July 2012

Ellalina and HollyB
Stanford Medical Center
May 3, 2012

(Dear Reader,  Please pardon me for taking so very long to post to this blog!  Thank you for visiting and thank you for loving and caring about the Keller family.  The following is a selection that I drafted in July of 2012 but neither completed nor posted. I shall do so now, in January of 2013, and I will "get on the stick" and update this blog!)

Well, I'm sorry to say that on the very day of my last post, March 22, 2012 - which day also was Terry Keller's birthday - Terry requested a visit to his doctors at Stanford because he'd been feeling ill for almost a week.  Since that time, he has been in and out of the hospital numerous times; he has undergone several outpatient and sleepover procedures; he has received a drainage tube which remained in his body until July 5; he has been feverish and infected and prescribed strong antibiotics in attempt to rid his body of infection.  It has been a busy and at times arduous 4 months for Terry and the Keller family!

I'm happy to say that in April, Terry and Ellalina and Lexi were able to take a trip to Peru, something they'd been desiring to do and planning and preparing for for several months.  With drainage tube in place and strong antibiotics coursing through his veins, off went the Keller family for two weeks of hiking and exploring Machapichu and other parts of South America.  I hope to include some photos of that trip, as soon as I can convince someone who attended the trip to share the images with me! :-)

I happened to be at Stanford Medical Center in early May
simultaneous to one of Terry and Ellalina's visits there.
"Smile for the camera!"

Soon after their return from Peru, Terry was administered another targeted chemotherapy surgical procedure; but it's been since that time especially that his body has just not fared will.  His immune system struggles with infection something terrible!  Please pray for mercy and healing and strength and hope for Terry and his family!!  Please pray that his doctors and nurses will be filled with insight and wisdom, that they will give Terry a proper diagnosis and proper treatment; please pray that Terry's body will be restored to full and complete health according to the will of the LORD.  Aaaaaaaa-men!!

Terry Keller and HollyB
July 4, 2012

 One of the best times, I'd say, in the past month or so was the week of July 4.  Terry and Ellalina hosted a fun party at their home, at which these photos were snapped; he looked the most robust and vital and healthy as I had seen him in a month!  And the next day, Terry visited his doctors at Stanford who decided that he was healthy enough for the drainage tube to be removed and for the antibiotic treatment to cease.  Oh, happy day!  He was so happy to be free of the foreign object he'd been carrying around for 3 1/2 months!

DJ, Mara Sanchez, HollyB and Terry

"To be continued..."  - thank you for your patience!  :-)

Happy Birthday, Terry Keller!

Hooray for life!  Happy Birthday to you, Terry Keller! 

On this the 22nd day of March in 1966, Terry exited his mother's womb and entered the rest of the world!  I'm so glad he was born!  I'm so glad he is alive!  I may just break out into song!  :-)

I am very happy to report that Terry's health was quickly regained after his most recent targeted chemotherapy procedure in January.  Lickety split he was up-and-at-'em!  Here is a photo of Terry at work, landscaping the property of the new home into which Terry, Ellalina, and Lexi moved last summer. 

Happy Birthday to you, Terry Keller! 

9 hours post-op

Today Terry Keller took a targeted chemotherapy treatment by way of surgical procedure at Stanford Medical Center.  He will remain in the hospital overnight, and be released hopefully at noon-ish tomorrow, if all is well.  The liver is an important organ to one's body, so it's always wonderful when he comes out of surgery.  Here's a photo Ellalina sent to me just after 1:00 p.m.  Terry looks alright! 

Ellalina also told me via text message at 7:09 p.m. that Terry was "miraculously doing very well right now.  They tried a different drug regiment today and it appears to be a great fit for him.  Yeah!"

That is a "Hooray!", because there have been so many times after past surgeries, treatments, and procedures, in which Terry's body was easily infected and experienced difficulty in recovery.  I pray that this treatment of chemotherapy ("poison") will kill the cancer but avoid his healthy cells; and that his body will return to health and well-being very quickly.  Aaaaaaaa-men!

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year, Reader!

I am happy to report that my friend Terry Keller is as bright-eyed and healthy and robust as I have ever known him to be (in my few years of being acquainted with Terry and his family).

Here is a group photo of the Keller family and the Bigelow family and the Lewis family

(minus Brian Lewis, the photographer)

after we had ridden bicycles along the Bob Jones trail

from Highway 101 to Avila Beach on December 22, 2011.

Here is a photo of Holly Bigelow and Terry Keller at Avila Beach.  

It was a gorgeous day on the Central Coast of California!

Here is another group photo of all of us after the bike ride.
DJ snapped the photo, hence his absence.

Here is a photo of Terry and his wife Ellalina.  Isn't she pretty in pink!

Terry's most recent scan in December indicates that the one tumor remaining on his liver has shrunk in some parts and has grown in other places.  Please pray for the Keller family as they return to Stanford next week  (January 17, 2012) for Terry to take another treatment of the targeted chemotherapy, in order to do away with the remnants of that cancerous substance yet on Terry's liver.  I speculate that he will be ill for approximately a month as his body processes the poison, and that he will regain health and vigor and vitality and well-being just in time to travel to Peru with his girls Ellalina and Lexi in April for a hiking trip to Machapichu.  Be gone, cancerous stuff! 

