Living with Cancer
- ‘Country Ever After’ star Criscilla Anderson, who is battling stage 4 colon cancer, celebrated her 41st (and 40th!) birthday yesterday with an epic outdoor bash orchestrated by her husbandand co-star on the Netflix showCoffey Anderson.
- The country singer serenaded his wife with an acoustic performance, served guests an impressive spread of crawfish and even held the birthday girl on his shoulders at one point during the festivities.
- A leading expert tells SurvivorNet the goal of therapy for advanced stage colon cancer patients is to manage the cancer and prevent it from growing and spreading so that the patient can continue living their life.
The party was held outside in the Anderson’s Dallas neighborhood, with dozens of friends, family and neighbors in attendance, along with the couple’s children, Ethan, 9, Emmarie, 7, and 4-year-old Everleigh.
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Since Criscilla wasn’t able to have a 40th birthday party last year, the cancer warrior’s cake said “Happy 40/41st Birthday,” and was lit with sparklers when it was time for singing, as shown on the couple’s Instagram stories.
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Coffey ordered crawfish from a local restaurant and had quite an impressive spread set up on a table, taking videos of his wife digging in.
The country music artist serenaded the birthday girl and the crowd with some tunes on an acoustic guitar, and at one point, he was carrying her on his shoulders.
Criscilla’s mother and sister wore festive, pink shirts that read “Birthday Squad.” Guests shared meaningful posts not only wishing the TV star well on her big day, but saying how strong and inspiring she is for keeping up this brave fight. After all, despite currently being on chemo, she has been teaching dance classes (and just taught the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders), going through with plans of building a home, raising her children and just overall keeping a lot of positivity and energy up during what’s obviously a difficult time.
Criscilla’s Colon Cancer Fight
The way Criscilla and her family tackle life during cancer, especially advanced stage cancer, is an important reminder for cancer patients to keep living every single day.
After an initial diagnosis of stage 3 in 2018, Criscilla’s cancer recently advanced to stage 4. Last May, Criscilla said that she planned to stop chemotherapy since her "tumors were shrinking" and wanted to try alternative routes to treating her disease. Unfortunately, that didn’t work for her, and now she is back on chemo for the second time, and recently said there’s a chance she could be on chemo for the rest of her life, but is still staying optimistic. For now, she is trekking back to Los Angeles every few weeks for her treatment.
Treatment for Stage 4 Colon Cancer
Every cancer is different and every person's battle is uniquely their own, but it's important to understand treatment for stage 4 colon cancer, and what it means in most cases. There have been more people surviving stage 4 colon cancer in recent years; an advanced stage cancer diagnosis does not mean that you give up.
"When someone comes in with cancer that has spread outside the colon, it's called stage 4 colon cancer or metastatic colon cancer," Dr. Paul Oberstein from NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center tells SurvivorNet. "The primary goal of therapy, and we discuss this in great detail with patients and their families, is to manage the cancer, is to try to control the cancer, to turn it into what we call a chronic disease, so to prevent it from growing, spreading, and causing problems."
Dr. Oberstein says that options for treatment are complicated and unique to each person. There are different surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments depending on where the tumor is in the body.
Treating Stage Four Colon Cancer
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