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Shannin Desroches, now 27, says her painful abdominal symptoms were dismissed as a gluten allergy, and it was only after advocating for herself that doctors discovered she had colon cancer. The disease had spread quickly, and now she needs surgery to survive — surgery she doesn’t qualify to have, forcing her into palliative care in her home country of Canada. She was able to marry her longtime love, Cody, and looks forward to living, saying, “I don’t want to be a statistic.” Below she tells her story to PEOPLE.
I was 26 at the time, so you don’t think it’s cancer.
My symptoms started in October 2023, and they came on pretty fast. I’d get really, really bad lower left abdominal pain after big meals, but then, even with smaller meals, even with snacks, I was puking. I had heavy nausea. The pain was getting so bad.
I went to my family doctor, but my blood work was fine. I went back to him and I was like, “Listen, it’s bad. Can I go for a CT, ultrasound, something?” But my family doctor wasn’t listening to me. He thought I was allergic to gluten. He ended up scheduling me for a CT scan, but he didn’t schedule me until October of 2024.
It took me until April of 2024 to actually be diagnosed — and that was after me going through three different doctors and a surgeon, advocating for myself to finally being diagnosed. Every doctor I talked to is, “Oh, Shan, you’re young, you’re healthy, it’s nothing serious,” or “you’re overthinking it.” And I knew it was something more. I’m a nurse. My body was literally screaming at me like, “Get help!”
I finally had an MRI on April 11. After it, family, friends and a surgeon were standing there waiting for me. They’re like, “Shannin, we need to admit you.” And I was like, “What are you talking about? I didn’t bring anything to be admitted for. This is Toronto and I live three hours away in Fenelon Falls.” They’re like, “No, we see a blockage, we see lesions.” The surgeon stepped in and was like, “Shan, I don’t wanna freak you out, but this looks like cancer. I specialize in this and it’s very similar.”
I didn’t even cry or anything. I just stood there and I stared at him and I was like, “You did not just say the C word. Like there’s no way! That’s a ‘not a chance in hell’ kind of thing, right?”
Then I got admitted.
I didn’t even have time to do prep. I did conscious sedation, so I was awake for it, but he actually showed me everything on the screen. He only got 30 centimeters in and he saw a huge tumor. I remember seeing it on the screen. My tumor was so big, he couldn’t even get the camera past it to keep going, so he couldn’t even complete my colonoscopy.
At this point, I still wouldn’t have had the CT scan from my family doctor.
I was being prepped for surgery on April 13. The original plan was getting an ostomy bag, chemo to shrink the tumors and then going back in to reverse the ostomy. And at this point I was in so much pain — but I’m gonna fight. It was supposed to be only one to two hours of surgery.
It ended up turning into a six-hour surgery. I remember the first time I looked down at my abdomen and I was like, “I don’t have an ostomy bag and I’m stapled top to bottom.” So I had a weird feeling. I don’t know if this is good or not, like, were they not able to do it? Just a million things go through your mind, because obviously when you wake up the surgeon isn’t there to talk to you. My now-husband Cody was with me the whole time in the hospital.
I remember they came in to talk to me and that’s when they confirmed it’s stage 4 colorectal cancer. And then they told he removed my entire tumor from my sigmoid colon, reconnected my colon. I had a Krukenberg tumor on my right ovary, which means it had metastasized from elsewhere, so they removed the ovary and my tumor as well. And then he removed 13 lymph nodes from my abdominal wall, and 11 came back positive with cancer. My liver was so covered in tumors. He wasn’t able to touch that.
They were telling me, “I know this sounds so scary and you just had a major, major surgery. We just got so much cancer out of your body.” But they were severely worried about my liver because there was a crazy amount — they couldn’t even count how many tumors were on my liver. It was so covered. They couldn’t even risk doing surgery because they’re way too big, there’s way too many, and it would essentially send me into liver failure. So the plan was to meet with an oncologist and start chemotherapy right away in hopes of shrinking [the cancer in] my liver down.
