(Springfield, MO) -- What keeps you up at night?  Do the little things have you pacing the floor?  A Springfield man knows better than to let anything interrupt his good night's sleep because he's grateful for every morning.

Keith James is 45-years-old, has a beautiful family and a thriving business.  What he doesn't have is peace of mind that his health will thrive as well.

Five years ago, Keith noticed back pain.  It radiated around his side and began to interrupt his activities.

"I play golf a few times a week and I love to duck hunt," Keith says, "But the pain kept me from enjoying myself." 

Keith went to the doctor and was told he likely had a prostate problem.  At one point, he was actually diagnosed with shingles.  It was only after an MRI that Keith learned the real deal.

"The doctor's exact words to me were, 'Your MRI is messed up.  You have two tumors on your spine,'" recalls Keith.

Turns out the then vibrant 40-year-old had Follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  Diagnosed between stage three and four, the prognosis was grim. 

"There is not a cure for my cancer," Keith says.  "I nearly fainted right there in his office."

"You get that news, you just think, wait, you were only supposed to have a ruptured disc," says Keith's wife Ursula.  "You weren't supposed to have cancer.  That wasn't part of the game plan.  You're too young for that!"

Telling their young children the news was hard, telling other family was harder. 

"The hard part's always calling Mom.  I get emotional thinking about that now," Keith recalls, with tears in his eyes.

He endured six months of chemotherapy.  Shaving his head became a family affair.  But now four years in remission, Keith focuses on the important things like family and staying strong.  Still, the fear is with him.

"No matter how positive you stay, it's a daily fight mentally, every little ache and pain you think it's coming back," says Keith.

It's hard to imagine Keith James in pain, he looks like the picture of health.  He and Ursula regularly work out together and she keeps him motivated at every turn.  His cancer motivates him to keep things in perspective.

"People who have cancer say, 'Maybe we're the lucky ones' because you do go through life different," Keith says.  "Little things don't matter as much."

There is currently no medication to treat Keith's lymphoma.  During his six months of chemotherapy, he took part in a clinical trial for an experimental drug that he hopes will offer hope to patients one day.

To learn more about Follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, just head over to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Mid-America Chapter's website.