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Sean Keller was in a fight for his life against leukemia. He agreed to share the experience with Patriot Ledger readers. He died Feb. 10, 2005. Click a date below to read a story about Sean that appeared in The Patriot Ledger. June 2, 2005 We welcome your letters. They should be 200 words or less and include name, address and phone number for verification. We edit for clarity, taste and length. We do not publish anonymous letters, pen names or initials, poetry or copies of letters sent to third parties. If you wish to send a letter to the editor about the series, E-mail us by clicking here.
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Published: Page 1, 12/1/2004
LATEST HOSPITAL STAYSean Keller back home, no longer despairingSupport he has received has made him strongerWEYMOUTH – For the first time since being diagnosed with leukemia, Sean Keller admitted to himself that he might die. Chemotherapy from a bone marrow transplant left him with painful mouth sores and he hadn’t swallowed food in weeks. He couldn’t even remember the last time he looked in the mirror. Hospital rules meant his family could not stay with him at night, leaving him alone, compounding fears that he wouldn’t make it. Yesterday, Keller, 25, left that chapter behind, a period he described as the most grueling of his life. He returned home last night from a draining five-week hospital stay that left him devoid of energy and hope, but that may have saved his life. “I’ve been through hell,” he said yesterday. “I’m happy I’m home.”
After spending four weeks recovering from his Oct. 29 transplant, it was on Thanksgiving Day, spent in a Boston hospital with no celebration in sight, that Keller finally found some hope. “He called me and said, ‘Dad, I’m eating,’” his father, Eugene Keller, said. It was the first time in a month Keller had swallowed food, a huge development. “I said, What do you mean you’re eating? And he said, ‘I’m eating cereal.’ Then he asked for a turkey dinner. It was a complete change around. Just unbelievable,” Eugene Keller said. Keller spent the next few days gaining strength. His progress culminated yesterday as he made a grand entrance into his Weymouth apartment. It stood in stark contrast to the last time Keller returned from a hospital stay in September, after doctors told him there was nothing more they could do for him. “I feel stronger this time,” Keller said yesterday. Keller entered his Weymouth apartment last night at around 6:30 p.m. with his mother and father, who carried bags of medicine and bottled water for Keller. They were accompanied by Braintree resident Helena Brooks, who held a bone marrow drive in Keller’s honor last month. He described her as his “second mother.” Balancing on a wobbling cane, Keller ascended his porch steps faster yesterday and with newfound resolve that contradicted an otherwise haggard appearance: his face gray and narrow, only with a few small patches of brown hair left on his head and his shrunken frame swimming in a sweatshirt and jeans worn by a once-husky man. Soon after Keller got home, friends like Shawn Hall, 26, of Braintree began to arrive. Hall said he had gone to the hospital trying to surprise Keller, only to find out he had been released. “I was surprised,” Hall said. “It was a relief.” After being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia on May 5, a bacterial infection almost claimed Keller’s life in September. His only hope, a bone marrow transplant, seemed impossible because his rare tissue type hindered the chances of finding a match, and Keller would not become a transplant candidate until his infection subsided.
Friends and family said that until recently, Keller was known as a caretaker, dispensing advice to friends struggling to get their lives back on track, as he had, and helping out with the household expenses when needed. He moved from Brockton to Braintree around 1990, where he attended East Junior High and Braintree High School, excelling at basketball and wrestling. Keller made the honor roll in high school but also veered off course, receiving probation for assaulting another teen in 1997 and landing himself behind bars less than a year later for selling LSD near a school. Motivated by a 5-year-old son, Sean Anthony, and his battle with cancer, Keller, a popular, soft-spoken man with a tough streak, said he has moved on from recklessness. Though he has consistently refused to talk about death, Keller now admits there were times he thought he would die in the hospital, when a previous fear of being alone became exacerbated to the point that his parents called a meeting with hospital doctors to request lifting restrictions on visiting Keller overnight. “I can’t be alone,” Keller said yesterday. “I felt more secure when they were there. I didn’t like the rules on the floor; it didn’t make sense to me.” Though his parents were usually only a few doors away in a waiting room, taking shifts during his entire stay, Keller said a feeling of loneliness made a long hospital stay seem longer. “It went by slow; it dragged,” he said.
Though doctors say they won’t know for years whether Keller’s transplant really worked, he now faces having to overcome short-term hurdles that stem from having a less-than-perfect donor match. Subsequently, Keller tested positive for a common complication, a condition called graft-versus-host disease. “It’s a bad thing,” Keller said, adding that he has a mild case. “Just one day at a time,” he said. “Nothing’s positive or definite yet.” Yet according to Dr. Daniel DeAngelo, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who treated Keller in September, small doses of the disease aren’t necessarily harmful. Serious cases, however, can lead to death. “If you have a little bit, you actually get fewer relapses,” DeAngelo said last week. Though Keller restrained from exuberance at his homecoming, his family displayed their joy. “Thank God,” said his mother, Theresa Lukas of Holbrook, walking into Keller’s apartment yesterday. “I had tears of happiness last night. He’s going to make it. He’s a miracle.” For Keller, the ordeal is far from over. He will continue to make weekly trips to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to get blood drawn and test for complications. Keller said over the past two months he has found a new source of strength. Friends held a prayer vigil for him and planned a bone marrow donor drive and residents across the South Shore who learned about Keller’s struggle through accounts in The Patriot Ledger have begun writing to him and offering support. And something has changed in him, he said. “It’s awesome that a lot of people who don’t know me are supporting me,” he said. “Just tell everyone who’s supported me that I appreciate it. It made me stronger. There’s more hope in my life.”
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