“Shay is a quality spouse. I lucked out,” says Tanner Martin of his wife, Shay Wright-Martin. “She is so good at listening and she’s always doing thoughtful stuff.”
As he talks, he and Shay snuggle their little white dog, Lucas George, Luke for short. Yes, that’s a Star Wars reference.
“Tanner is a big fan,” Shay says. As for herself? Not quite as much.
“We have different interests in the stuff we find entertaining,” Tanner says. “I’m a ginormous nerd. But I’ll tell Shay something and even though she doesn’t care [about the topic], she listens because she loves me. She’ll say, 'I remember you talked about this game—'”
“Red Dead Redemption,” they say together.
“Shay said, ‘You were excited about it so I got it.’”
Shay describes herself as a go-getter. She gives 110% in whatever she does, whether it’s her relationship, her college studies, or her photography hobby-turned-side hustle. So when Tanner was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in November 2020, she threw herself into caregiving.
In addition to managing his medical needs, she went above and beyond to cheer him up. When he was in the hospital over Valentine’s Day, she decorated his room and brought him a fancy dinner. When his family couldn’t see him due to COVID visitor restrictions, she bought a bunch of Nintendo Switch games so he could pass the time.
“When I’m suffering so much, she puts it on herself to do even more for me,” Tanner says. “I think that’s one of the reasons that made it so hard for her as a caregiver.”
In trying to do so much, however, Shay ended up burning out. She couldn’t take care of herself, let alone Tanner. Through that experience, Shay and Tanner found out how crucial it is to not let the caregiver’s needs get buried underneath the needs of the patient.
“You’re still important as the caregiver,” says Tanner. “You are of equal importance to this person with cancer.”
“All of My Energy Was Going toward Being Strong”
Tanner and Shay never could have imagined they would become a cancer patient and full-time caregiver, especially in their mid-twenties. When Tanner started having blood in his stool and other digestive issues, cancer wasn’t on the radar for someone so young. His doctors suspected IBS, lactose intolerance, diverticulitis, or Crohn’s disease.
The symptoms became severe, making his daily life difficult. He had a hard time sleeping and his back hurt. Tanner says he was taking so many bathroom breaks at work that “my boss was like, ‘Dude, what’s going on?’” Finally, Tanner had so much blood in his stool that he and Shay went to the emergency department. There, Tanner received CT scans and a colonoscopy.
“I remember the doctor came in and I knew something was wrong because he sat down,” Tanner says. “He told me, ‘We couldn’t actually finish your colonoscopy because we found a giant tumor.’”
The doctor told Tanner and Shay they’d need to wait for the biopsy results, but he was 99% sure it was colon cancer. The next day, Tanner saw an oncologist at his local health care facility, who confirmed the diagnosis.
Shay says as the oncologist talked, “my mind went to the worst possible things that could happen. We’d only been married for three years. What about all these things we had planned? I was just sobbing my eyes out. And then we went to Waffle Love afterward. I don’t know why. I guess we just needed food for comfort.”
Tanner—who Shay describes as “a happy, giggly guy, kind of like Winnie-the-Pooh”—wasn’t as emotional during that first visit.
“I don't think it really hit me until I had to call and tell my parents,” he says. “But for some reason the first time I cried was when I had to call my boss and tell her I wasn’t going to be coming to work the next couple of days. It was just scary. And it kind of kept getting scarier.”
Because Tanner was so young, his doctors thought they most likely had caught the cancer early. But more scans revealed how advanced the cancer was—it had spread to his lymph nodes, liver, and prostate.
“When we found out it was stage IV, everyone was shocked,” Shay says.
Tanner’s oncologist prescribed an aggressive chemo regimen. He would need surgery as well, but Shay’s grandfather, a doctor, told the couple to consult a specialist instead of a general surgeon. He made an appointment for them at Huntsman Cancer Institute, where they met with colorectal cancer surgeon Luke Martin, MD, and liver surgeon Rebecca Kim, MD. The plan was to let the chemo shrink the tumors as much as possible before doing surgery to remove the cancer in his colon and liver.
Tanner went through 12 rounds of chemo before undergoing surgery in July 2021 to remove his sigmoid colon, part of his rectum, and part of his bladder. By that point, the aggressive chemo had stressed his liver so much that liver surgery was put on hold. In between all the treatments, Tanner experienced complications and infections, requiring additional procedures and hospital stays.
Shay found herself the primary caregiver to someone with major medical needs. Between taking care of Tanner, managing his medications and appointments, being the sole provider, cooking and cleaning, and training Luke, a puppy at the time, Shay had way more than she could manage.
Plus, she says, “Tanner was feeling so sick. Even though he’s such a sweet person, it’s hard to be nice when you’re not feeling good. I took some things personally. All of my energy was going towards being a strong individual for Tanner.”
“She was holding the world on her shoulders,” Tanner says. “You can’t do it by yourself. You just can’t. She tried doing that for a while and that was really hard on her.”
Shay became depressed. She slept a lot. She found it hard to do minor things like changing her clothes from the previous day. “Those small things weren’t small to me at the time,” she says. “It just took so much energy—energy that I didn't have.”
"Pick One Small Thing"
Tanner and Shay know how beneficial talk therapy is. In fact, they’re both in school to become marriage and family therapists, they both work in counseling clinics, and they both see therapists themselves. So it’s not surprising that Shay turned to counseling to help pull her out of the hole she was in.
“I started coping better when I was meeting with my therapist often,” she says.
Her therapist told her to pick one small thing to accomplish when everything felt too overwhelming. Focus on just taking a shower today, for example. Tomorrow, shower and get ready.
Shay also began accepting help from the many offers she and Tanner were getting from their friends, family, and community. But accepting that help didn’t come easy.
“It was definitely uncomfortable at first,” she says. “I had to swallow some pride and give up control, which is hard for me. We’ve had people come and clean our house, including our bathroom, which seriously gives me the most anxiety ever. I have to leave the house when they come over to clean.”
The more she said yes to those offers, the easier it became. She felt some weight taken off her shoulders. Tanner and Shay found it benefited them both when friends and family came over to take care of Tanner.
“It’s good for him to have that social interaction with others. And then I can go and have some time for myself,” she says.
Tanner and Shay say they’re blessed to have received so much kindness from their friends, family, and church community. Another major blessing in their life—Luke, who was a gift from Shay’s parents soon after Tanner was diagnosed to help them cope. The little dog has turned out to be one of their biggest sources of emotional support. He’s given them purpose, something positive to focus on together.
“We’ve gotten to train him together,” Tanner says. “It’s been really rewarding in that way.”
“When we’re sad, we just cuddle him,” adds Shay. “He’s been the best thing ever for us emotionally.”
“We Have Found It Important to Truly Live”
The time since Tanner’s diagnosis has been filled with extreme ups and downs. Scans in August 2021 showed no evidence of disease, but two spots appeared on his liver a few months later. Tanner went back on chemo, with the possibility of liver surgery in the future.
In between it all, they’re trying to live every moment they can—big moments, like trips to Disney World and Ireland, and smaller moments, like taking Luke for walks.
“We have found it important to truly live,” Shay posted to Instagram. “We want to explore and make memories together.”
Shay says this has been the hardest period of their lives. “It’s been hard on our bodies, our mental health, our relationship. But we stuck and are sticking through it together.”
Credits:
Written by Lisa Anderson; photos by Jonathan Martinez