Devon Breithart | Survivor
Location: Seattle, Washington | Pronouns: She/Her
In November 2022, I celebrated my 30th birthday in Palm Springs, California, and was lucky to attend Pride at the same time. I loved it so much that I ended up accepting a travel work contract to work in the school system as an occupational therapist. My partner and I packed up our hatchback and cat and drove back down to Palm Springs in January 2023.
Unfortunately, about a month and a half into my contract, I started experiencing GI symptoms that were new to me! Initially, I thought I was just finally developing IBS. I reached out to my PCP with my symptoms—passing only mucus, more frequent bowel movements, a feeling of not being able to empty, and narrow stools. She encouraged me to come in for an appointment right away. When I told her I couldn't come back to Seattle, she encouraged me to see a GI doctor in Palm Springs. In the meantime, we did some stool testing that all came back inconclusive.
Luckily, I was able to get in with a GI doctor fairly quickly, which was good because I was starting to realize that the discomfort I was feeling was turning into increased pain and constipation. The GI doctor did a digital rectal examination, felt a mass, and told me it could be cancer. This was distressing, but by this point, I was beginning to suspect that was the case.
The cancer was confirmed by a colonoscopy the following week. While I initially thought I could keep working in Palm Springs, it soon became clear I needed to go home to Seattle. After the colonoscopy, my symptoms continued to worsen, so we stopped at UCSF on the drive home, where they determined the best treatment was a colostomy.
After that surgery, we returned home to Seattle, where I started treatment at Fred Hutch. My cancer was diagnosed as stage III due to local lymph node involvement. I did six weeks of radiation, four months of chemo, and finally, an APR surgery that removed my anus and rectum, making my colostomy permanent.
After this, I was NED (No Evidence of Disease) for 6 months until my regular surveillance scans in August 2024 revealed my cancer had spread to two distant lymph nodes (supraclavicular and aortal-caval). This meant I was officially stage IV, which was scary. However, my team felt that with chemo and radiation, I could become NED again. I'm currently finishing up chemo and will start radiation sometime soon—stay tuned.
Throughout this whole process, I have thought a lot about how this cancer and treatment have affected my relationships, sexuality, ADLs, and more. As a pansexual woman, the LGBTQ+ community is close to my heart, and the impact of this type of cancer on the community is clear. It's important to me that people have a space where these discussions can be frank and open.
If you'd like to connect with me, I post about my cancer experience frequently on my Instagram @devonbreithart.
“Cancers like this have a stigma in a lot of different ways. I would emphasize that you are not responsible for causing your cancer - it’s just bad luck! I would also say to speak up about issues you’re experiencing. It can be embarrassing, but things get so much better with support.”
How has being part of the LGBTQ+ community impacted your cancer journey?
In a positive way, I think being LGBTQ+ has made it easier to see sex as more than just vaginal intercourse, which has been difficult due to treatment. Sex can look a lot of different ways and queer people are creative! It also helps to have a community that can speak frankly about topics like this that are often taboo.