Normally when you have a Krukenberg tumor in your right ovary, there’s almost a 100% chance that it’s gonna spread to your left ovary. My surgeon said, “I wanted to leave it in order to give you the chance because you’re so young to preserve eggs.”
And that’s when everything really kind of hit me. You don’t even think of that stuff, right? You’re still processing the C word — cancer — at 26 years old. Me and my husband just bought a house a year prior. Kids was next on the list. My oncologist said, “I wanna hook you up with the fertility doctor.”
There was no, “Get Shannin home to heal.” I didn’t even have time to process everything. There was no time to process stage 4 cancer, that I’m losing my eggs and that I’m not going back to work as a nurse. It was just: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! It was crazy.
The amount of hormones and drugs I got pumped with to do it in such a short period of time was excruciating on my body. I was stapled from top to bottom in my abdomen, and the hormones that they were giving me made me severely nauseous. Imagine trying to puke being stapled top to bottom. Every time I heaved, it felt like my staples in my entire abdomen were just being ripped apart. I’ve never been in so much pain. I’ve never been so uncomfortable. And I’m not kidding: I was begging to stop at one point, but I kept going and I’m grateful I did because we did retrieve seven eggs, which isn’t a crazy amount. Usually you get a lot more, but considering I only had one ovary and this was all done within a few weeks, I was very grateful to even have seven because that was my only shot to do it.
I did give full legal rights to my husband Cody so that if something does happen to me he could still use them and have a part of me. Then we took family photos. It was very mixed emotions that day; everybody knew in the back of their minds, like “Is this it? Is this gonna be the last big time with all of us?” If you told me in that moment, “Hey Shannin, you know, you’re gonna make it to your wedding in a few months and you’re gonna get married in Jamaica,” I wouldn’t have believed you.
I began chemotherapy, but then around treatment 13, my heart started to like flutter. And I remember texting Cody really quick. He had gone to get something from his truck and I texted him, like, “Come in right now.” And that’s all I said. And he came running in and by the time he got from the parking lot, I was surrounded by six nurses, a doctor, and I was going into anaphylactic shock.
We tried one more round of chemotherapy. They gave me steroids and Benadryl prior, just in case I did have a reaction, it hopefully wouldn’t be as severe. I had a reaction right away.
My oncologist said we’ve got to drop it. Your body developed a reaction; that’s your body saying it had enough. I was really upset over it, but now I’m looking at my next options.
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I tried for surgery: A hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) pump that delivers chemotherapy directly into the liver. In Canada, they won’t do the surgery if I have cancer outside of my liver. And I have a small tumor on my left ovary starting — so that’s preventing me from getting surgery. The CT can’t assess it properly. It’s really bothering me that I don’t know what’s going on there. I share my story on TikTok and I started a GoFundMe in hopes that I could get to the states where they’ll do it, because right now I am considered palliative.
When I got diagnosed, my surgeon gave me three years to live. And he’s like, “The only way we’re gonna beat that is if we have surgery and remove it from your liver.” So, it’s kind of this crunch time where it’s been almost a year now. The surgery is gonna cost a ridiculous amount, but you just do what you gotta do, you know.
We got married last October with my dream wedding. The wedding was stunning considering I put it together in four weeks. It was right on the beach at the water in Jamaica. During all of this, Cody washed my hair for me. He showered me. He fed me. He put my socks on. I owe him my whole life because I don’t think I could do this fight without him.
I started making a bunch of f— cancer merch and sold them on Etsy. It was just kind of a hobby but I love doing it. It’s something to kind of keep me busy and bring a bit of income in — because surgery is what’s gonna save my life. If I don’t get that surgery, I’m not gonna make it.
I have so much fighting me right now that I don’t even think about the two-year mark. Well, I do think about it — because it’s what’s pushing me to fight so hard. I don’t let it win because I’m just like, that’s a statistic. I don’t want to be another statistic. I wanna win this thing. My oncologist told me I have less than a 5% chance of coming out on top of this. I want to be that 5%.
To follow more of Shannin’s journey, follow her on TikTok and Etsy, and check out her GoFundMe.
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