Help Keith Perrin Fight Cancer
Donation protected
Hi! My name is Keith Perrin and I have stage 4 cancer. I have been asked by my incredibly loving neighbors, in our hood, to briefly share with you.
Thank you, for taking the time to read my story… My wife, Amy, and I are proud parents of five incredible children. Our oldest son is a basketball coach in Texas, and our second son is finishing his advanced degree in Occupational Therapy and plans to work in education and will be marring the love of his life in December, 2021. Our third son is an outstanding musician and freshman student in college, and finally, our 2 little girls are 6 and 3 years old.
We are blessed to have a family that is so connected and supportive with each other. My wife and I are also blessed to be school teachers here in Arizona, and fortunate to teach in the same school district. Life is awesome, “Hakuna Matata” so we thought…
Then one day after visiting with my doctor, he gave me the sledge hammer to the chest, fear gripping news, “…Keith, you have cancer.” My heart froze. No way!! I’m a healthy physical education teacher. This doesn’t happen to people like me. Right? Wrong! Cancer doesn’t care. That news hit me and our family hard in late January, 2020.
Back story: Thanksgiving, 2019, our family packed up and headed for Vegas, for a basketball tournament to support our son and the Red Raiders, in Las Vegas. It was then I noticed a small bump the size of a bee bee near my left ear. I didn’t think much of it and continued on with normal life. As we neared Christmas, 2019, I noticed the bump had gotten larger. Concerned I decided to make an appointment with my doctor. My doctor said we should order a biopsy just to be safe. A few days before my appointment I noticed a second bump behind my left ear. Slightly larger than the one on my face in front of my left ear. I was starting to get really worried. I remember thinking, ‘these are not just old-man bumps.’ Ha! Ha!
When the biopsy came back, I met with the doctor for the results and this is when he informed me that I had a rare, fast growing cancer called, Neuroendocrine Carcinoma. He shared that there were less than 20k recorded cases in the United States. Since the tumors were close to the nerve center on the left side of my face the doctor strongly recommended that we schedule surgery to remove the tumors immediately. I drove home with my head spinning wondering how I was going to tell my wife and kids. My first call on the drive home was to a very close doctor friend who asked me to message him all the info from my doctor. He called me back and calmly guided me, with his connections, to the right people in the medical community.
When I arrived home, my wife and I sat out in our back patio and I told her my diagnosis. The tears began to flow for both of us. Pushing through the shocking news, we knew we had to move quickly to get appointments scheduled. I scheduled the surgery, with advice from my doctor friend, and my wife and I went to Keck Medical Center at USC, in California. The same day “March Madness” declared shutdown along with the NBA, I went into surgery on Friday the 13th in March, 2020. I woke up after surgery with both tumors successfully removed along with 58 additional nodes from the left side of my neck, to check for positive cancer cells. None were found! The doctors did a terrific job with my surgery. I then proceeded to take on the Conventional Medicine route and did radiation and chemotherapy treatments here in Arizona, during May and June, 2020. On September 16, 2020, the day after our anniversary, my PET scan came back completely clear. Celebration ensued in our house.
Fast forward: In January, 2021, I noticed a small bump in the right clavicular area of my neck. Knowing my history, I asked my doctor for a PET scan. The doctor called me back 2 days after the scan and informed me that my results came back positive with 2 tumors. The one I mentioned earlier and the additional one on the left side of my groin area. My wife and I met with 2 more doctors and both confirmed my cancer had metastasized in my blood stream and lymph system, and labeled me with Stage 4, Neuroendocrine Carcinoma Cancer. It all came back. We were devastated.
After searching for new treatment options, spending thousands of dollars on blood tests and meeting with several doctors, we found a holistic cancer treatment center here in Arizona. This center provides a daily comprehensive integrative cancer care and holistic approach. We are so happy I am able to come home each night after treatments to be with my wife and children. I had to put my teaching career on hold this year while I take on this new job of healing my body. The comprehensive and integrative care treatment center will cost our family around 90k dollars. We need your help! This is not an easy ask for me, however, our family needs you because I plan on hanging around on this rock called Earth for a long time. Even though we can’t believe this has happened to me, I am grateful for every second I have to share with my friends and family as we journey through this time in my life. Keep living the dream…
Thank you so much!
