Country singer, Coffey Anderson and his wife, Criscilla, who is fighting stage 4 colon cancer, sought complementary therapies through Dr. Raymond Hilu’s clinic in Marbella, Spain in January. While there, the couple shared updates and introduced their followers to Dr. Hilu, whose website describes him as an “expert in cellular therapy.”
View this post on InstagramRead More Now home from Spain, Anderson dropped a reality-show trailer on his Instagram (below) today. “Would y'all want to see our story? Would you tune in?” he writes. Criscilla’s appearance in the trailer comes as a positive sign of her ongoing cancer battle, which the show — titled Country-ish — will chronicle.The potential show is in partnership with Roma Downey, according to Anderson’s post. Downey starred in the CBS series, “Touched by an Angel.” The Andsersons met in church and they are open about how their cancer journey are guided by their religious faith.
Criscilla Anderson’s Cancer Journey
A hip-hop dancer and choreographer who has appeared in music videos with Snoop Dog and Rhiana, Criscilla, 39, was first diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in June of 2018. “Doctors removed 2 feet of her colon along with a large mass,” according to a post by Nikki Andrews on the GoFundMe page she set up to support the Andersons through Criscilla’s treatment.
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Months of chemo followed. But at her six-month scan, “they found swollen nodes that continued to grow which landed her back in the hospital for a third surgery,” Andrews wrote. Those nodes came back positive and Criscilla is currently battling a re-occurrence of stage 3 colon cancer.”
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After more treatment and a brief remission, Criscilla reported a stage 4 metastatic colon cancer diagnosis in November, 2019. "The cancer has spread throughout my para-aortic region and has begun growing up my back," she explained in an emotional video posted on Instagram.
"It was really hard to hear the doctor say that he doesn't think it's curable. He thinks it's treatable,” Criscilla said in the post. “And that wrecked me." she said.
"I've been crying all day because I have three babies that need their mom," she continued. "And I have a husband who lost his mom to cancer at a young age and he shouldn't be losing his wife too."
"My ultimate goal,” Criscilla continued, “is to be in remission and have it not be chronic but be in a situation where it can be completely healed. The ideal, if that cannot happen, would be to keep it maintained and have it not spread any further for the rest of my life."
“Western Medicine Combined With Holistic Approaches”
Later that month, Andrews announced on the GoFundMe page that the Andersons had decided that, “along with western medicine and chemotherapy, that eastern medicine and natural holistic approaches are just as important.”
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Their goal, Andrews shared, was a two-week treatment at Dr. Hilu’s clinic in Spain. “This includes 10 days of multipolar detoxes and treatments.” The cost, according to the post, is $21,000 plus hotel and travel.
In addition, Andrews writes, “Criscilla is currently undergoing holistic treatment in Los Angeles with high dose vitamin c twice a week as well as infrared sauna … She still plans to move forward with chemo which is a hard thing mentally and physically for her but she wants to be sure she does all she can to fight and win this beast.”
By the end of January, the couple left for Spain, thanking the supporters who’d contributed over $90,000 through their GoFundMe page. “We are so grateful and feel every blessing,” Criscilla wrote in appreciation. “My holistic treatments have been costing $400-$600 a day.”
Dr. Brian Berman on the benefits of integrative medicine, with sometimes combines traditional medicine with complementary therapies
Colorectal Cancer in Young Adults
Colorectal cancer rates are on the rise in young adults. It’s estimated that, if the current trends continue, by 2030, the incidence rates for colon cancer will increase by 90 percent for people between the ages of 20 and 34.
Why is this happening? Researchers are scrambling to figure out the answer to this question, and while they know that there's probably no "one cause" driving the trendthere is one possible cause that stands out: the microbiome.
The "microbiome" is a word that refers to the diverse colony of microorganismsviruses, fungi, and bacteriathat are present in our body: in our skin, in our mouths, in our genitals, in our guts, and most of all in our colon.
Researchers are learning more about the microbiome's effect on cancer risk (and overall health) every day, but because there are trillions of individual microorganisms (most of which are bacteria) in each of our microbiomesof which there are hundreds of unique species — many questions remain about the connection.
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