Over the last decade, colorectal cancers have been on the rise for young adults with the rates nearly doubling for those under 55 during that time, according to the American Cancer Society.
While doctors aren’t sure why these rates are increasing for young people, the good news is that colon and rectal cancers, when caught early with a colonoscopy, are very treatable, something Westchester mom and cancer survivor, Marisa Peters, is on a mission to share.
Finding Her Voice
When Marisa Peters first discovered her voice as a little girl in Indiana, singing became her life’s purpose. Her vocal talent led her to Broadway, where the dazzling songstress lit up the stage in a musical tribute honoring playwright Arthur Miller. Marisa continued to captivate audiences around the country, lending her talent and tap-dancing skills to iconic productions like “42nd Street,” “Crazy for You” and “Beauty and the Beast.” While her passion for singing remains strong, after battling cancer, Marisa’s focus has shifted: she now uses her voice to raise awareness about young-onset cancers, channeling her vocal gifts into a powerful force for advocacy and hope.
After meeting her husband, Josh, in New York when he was in the production business, the couple decided to marry and settle in Westchester, a place where Josh had established his thriving career as a film producer and where Marisa could envision the family setting down roots. Marisa’s career pivoted to executive leadership as a Chief People Officer running human resource departments for growing technology and media companies. Three kids later, while the country was gripped in a pandemic, 39-year-old Marisa knew something was very wrong with her body, but kept getting dismissed by doctors.
“I had been having symptoms for quite a while, five-and-a-half years. And they grew pervasively worse and interfered with life more and more, to the point in which I was finally referred to a gastroenterologist. In a colonoscopy, we detected a five-centimeter, lime-sized tumor that was growing at the top of my rectum.”
“The And Effect”
So why did it take so long for Marisa to get diagnosed? She says the doctors saw her symptoms (i.e., blood in the stool and extreme urgency to get to the bathroom) as typical for someone who had given birth to three kids.
“The doctors were like, ‘Oh, you’ve had kids. Do you have hemorrhoids?’ Yes, I have hemorrhoids. And they’d say, ‘Oh, well, that’s why you’re bleeding.’ While some of these symptoms may be common, they’re far from normal and they’re not something that should be dismissed,” she says.
Marisa calls it “The And Effect.”
She explains: “This notion that our bodies are not the same after we’ve had children–yes, that’s true. You can have hemorrhoids, and something else can be going on inside of your body. You can be young and vibrant and healthy, and you can have late-stage cancer.”
Marisa admits she feels really lucky to have survived late-stage cancer.
“It’s now been three-and-a-half years since that diagnosis and I went through 11 months of treatment, including chemo, radiation and multiple surgeries. I had a temporary ileostomy bag for four months. I was fortunate enough to have a reversal surgery where they were able to reconnect my body following rectal reconstruction to be cancer-free. We had a successful result in that!” she says with a big smile.
Marisa says that while she had no family history of colon or rectal cancer, both her siblings took note.
“Upon my diagnosis, my brother and sister immediately went to get colonoscopies and my sister has shared openly that she had precancerous polyps detected with no symptoms. Luckily, they were able to remove those. She even went in more recently again for her three-year follow-up on that initial colonoscopy and they found some more polyps in her body. She is a vibrant, beautiful, fit young woman with two children, again without any symptoms. We want people to know that they need to go be seen and that a family history includes a history of polyps, not just late-stage colon or rectal cancers,” Marisa says.
Community Support
Both Marisa and Josh say they couldn’t have gotten through this journey without their Westchester neighbors, who not only provided meals but watched their three children when Marisa needed time to recover from her infusions.
“Our families live far away,” says Josh. “But we never once felt alone. We attribute that to the strength of the Westchester community. It’s easy to get known as the ‘cancer family’ and not once did the community make us feel like that. Meals, rides for our kids, drop-ins, phone calls, texts. If we can help pass that feeling of community on, it will be time well spent,” he says.
BE SEEN
With Marisa and her family having time to heal and reflect on all the support they have received in their journey, they decided it was time to turn their support to others. Marisa and Josh have now started an organization called BE SEEN and they’re on a mission to eradicate lives lost by colorectal cancer. They’re encouraging people to learn the symptoms of the disease, the history of cancer in one’s family, and commit to getting screened.
“We started BE SEEN simply because if only I would have been seen sooner this would have been preventable with the tools available to us today. It is absolutely possible for us to eliminate colorectal cancer now, in our lifetime, while government funding changes, while researchers figure out the root cause of what’s driving this rise in young-onset cancer,” she says.
Marisa, Josh and their sons, Ford, Desmond and Beau, now travel locally and nationally to share Marisa’s story and encourage people to apply it in their own lives.
“We’re lucky enough to have our story told by the New York Times as well as places like US News and World Report, The Kelly Clarkson Show, regional news outlets, etc., to raise awareness,” Marisa says.
Their 11-year-old son, Ford, even recently shared the BE SEEN mission with every class at St. Anastasia School as part of Family Health History Month.
“I don’t want people to have to experience what our family went through,” says Ford. “It meant a lot to see other friends interview their parents. A friend’s mom had pre-cancerous polyps removed and credits BE SEEN.”
Always looking for new ways to share her story and help others, just last month Marisa launched a podcast called “From Carpools to Chemo.” She hopes the podcast can be a source of inspiration for other people who are not only going through their own cancer journeys but are also seeing life beyond their recovery.
Whether she’s hosting a podcast, being a guest on a talk show or speaking to groups, Marisa still finds the opportunity to sing wherever she goes.
“My instrument has always been my voice and my prayer has always been, ‘Make me an instrument in the way I can make the greatest impact in this world.’ So, music and singing has been a critical part of my medicine throughout this journey,” says Marisa. “It gave words and spirit to what I was feeling, processing and it helped get me hyped up going into infusions and surgery. Singing allowed me to connect with my kids in the most deep, meaningful way. I think the music we create lasts long beyond our own lives.”
There’s a quote that Marisa says she’s lived by since she studied musical theater and performed in New York and around the country.
“’When words don’t do justice, sing. When singing doesn’t do justice, dance.’ Both singing and dancing have been instrumental in filling my heart and helping me connect with our little family of five,” says Marisa.
Learn more about cancer prevention resources, Marisa’s story, or hear her sing by visiting beseen.care. You can find her podcast, “From Carpools to Chemo,” anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Story by Shanee Edwards. Photos by Zszusi Steiner.