Chapter 3 - 2011

At some point in the future (hopefully within the NEAR future), I will write this story.

But for today, I want to let you know of some good and positive turns-of-events in Terry's life:  Terry and Ellalina finished the process of purchasing a new home throughout this summer of 2011; their escrow closed not too long after school began in August, a busy time for any parent of school-aged children but a particularly hectic time for school administrators (such as is Ellalina)!  As the 2011/2012 school year began, the Keller family were busy-busy-busy packing and cleaning and moving and relocating to their new home in the country. 

Throughout this process, I have commented to Terry on more than one occasion that he looks more robust and more healthy and more alive these days than I have ever known him to be - suspecting in my own heart and mind that the physical exercise required to move one's household has surely contributed to the spark of life and extra zest I have sensed in him.  In response, he told me something very interesting, so much so that I believe it to be noteworthy within this story:  Terry told me that he had seen in his mind's eye where the hospital bed would be placed, and that he had pictured himself dying in the house in which his family had been residing prior to the new purchase and relocation.  And that in the move from the Templeton house to the house-in-the-country, he has left that death-ness behind.  "Hooray!", I say!  I wish and pray that the Kellers' new home will be a place of life and energy and health and vitality and creativity and strength and love and harmony and peace and grace, for all who abide and for all that enter! Yahoo!!  :-)

In other news, I am also happy to report that recent scans at Stanford Medical Center indicate that 4 of the 5 tumors on Terry's liver (located last May-ish) have shrunk!  They seem to have responded positively to the targeted chemotherapy treatment he took in late May; now the Keller family awaits scheduling for that 5th tumor to be blasted with another such treatment.  Perhaps this happy news is also part of the reason that Terry is looking and feeling more alive and robust!  Yippeee some more!

The end, for now.  Stay tuned for much, much more, whenever I get around to writing this book!  Also, for some photographs, since "A picture's worth a thousand words".  :-)  (Here is a photo taken last June.)

Chapter 2 - Original Diagnosis - 2008

This chapter will explain the events surrounding Terry's original diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2008.

Here is a photo of Terry at his 45th birthday party in March 2011.  It seems to be a miracle that he has survived pancreatic cancer for this many years - hooray for a 45th birthday!  Stay tuned for me to write this in full.  Thank you for your patience :-).

Chapter 1 - Terry's Life Before Cancer

Terry Keller was born in Atascadero on March 22, 1966, the first of two sons, to Terry, Sr. and Carol Keller.  His mother told him as a child, "You're Indian" because Terry's father is of Native American descent; and so young Terry proudly embraced his heritage and was happy to play his proper role in the "Cowboys and Indians" games as a child.  Additionally, from a young age he had been interested in the martial arts; he was particularly influenced by celebrities Bruce Lee and Billy Jack, and something significant began when for his thirteenth birthday Terry's parents purchased martial arts lessons for him.  Six years later, at the age of 19, Terry opened a dojo in Atascadero. The following year he married his high-school sweetheart, and it wasn't very long before a daughter Jade and then a son Terry (I hear him referenced as "Little Terry") were born to Terry and his wife.  Terry also discovered an appreciation for art during his adolescence, and in the late 1990s he opened and operated a Native American Art gallery in Cambria, California.  By that time, he and his wife had divorced and he had met Ellalina Emrich, whom he married on December 31, 2000.  

It was in recent months at a school function of Georgia Brown Elementary School, "Bingo Night", that I began to ask Terry questions about his formative years and about his life before cancer.  "Bing!"  As I listened and imagined, a metaphorical light bulb lit up in my head when Terry told me that he liked to fight, both professionally in the dojo as well as scrappy-fighting at the local bar.  He described a particular scene to me of getting into a fight with someone over the curvy, long-flowing-blonde-haired Ellalina; and I laughed to imagine Terry duking it out over the pretty girl as Ellalina ran to the parking lot, long blonde hair streaming behind her.  (Now that she is the principal of a local school, she handles herself with appropriate decorum).

As I listened to Terry's story, it was also this "A-ha!" moment that caused something to fit together in my mind.  I have only been acquainted with Terry for a few years, since his diagnosis of cancer; I didn't know him in his healthy, robust, energetic and vivacious days.  But the fact that Terry has lived this long - 5 years past his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer when the doctors told him that he should expect to live for only 2 months more - and the scene in my mind of Terry fighting professionally in the dojo and scrappin' at the local bar, made sense to me.  Perhaps one of the reasons that Terry has beat his cancer for this long is that he is a fighter.  Literally.  :-)

In addition to Jade and Terry, Terry Keller also has a daughter Lexi with his wife Ellalina; and a grandson Spencer; and another grandson due to be born in July of 2012.  His life is filled with people that love him.