Focusing on Family During a Cancer Journey
- “Country Ever After” star Criscilla Anderson, 45, is living with stage 4 colorectal cancer. Despite her diagnosis, she’s not letting it slow her down, as she has just received her first-ever tattoo dedicated to her children and continues to compose dance routines for major productions.
- Anderson, the wife of country music star Coffey Anderson, 47, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2018. Although she reached remission briefly, the cancer later returned more advanced in stage 4 after spreading to other parts of her body. The most notable signature of colon cancer includes a change in bowel habits.
- Over the years, she has undergone a series of various treatments, including exploring clinical trials. Clinical trials help doctors better understand cancer and discover more effective treatment methods. They also allow patients to try a treatment before it’s approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which can potentially be life-changing.
- Despite the great benefits of clinical trials, they also come with risks (like potential side effects that are not fully understood yet).
- Colon cancer is very treatable and curable if caught early. Among metastatic colon cancer patients, though treatment may be more intensive, multiple treatment options exist, including surgical and non-surgical options.
Married to country music artist Coffey Anderson, 47, and mother to four children, Anderson recently took to social media to unveil a deeply personal tribute: her first tattoo, etched with the faces of her kids.
“I’ve never had a tattoo before,” she said in a social media post.
Read More“What a beautiful experience! For my babies: I choose u forever.”
Her children stood in awe during the unveiling, overwhelmed by the tribute. The response from fans was equally warm:
“That is precious!!!” wrote Facebook user Sally Schwendenmann.
“You wrote the song! Is there anything you can’t do! Sending all love,” added Brandy Zimmerman.
As a stage 4 colon cancer patient, Anderson knows how fleeting time can be—and how much richer each moment becomes when shared with loved ones. Whether it’s a song, a tattoo, or a simple dance routine, she continues to pour meaning into everything she creates.
Before her diagnosis, Anderson made her mark as a choreographer for icons like Rihanna and Britney Spears. That creative drive hasn’t slowed. She recently celebrated choreographing a dynamic routine for Herbal Life’s 45th North America extravaganza.
View this post on Instagram
“This is my happy place,” she wrote in a joyful Instagram post.
With art, love, and family as her compass, Anderson moves through her journey with strength and intention—reminding us all to honor what matters most.
Expert Resources on Colorectal Cancer
Understanding Criscilla’s Advanced Colon Cancer Diagnosis
Stage four or metastatic colon cancer means that the tumor has spread outside of the colon to different organs. In some instances, tumors that have spread to one or two places within the liver or lung can be treated surgically with a chance of cure. For most people, however, the treatment for metastatic disease is chemotherapy.
“The first-line chemotherapy for metastatic colon cancer, if they’ve not seen any other chemotherapy before, is the standard FOLFOX,” Colorectal Surgeon and Surgical Oncologist Dr. Heather Yeo at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian explained to SurvivorNet.
“Most colon cancers do respond to FOLFOX. If you respond really well, then we keep you on that until you stop responding really well. But if after a few cycles your disease has progressed, that’s when we think about adding additional chemotherapies,” Dr. Yeo continued.
WATCH: Managing Metastatic Colon Cancer
The cancer starts when abnormal lumps called polyps grow in the colon or rectum. If you don’t have these polyps removed, they can sometimes change into cancer. It takes up to 10 years for a colon polyp to become a full-blown cancer, according to SurvivorNet experts.
“When we see a polyp, we actually physically take the polyp out through the colonoscope,” Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal cancer surgeon and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Colorectal Cancer Center, explained.
WATCH: When to get a colonoscopy
Most colon cancers can be prevented if people are regularly screened. The screening usually involves a colonoscopy, in which a long, thin tube attached to a camera examines the colon and rectum. If no polyps are discovered, the following screening won’t be needed for about ten years.
What Treatment Options Exist for Colon Cancer?
“There are a lot of advances being made in colorectal cancer,” Dr. Yeo previously told SurvivorNet.
Colon cancer treatment is more targeted, meaning doctors often test for specific changes or genetic mutations that cause cancer growth.
Biomarkers are key to tailoring specific treatments. Biomarkers are molecular patterns becoming more commonly used in colon cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and management. According to the National Cancer Institute, a biomarker is “a biological molecule found in blood, other body fluids, or tissues that is a sign of a normal or abnormal process, or a condition or disease,” such as cancer.
