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Originally published October 29, 2025
Last updated November 4, 2025
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As a career operations manager, Daniel LeBlanc knows how to solve problems.
So when the 49-year-old Santa Clarita resident received a diagnosis of anal cancer in October 2024, “I did the whole cry-for-about-two-hours thing,” he says, “but then I went into business mode: How do I attack this? Who do I need to see? What can we schedule today? I treated it very much like a project to manage.”
Daniel’s journey began about a year before his diagnosis when he noticed a lesion he suspected might be a hemorrhoid that “just would not go away,” he says.
It wasn’t until he underwent a routine colonoscopy at Keck Medicine of USC’s Santa Clarita clinic — a joint venture with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital — that his gastroenterologist noted the abnormality and referred Daniel’s case to the clinic’s Keck Medicine colorectal surgeons, Sarah Choi, MD, and Marjun Duldulao, MD, for further testing and biopsy.
The biopsy revealed that the roughly 5-centimeter mass on Daniel’s rectum was stage IIA anal cancer — one of a handful of cancers globally on the rise and linked to the human papilloma virus (HPV).
Fortunately, stage IIA anal cancer has a relatively promising prognosis, with five-year survival rates of about 70%, according to the American Cancer Society; further, Daniel’s treatment involved what his Keck Medicine radiation oncologist, May Lin Tao, MD, describes as a “gold-standard curative protocol” of concurrent chemotherapy and radiation, without the need for surgery.
Once that plan was in motion, executing it became Daniel’s fulltime job, taking him to the Santa Clarita clinic daily for treatments. Daniel’s chemotherapy involved a class of oral medications known as radiosensitizers that not only help shrink the cancer but also help the radiation work better by sensitizing the cancer to it.
While the drug gave Daniel some nausea — a common side effect — Daniel’s team helped him manage it well with anti-nausea medication. Tougher to manage was the pain associated with radiation, which attacks the cancer cells but also causes localized discomfort. For Daniel, bowel movements became particularly unpleasant, and he turned to palliative creams and Epsom-salt baths for relief.
“Interestingly,” Dr. Tao says, “Daniel had essentially no problematic symptoms from his cancer. Sometimes it can be very hard for patients with a cancer diagnosis to start off symptom-free but then be rendered temporarily ‘sicker’ with the actual treatments. He has, however, recovered very well.”
Moreover, Daniel adds, “There was nothing Dr. Tao didn’t prepare me for, which I think was important.”
Also important was the clinic’s proximity to Daniel’s Santa Clarita home. “Knowing that I had to go every day, having the clinic closer definitely helped,” he says.
That was by design. As Dr. Tao says, “We have a true expert multidisciplinary physician team right here in the community so that patients don’t have to travel far to receive world-class care.”
In Daniel’s case, he didn’t even have to travel from building to building.
“We have a full-service program, from screening, diagnosis and treatment, to excellent nurse navigation, nutritional support, social services, genetics counseling, physical rehab and a cancer-recovery program,” Dr. Tao says.
Surgical specialties are located at the clinic, too, so when a patient receives a cancer diagnosis and time is of the essence, their team can formulate a treatment plan on the double.
Daniel was concerned that a poor response to treatment might necessitate his having a colostomy — a surgery that reroutes the end of the colon up to the stomach.
“Discussing with him that there’s actually a pathway that doesn’t require a major operation like that was important,” Dr. Duldulao says.
Alleviating that concern let Daniel direct more of his energy toward healing, as did the support he got from Alison Ambrose, RN, Keck Medicine – Santa Clarita’s oncology nurse navigator, who picked up the slack on day-to-day tasks like scheduling appointments, managing prescriptions and applying for disability.
Daniel says Ambrose recognized his positive energy and reflected it in kind, like so many others at the clinic.
“Dr. Choi was so warm and caring,” Daniel remembers. “She always waved when she saw me in the hallway. The radiation techs always asked what music I wanted to listen to, too, even though treatment was only 10 or 15 minutes. Little things like that? I loved it.”
Daniel speaks of how crucial his “chosen family” — his mother, partner and daughter, as well as his circle of friends and colleagues — were to his recovery. His care team became part of that family, too.
“I was actually kind of sad when my treatment ended,” he says. “I wouldn’t get to see these people every day the way I had been.”
Daniel now sees a bright future ahead. Declared cancer-free in March and “about 95% back to normal,” by his own estimate, he’s ready to resume his pre-diagnosis life — including working toward riding his bike, a hobby he had to put on pause during treatment.
A three-time participant in the AIDS/LifeCycle — a fundraising and awareness event that involved cyclists riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles — he focused on serving on the event’s safety crew this past year.
Now that he can get back on the bike, he looks forward to riding for a cause again.
Meanwhile, his team will continue to monitor him over the next four to five years.
“Receiving a cancer diagnosis is scary,” Dr. Choi says. “You have to go through an intense treatment and fight a real battle to get to recovery. Any patient has to have a go-getter mentality to do all that, and Daniel certainly did.”
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