Weird behavior in ncurses

[newb4lyfe]

I'm trying to use ncurses to create a text editor, but I'm running into an issue when I try creating a menu. I create the menu just fine but when I go to change options, or hit any key the menu exits. Below is some relevant code, is there some option I'm forgetting to turn on/off in ncurses?

 int ch = 0;
  while((ch = wgetch(menuwin)) != KEY_F(1)){
    switch(ch){
    case KEY_DOWN:
      menu_driver(menu, REQ_DOWN_ITEM);
      break;
    case  KEY_UP:
      menu_driver(menu, REQ_UP_ITEM);
      break;
    }
  }