Facing Stage 3 Colon Cancer as a Parent
- James Van Der Beek began his stage 3 colorectal cancer journey in August 2023, and since then he’s been enjoying life’s milestones more than ever, like his 7-year-old daughter’s recent birthday.
- Facing cancer as a parent can be an incredibly difficult task. But having children who depend on you can also provide another reason to fight the disease with everything you’ve got.
- Although Van Der Beek hasn’t offered specifics into his treatment regime, it’s helpful to understand that colon cancers start out as a polyp, or small growth, in the colon that causes no symptoms. Although polyps can’t be felt, they can be picked up by screening tests before they cause a problem. It takes up to 10 years for a colon polyp to become a full-blown cancer, which gives doctors time to remove the polyp before it causes a problem.
- Anyone battling cancer may find telling their children about their diagnosis to be a really difficult task. You want to be honest with them and you want them to be prepared for what might happen, but at the same time you want to protect them, and be as gentle as possible.
- “Having these conversations may bring up deep emotions you may have stowed away. There is nothing wrong with showing our emotions to children as long as we can remain calm and give them a sense of safety,” Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin said.
- The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends state colon cancer screenings should begin at 45-years-old. This is in response to a rise in colon cancer diagnoses in younger adults. In the past, the disease had predominantly been found in adults 50-years or older, but for those predisposed to get it at a younger age, these new guidelines could potentially help catch it at an earlier stage.
Van Der Beek learned he had stage 3 colorectal cancer, a type of cancer that starts in the colon or the rectum, two years ago after getting a colonoscopy. While keeping his fans updated on his health journey, he often takes to social media to share photos of him and his family.
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Van Der Beek’s thoughtful captioned continued, “Before you dropped into this life, you filled your cart to the max with sweetness, sass… and I think you just might be a low-key genius.
“You can bring a roomful of adults to genuine, uproarious laughter, and witnessing you care for and nurture younger kids is enough to restore anyone’s faith in humanity.”
He concluded, “Thank you for your insights, your entertainment, and most importantly your beautifully open heart. You have inspired me and taught me more about presence and patience than I could ever express in a post.
“I love you with all my heart, and treasure you always.”
Van Der Beek’s fans showed their immense admiration and happiness in response to his heartfelt social media post, with one commenting, “I adore the way you speak about each of your children. The way you honor their individuality is beautiful.”
Another commented, “I’ve been following you for so many years and every time I see a post about your beautiful children I get so emotional. It’s amazing to see how much of an amazing father you have been. How much love you and your wife have given them. I admire you even more.”
Van Der Beek and his film producer wife Kimberly, 43, often share meaningful posts about their children to celebrate special life events—and we can’t help but admire their ongoing love and dedication to their six children.
Gwendolyn Van Der Beek is their youngest daughter and fifth born child.
Their other daughters are Olivia [their eldest who is now 14 years old], Annabel, and Emilia. They also have two sons named Joshua and Jeremiah.
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Van Der Beek wrote in his 2025 Father’s Day post, “Being a father has been the most treasured honor of my life. Thank you to my kids for re-teaching me how to live, laugh, love, and show up in my own life and in the world.
“And thank you to my super hero of a wife @vanderkimberly who constantly exceeds the boundaries of what I thought was human capacity. I love you all with all my heart.”
He concluded, “Pics are by @claiborneswansonfrank who JUST released a gem of a book with @assouline called ‘Father And Child,’ which celebrates fatherhood in a beautifully thoughtful, heartfelt and stunningly gorgeous way.”
Milestones After Cancer
For cancer warriors and their families, reaching life’s milestones is a big deal. Milestones can be the birth of a child or grandchild, getting married, traveling on a dream vacation, reaching another birthday, or something else. Most importantly, these milestones during or after a cancer battle tend to have a more significant meaning because, often, cancer patients gain a greater sense of gratitude toward their lives.
According to Cancer.net, patients and their support groups filled with loved ones may engage in some activities to help recognize and celebrate memorable milestones. These activities include planning a nice dinner or party-like gathering and spending time donating money or volunteering to a cancer charity. Perhaps the way you memorialize your cancer milestone could be independent of others. Examples include a solitary walk in nature and allowing your senses to take hold while you reflect.
Understanding Colon Cancer & Van Der Beek’s Diagnosis
James Van Der Beek learned he had colorectal cancer last year after getting a colonoscopy done. He told People in his tell-all interview that his bowel issues led him to get checked.
“I thought maybe I needed to stop coffee. Or maybe not put cream in the coffee. But when I cut that out and it didn’t improve, I thought, ‘All right, I better get this checked out,'” he said.