“In colon cancer, we’re starting to look more and more at people’s biomarkers, so we’re starting to take the cancers, sequence them, understand where the different mutations are to figure out whether or not someone has a normal gene here or an abnormal gene,” Dr. Yeo explained.
“Those are the areas that people want to be able to target a little bit more. We’re getting close to more what we would call precision medicine, meaning we can start looking at people’s genetic mutations and think about how they might respond to different drugs.”
There are different types of biomarkers, including DNA, proteins, and genetic mutations found in blood, tumor tissue, or other body fluids. The biomarkers most commonly used in colon cancer management are:
Genetic mutations within the tumor, such as MMR/MSI, KRAS, BRAF, and HER2
Bloodstream carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)
CEA is a protein produced by most tumor cells (but not all) and can be picked up in the bloodstream. High CEA levels do not establish a colon cancer diagnosis. However, higher CEA levels correlate with a worse prognosis and potential metastasis. Carcinoembryonic antigen is important for post-treatment follow-up to ensure the cancer hasn’t returned. Be sure to check with your doctor before treatment starts to ensure a CEA blood sample has been obtained.
More on Treating Colon Cancer
Surgery and chemotherapy are common approaches to colorectal cancer.
Some examples of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved chemotherapy drug treatments include:
- FOLFOX: leucovorin, 5-FU, and oxaliplatin (Eloxatin)
- FOLFIRI: leucovorin, 5-FU, and irinotecan (Camptosar)
- CAPEOX or CAPOX: capecitabine (Xeloda) and oxaliplatin
- FOLFOXIRI: leucovorin, 5-FU, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan
- Trifluridine and tipiracil (Lonsurf)
WATCH: Understanding Your Options with Metastatic Colon Cancer
Among metastatic colon cancer patients, multiple treatment options exist, including surgical and non-surgical options.
One treatment option includes an oral treatment called Fruquintinib, which is a targeted therapy for adults who have metastatic colorectal cancer and have tried other treatments. Results from a trial published last year showed the drug improved overall survival and progression-free survival, which measures the amount of time before the cancer returns or spreads. It works by blocking the growth of blood vessels, which increases tumor growth.
Once you get to the metastatic setting, many patients “just run out of options,” Jennifer Elliott, head of solid tumors at Takeda, explained to SurvivorNet at the ASCO Annual Meeting. So it was critically important for Takeda to do this deal to in-license fruquintinib. We hope to give patients another option.”
Fruquintinib has been approved in China since 2018 and was originally developed by the Chinese biopharmaceutical company HUTCHMED. Takeda Oncology acquired the exclusive worldwide license for the drug outside of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau in January 2023.
More on Colon Cancer
Colon cancer is very treatable and curable if caught early. Colon cancer screenings can involve at-home tests such as Cologuard, but a colonoscopy is more effective, according to SurvivorNet experts.
The cancer starts when abnormal lumps called polyps grow in the colon or rectum. It takes up to 10 years for a colon polyp to become full-blown cancer, according to SurvivorNet experts.
The American Gastrointestinal Association lowered the recommended initial age for colorectal screening from 50 to 45. However, experts recommend screening earlier for some people who may be at an increased risk of developing colon cancer, such as those with a family history of the disease.
WATCH: Debunking misconceptions about colon cancer.
The most poignant signature of colon cancer includes a change in bowel habits. This may include constipation or diarrhea due to changes in the size or shape of bowel movements. A change in stool color, particularly black or tarry stools, can indicate bleeding from a tumor that lies deep in the colon.
Other symptoms can be harder to pinpoint, such as abdominal pain and unintentional weight loss. Finally, some tumors bleed a small amount over a long period of time, resulting in anemia (low red blood cell count) that is picked up on blood work.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you are facing a colon cancer diagnosis, here are some questions you may ask your doctor.
- What are my treatment options based on my diagnosis?
- If I’m worried about managing the costs of cancer care, who can help me?
- What support services are available to me? To my family?
- Could this treatment affect my sex life? If so, how and for how long?
- What are the risks and possible side effects of treatment?
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