Coffey Anderson and Wife Criscilla Had COVID-19 Amid Her Cancer Battle
In addition to pursuing his country career, Coffey Anderson also co-stars with his family in the Netflix show Country Ever After, which debuted in September of 2020. But the Anderson household also weathered more than their share of ups and downs, as the singer and his wife, Criscilla, got the news that she had Stage 4 colon cancer in May of 2019.
Per People, Criscilla was first diagnosed with the disease in 2018, but it wasn't until the following year — after surgery, remission and then recurrence — that the couple was told that her cancer was Stage 4, and though it was treatable, it was not curable. In October of 2020, just a month after Country Ever After aired, the singer and his wife told People that Criscilla's doctor recommended a new clinical trial for her cancer treatment plan, one that would involve immunotherapy treatment.
"He told me there was a one in 10 chance I would get a rash and a one in 20 chance that my liver would be inflamed. And I was like, 'I'd be good,'" she remembers, and the family decided the new treatment was worth the risk. But unfortunately, her body's response to the new medical regime was more severe than they ever could've predicted.
"I turn out to be the one in 20 with the inflamed liver and the 1 in 10 with one of the most extreme rashes my doctor had ever seen," she goes on to say. "And all of this at the same time as the show was premiering. It should have been my happiest of days, and instead I was praying to God I would make it another day."
"Criscilla had a head-to-toe rash that itched for 15 days straight and a liver that was sick. I was worried because she just couldn't get any relief," Anderson adds.
After a week in the hospital, Criscilla elected to return home to recuperate, so that she could have her husband and their children by her side. But then, the couple was dealt another blow: They both contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus.
"We made it through, but it was hard," Criscilla remembers. "It was definitely different. I felt like I was becoming a burden to Coffey and to everyone that was coming to help, and I was getting tired of that."
At the end of what she calls "a hard 45 days," she admits that she was beginning to feel defeated by her health setbacks, and she was running low on hope. But the couple's optimism and finding the positive side of things is well-documented, and these days, they're finding the positive in a reassuring set of recent scans that show Criscilla's tumors either staying the same size or shrinking.
"These scans give me a lot of hope that I am going to be able to enjoy the holidays. I mean, that's what cancer is. It's a wave of emotions," she reflects. "Every time you go into the hospital, you want to hope for the best, but at the same time, you have to mentally prepare for the worst. And when you are preparing for the worst, you have to know that that is the journey of cancer."
Anderson found his first taste of mainstream success on televised singing competition Nashville Star, where he was a contestant in 2008. His song, "Mr. Red White and Blue," went viral on TikTok over the summer.
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