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Before Van Der Beek’s interview was published, the beloved actor wrote the following alongside a November 3rd Instagram post, “‘It is cancer…’ Each year, approximately 2 billion people around the world receive this diagnosis. And I’m one of them. There’s no playbook for how announce these things, but I’d planned on talking about it at length with People magazine at some point soon… to raise awareness and tell my story on my own terms. But that plan had to be altered early this morning when I was informed that a tabloid was going to run with the news.
“I’ve been dealing with this privately until now, getting treatment and dialing in my overall health with greater focus than ever before. I’m in a good place and feeling strong. It’s been quite the initiation, and I’ll tell you more when I’m ready.
“Apologies to all the people in my life who I’d planned on telling myself. Nothing about this process has occurred on my preferred timeline… But we roll with it, taking each surprise as a signpost, pointing us toward a greater destiny than we would have discovered without divine intervention,” he continued. “Please know that my family and I deeply appreciate all the love and support.”
Colorectal cancer happens when polyps are not removed and become cancerous. It can take up to 10 years for a colon polyp to become cancerous, according to SurvivorNet experts.
“We know that colon cancers can be prevented when polyps are found early,” Dr. Heather Yeo, a surgical oncologist who specializes in colorectal cancers at Weill Cornell Medicine, told SurvivorNet.
“Lowering the screening age helps somewhat with this, but access to care is a real problem,” Dr. Yeo added.
Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal cancer surgeon and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Colorectal Cancer Center, previously explained the colonoscopy procedure to SurvivorNet.
“When we see a polyp, we actually physically take the polyp out through the colonoscope,” he explained. “What does that mean? That means we basically put a wire through with a little bit of a flange at the end, and we pull the polyp out. Now, note there is no pain with that. Inside the colon, there are no pain fibers. So, there’s no pain.”
The advantage of a colonoscopy is that your doctor can remove any polyps found during the test. Many colon cancers can be caught on colonoscopy before they develop or when the polyps are small enough to be removed without surgery.
Looking for Polyps During Colonoscopy
The American Gastrointestinal Association lowered the recommended initial age for a colorectal screening from 50 to 45.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends guidelines that state colon cancer screenings should begin at 45 years old. This is in response to the increase we see in colon cancer diagnoses in younger adults.
However, many insurance companies still do not cover the cost of screenings for those under 50. In the past, the disease had predominantly been found in adults 50 years or older, but for those predisposed to getting it at a younger age, these new guidelines could help catch it earlier.
Understanding Treatment Options
Although, Van Der Beek has chosen to keep the details of his colon cancer journey and treatment process private, it’s important to understand that your doctor has many ways to treat colon cancer, depending on what stage the cancer is, including:
- Surgery
- Radiation therapy
- Chemotherapy
- Targeted therapy
- Immunotherapy
Surgery
Surgery is the main treatment for most early-stage colon cancers, according to the doctors SurvivorNet spoke with. The surgeon will remove the part of the colon or rectum where there is cancer, along with a small area of healthy tissue around it. Taking out as much of the cancer as possible is important for improving your outcome.
The surgery may be performed through small incisions (laparoscopy), or through a larger incision. Some people may need to wear a special bag (ostomy) to collect wastes after surgery.
Deciding When to Operate on Colon Cancer
Radiation Therapy
This treatment aims high-energy x-rays at the cancer to destroy the abnormal cells. The radiation can come from a machine outside your body, or be placed directly inside your body. Sometimes people get radiation before surgery, to shrink the tumor and make it easier for the surgeon to remove. This is called neoadjuvant radiation.
Chemotherapy
This treatment uses strong medicine to stop cancer cells from dividing, no matter where they are in your body. You may get a combination of chemotherapy drugs as your first treatment. Chemotherapy has been very well studied for colorectal cancer, and it is known to improve survival.
The most common therapy is a combination of chemo drugs called FOLFOX:
- FOL = leucovorin calcium (folinic acid)
- F = fluorouracil
- OX = oxaliplatin
Your doctor may add medications like irinotecan (FOLFIRI) or cetuximab, depending on how well your tumor shrinks with treatment and other specifics about your particular cancer. For FOLFOX, the medications are given through the vein and require regular doctor visits.
To determine exactly which chemotherapy regimen you get, your doctor will consider your age and how well you might tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy. Gene mutations (for example, BRAF and KRAS) and the location of the primary colon tumor also factor into the decision.
You can also get chemotherapy before colon cancer surgery, which is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Getting chemo first helps to shrink the tumor, which can make both the surgery and recovery easier, according to SurvivorNet’s experts. Chemo is also a treatment for cancer that returns after therapy.
Targeted Therapy
This treatment targets substances like proteins or genes that the cancer needs to grow. This makes targeted therapy more precise than chemotherapy, and less likely to damage healthy cells. One example of targeted therapy is bevacizumab (Avastin), which stops the growth of new blood vessels that feed tumors. Another group of targeted therapies are called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors, which block the cancer from growing.