Keith
Thank you, for taking the time to read my story… My wife, Amy, and I are proud parents of five incredible children. Our oldest son is a basketball coach in Texas, and our second son is finishing his advanced degree in Occupational Therapy and plans to work in education and will be marring the love of his life in December, 2021. Our third son is an outstanding musician and freshman student in college, and finally, our 2 little girls are 6 and 3 years old.
We are blessed to have a family that is so connected and supportive with each other. My wife and I are also blessed to be school teachers here in Arizona, and fortunate to teach in the same school district. Life is awesome, “Hakuna Matata” so we thought…
Then one day after visiting with my doctor, he gave me the sledge hammer to the chest, fear gripping news, “…Keith, you have cancer.” My heart froze. No way!! I’m a healthy physical education teacher. This doesn’t happen to people like me. Right? Wrong! Cancer doesn’t care. That news hit me and our family hard in late January, 2020.
Back story: Thanksgiving, 2019, our family packed up and headed for Vegas, for a basketball tournament to support our son and the Red Raiders, in Las Vegas. It was then I noticed a small bump the size of a bee bee near my left ear. I didn’t think much of it and continued on with normal life. As we neared Christmas, 2019, I noticed the bump had gotten larger. Concerned I decided to make an appointment with my doctor. My doctor said we should order a biopsy just to be safe. A few days before my appointment I noticed a second bump behind my left ear. Slightly larger than the one on my face in front of my left ear. I was starting to get really worried. I remember thinking, ‘these are not just old-man bumps.’ Ha! Ha!
When the biopsy came back, I met with the doctor for the results and this is when he informed me that I had a rare, fast growing cancer called, Neuroendocrine Carcinoma. He shared that there were less than 20k recorded cases in the United States. Since the tumors were close to the nerve center on the left side of my face the doctor strongly recommended that we schedule surgery to remove the tumors immediately. I drove home with my head spinning wondering how I was going to tell my wife and kids. My first call on the drive home was to a very close doctor friend who asked me to message him all the info from my doctor. He called me back and calmly guided me, with his connections, to the right people in the medical community.
When I arrived home, my wife and I sat out in our back patio and I told her my diagnosis. The tears began to flow for both of us. Pushing through the shocking news, we knew we had to move quickly to get appointments scheduled. I scheduled the surgery, with advice from my doctor friend, and my wife and I went to Keck Medical Center at USC, in California. The same day “March Madness” declared shutdown along with the NBA, I went into surgery on Friday the 13th in March, 2020. I woke up after surgery with both tumors successfully removed along with 58 additional nodes from the left side of my neck, to check for positive cancer cells. None were found! The doctors did a terrific job with my surgery. I then proceeded to take on the Conventional Medicine route and did radiation and chemotherapy treatments here in Arizona, during May and June, 2020. On September 16, 2020, the day after our anniversary, my PET scan came back completely clear. Celebration ensued in our house.
Fast forward: In January, 2021, I noticed a small bump in the right clavicular area of my neck. Knowing my history, I asked my doctor for a PET scan. The doctor called me back 2 days after the scan and informed me that my results came back positive with 2 tumors. The one I mentioned earlier and the additional one on the left side of my groin area. My wife and I met with 2 more doctors and both confirmed my cancer had metastasized in my blood stream and lymph system, and labeled me with Stage 4, Neuroendocrine Carcinoma Cancer. It all came back. We were devastated.
After searching for new treatment options, spending thousands of dollars on blood tests and meeting with several doctors, we found a holistic cancer treatment center here in Arizona. This center provides a daily comprehensive integrative cancer care and holistic approach. We are so happy I am able to come home each night after treatments to be with my wife and children. I had to put my teaching career on hold this year while I take on this new job of healing my body. The comprehensive and integrative care treatment center will cost our family around 90k dollars. We need your help! This is not an easy ask for me, however, our family needs you because I plan on hanging around on this rock called Earth for a long time. Even though we can’t believe this has happened to me, I am grateful for every second I have to share with my friends and family as we journey through this time in my life. Keep living the dream…
Thank you so much!
Keith
Organizer and beneficiary
Brian Mulis
Organizer
Phoenix, AZ
Amy Perrin
Beneficiary