THE UNFILTERED LIFE
FOR A WOMAN IN ALBERTA, FIRST CAME CANCER. THEN SEPARATION. THEN SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLASH
Aformer Alberta paramedic going through chemotherapy after a diagnosis of stage three colon cancer has been dealing with what might be deemed a secondary social media infection, after a Tiktok video she posted recently about separating from her husband touched off a firestorm of comments from viewers.
Devlynn Cyr of Edmonton has been posting videos about her diagnosis and treatment for five months, ever since she awoke from emergency colon surgery to the news that she had cancer, and that she had been given an emergency hysterectomy while under anesthesia.
Last year's surgery was its own ordeal. “My husband gets a phone call halfway through surgery saying, `Here's the problem. We found a tumour and it's cemented to my uterus,' ” she told People at the time.
Her husband, Greg, was told she had a tumour the size of a baseball. “In order to safely remove the tumour, they need to do a hysterectomy,” he said.
In her videos, Greg can often be seen standing supportively behind her, as he was on a recent post titled “update & separation.”
In a seven-and-a-halfminute video posted to Tiktok on Feb. 16, Cyr begins by saying that viewers of a livestream the previous night had noticed she was no longer wearing her wedding ring.
“We have mutually made the decision that we're going to separate,” she says. “Now, before anybody gets their feathers ruffled, Greg is not abandoning me. I'm not abandoning him.
“We just need to take a few steps back before we can take two or three steps forward.”
She adds: “Cancer hasn't been easy. I've lost myself and who I am, and my ability to do things, out of fear of getting sick or that something's going to happen to me.”
Hence their decision. “We had discussions about what we needed to do for us as a couple and that was to separate and take space, to figure us out (and) re-find ourselves, and unfortunately that's something that we need to do on our own. It's not something that we can do together.”
Greg chimes in: “I'm still going to be here, we're still staying together, I'm still helping out ... It's less of a physical separation, and more of a mental separation. It may seem confusing to some. It's not even about anything else, or anyone else, it's just about us finding ourselves again.”
They were married last March after dating for four months, but Cyr was already experiencing health problems that were dismissed as minor or hypochondria, until they culminated in the emergency surgery last September.
“We got married but we haven't exactly had the chance to date,” says Greg in the video. “Honestly, I'd like to start dating my wife again.”
Cyr adds: “The goal with this is to start at square one and be friends and then hopefully date ... and start having experiences that we should have had before this cancer diagnosis. If you're going to be negative, I would hope that you would keep your opinions to yourself.”
Of course, that didn't happen, and Cyr followed up her update with another video a day later. “Why do people make comments like this?” she sighs, while above her head hangs a quote that reads: “Did you seriously abandon this woman while she's struggling with cancer treatment. Awful.”
Comments have since been disabled on the initial video, but Cyr told the National Post that the outpouring of emotion and expression hasn't really slowed down.
“Everybody's got an opinion, unfortunately,” she says. “And everybody has their own belief structured around what should and shouldn't happen.”
Some people weighed in that what they were doing was a sin. Some suggested they were now in an open relationship, or that Greg was sleeping around. Others have suggested she kill herself.
“The stories people fabricate sometimes are just astronomical,” Cyr says. “I'm trying to respond nicely to the good ones, but the negative ones definitely take a toll on me that's for sure.”
Still, she says she doesn't regret sharing details of her life online. Since the initial separation post, she's made videos an average of twice a day, chronicling her emotional and physical reactions to the latest round of chemo. (One heartbreaking clip is titled simply “breakdown.”)
“When I was first diagnosed I went to Tiktok to look for what could be expected,” she recalls. “Not the good. I went for the bad, like what am I in for? And I couldn't find a video of really anybody sharing their bad experiences on what it's like to go to the bathroom after surgery, what physical challenges you face, what mental challenges, what it does to relationships.”
So she decided to fill that void. “You know what?” she remembers saying. “I'm going to give the unfiltered version of what my life is like going through this.”
And she has. A new video she shared with the Post shows her in tears, her hands burning from the side effects of the chemo, her dog Irelyn whining in sympathy in the background. (Greg is in that video too.) A playlist on her Tiktok page is titled “Bathroom Chronicles.”
“And I've had a lot of people that are like, thank you. This is exactly how I feel and I'm so glad I'm not alone in that. So I definitely think that the positives outweigh the negatives.”
Separated or not, Greg is still very much a part of Cyr's journey. He's a member of the Edmonton police force and looks the part.
There's a perfect moment in one of the videos where, after stumbling on the pronunciation of the word “irreconcilable,” Greg busts out a reference to Marcus Aurelius, the second-century philosopher who wrote: “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
Reached at Cyr's side by the Post, he laughed at that. “After I said it I'm like, `I'm pretty sure that's who said it,' so I'm glad it worked out. It's hard to tell people to choose kindness if I'm being unkind, so I try to be tactful about it.”
Later in the call he makes a more “Alberta” reference to people who feel compelled to share their negative opinions: “Sometimes there's a cow out in the field and all it knows how to do is moo.”
“She's her own worst critic,” Greg says of his wife. “Her heart's in the right place ... so when people mistake her trying to help people for just getting attention, that bothers me. They can say all they want about me; that doesn't bother me. I'm proud of her. She's tough. She's doing well.”
Despite the pain and the side effects of the treatment, Cyr says she is indeed doing well and has been given the designation of NED, for “no evidence of disease.”
The current round of chemotherapy is referred to as curative treatment, she says.
“It's basically my insurance policy, my oncologist says,” adding that there's a 70 per cent chance of the cancer not reoccurring.
The videos, she says, will continue.
“If I can just help one person a day or let somebody know that they're not alone or that this is what real life is like with this diagnosis ... it's worth it to me.”
IF I CAN JUST
HELP ONE PERSON A DAY ... IT'S WORTH
IT TO ME.