Immunotherapy
This treatment makes your own immune system a more efficient cancer fighter. A group of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which includes pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo), work by preventing cancer cells from hiding from your immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors may extend the amount of time before the cancer spreads.
Dr. Paul Oberstein, on which treatments doctors use to turn stage 4 colon cancer into a chronic but manageable disease
Battling Cancer as a Parent
Opening up about cancer diagnosis with children can be really difficult task. You want to be honest with them and you want them to be prepared for what might happen, but at the same time you want to protect them, and be as gentle as possible.
John Duberstein, who lost his wife Nina to cancer, explains that he and his wife tried to take a progressive approach and be as open with their kids as possible. But as honest as they were, they ran into some issues with their kids understanding the disease. When Nina started to look healthier, for example, the kids assumed she was getting better, but that wasn’t the case.
Talking to Kids About Cancer: Be Open as Much as You Can
“It was a real eye-opening moment for two people who felt like they were dealing really head-on with this stuff, talking to the kids,” Duberstein told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview.
“So I think it’s important to be open with the kids as much as you can, as much as you feel like they can handle. But it’s also important to revisit it and not make assumptions. At the end of the night, what Nina had to tell them was, ‘I’m not ever going to get better. My cancer is not ever going to go away,’ it was hard for them to hear even though they’d already been prepared.”
Meanwhile, breast cancer survivor Gina de Givenchy previously spoke with SurvivorNet about going through cancer treatment as the mother of a 12-year-old girl.
“I felt it was important to mask it because I really wanted her to know that I was going to be OK. I didn’t want her to see me weak and sickly,” she said. “When it comes to your kids, I think you always want to sort of protect them.”
Telling Your Kids You Have Cancer ‘When it Comes to Your Kids, You Want to Protect Them’
The pressures of parenthood can be daunting during a cancer journey, but having little ones that depend on you can also provide another source of motivation to fight for your life.
Jovannie Lorenzo also knows this to be true. When she was diagnosed with colon cancer at 32, she felt an immense amount of fear because she was a single parent of her three kids. Going into her cancer battle, Lorenzo knew she would do everything in her power to be around to raise them.
Facing a Cancer Diagnosis as a Single Parent: “I Knew I Had to Fight for My Life”
“I knew that I had to do everything possible to be here for my children,” Lorenzo told SurvivorNet. “They are my saving grace. They are the reason I wake up every morning. They are the reason why I fight every single day and I make a choice to be positive, to be happy, and to move forward.”
Obviously, not every parent feels comfortable sharing so much about their diagnosis with their children. Some survivors have even told us that they were afraid to tell their family members, but as for Duberstein, de Givenchy, and Lorenzo, honesty was the best policy.
Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin encourages people with sick parents “to talk about your feelings with your immediate family as well as your parents.” She’s previously talked about the importance of expressing your feelings in her advice column for SurvivorNet.
“Talking about difficult things does not cause more anxiety,” Dr. Strongin said. “It is NOT talking about the very thing that we are all afraid or worried about that causes our body to feel dysregulated (unable to manage emotional responses or keep them within an acceptable range of typical emotional reactions) and anxious.”
Specifically, with patients who may be scared to talk to their children about a diagnosis, Strongin said children can pick up on their emotions, so it may help to check in with yourself beforehand.
“Having these conversations may bring up deep emotions you may have stowed away. There is nothing wrong with showing our emotions to children as long as we can remain calm and give them a sense of safety,” Dr. Strongin said.
Coping With a Diagnosis
Remember, coping with a diagnosis involves a range of emotions from anger to sadness and everything in between.
Sarah Stapleton, a licensed clinical social worker, encourages cancer warriors and their families to be “patient with your emotions.”
It’s also important that you understand how you communicate with your providers, but also with your loved ones,” Stapleton said. “We can’t always assume that people know what we need at a given time, and there are going to be times when you don’t want to speak about your diagnosis and you don’t want to speak about cancer.
Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik previously explained to SurvivorNet some tips for cancer warriors and their caregivers for managing emotions after a diagnosis. She emphasized getting extra support from loved ones.
“Some people don’t need to go outside of their family and friend circle. They feel like they have enough support there,” Dr. Plutchik said. “But for people who feel like they need a little bit more, it is important to reach out to a mental health professional.”
“Patients who have just been diagnosed with cancer sometimes wonder how they are going to handle the diagnosis of the cancer in social situations,” Dr. Plutchik added. “How much information they should share and with whom they should share the information, everybody is different.”
Ultimately it comes down to what feels right. Loved ones supporting a cancer warrior are encouraged to respect the wishes of the cancer patient when it comes to disclosing their diagnosis.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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