go get your records from your doctors for you.” Which when you consider what it takes to get records from your various doctors that’s to me was tremendous, I thought “Wow!” During that initial visits the first few days we had a patient coordinator and that coordinator was taking notes from all aspects of the treatment team that we had, and that included Dr. Flynn the oncologist, a naturopathic clinician, a nutritionist, mind-body specialist, and a minister. So, when we had all of those elements combined it is everything that I was hoping it would be, and that is to treat the whole body not just the cancer. Bob and Dr. Flynn seemed to hit it off immediately because Dr. Flynn was, did not have any hesitation about talking about his methods, about his patients, about meeting with his patients.
Bob Keys: he was very thorough about discussing the radiation HDR Radio-Breakotherapy procedure. We went and he showed us all of the equipment that’s used.
Marilyn Keys: And Dr. Flynn made it very clear that he had all the expertise that was necessary to get this done.
Bob Keys: My conventional treatment consisted of HDR Breakotherapy followed by four weeks of external beam radiation. I was back at work right afterwards.
Marilyn Keys: There everything is in one place, it’s the most amazing concept; and the best concept because if you’re going to need a test the facilities are all there and you get the results often if not that day certainly the next day. And the funny thing is when we came, you know we left and went out to maybe go and get lunch or something we came back in and somebody at the front desk there came up and hugged us and we thought, “Wow!” It’s that welcoming feeling. You won’t get that anywhere else I have never seen anything like that before and it was so impressive. It’s the little things that Cancer Treatment Centers does that, they may not realize it but it’s so important the things of, having that community dinning area so that you can sit down with other patients and really talk to them and find out how their doing, what kinds of treatment they’ve had, what do they think of their treatment. It’s almost like being home, if you can be home while you’re getting treatment this is the closest thing to it.
Bob Keys: We try and enjoy life a little more. We started traveling more than we have in the past.
Marilyn Keys: We spend more time with family too.
Bob Keys: We don’t pick at each other.
Marilyn Keys: Yeah, we try not to nag each other.
Bob Keys: Not too much.
Marilyn Keys: Well, after Bob’s diagnosis we decided for the very first time to take a cruise, we want to involve family. We had really enjoyed traveling with our family. This last trip we made was to Hawaii. There we took our daughter Jessica and again his mother with us and it was a wonderful, wonderful place to visit; unbelievably beautiful. One piece of advice I would give is not to panic, to look at your options, explore everything you can, and to pay attention to this idea of treating every treating the cancer every which way you can meaning your whole body experience. And if you do that, I think you’ll find that you will be at the doors of Cancer Treatment Centers Of America.