The family of Erin O’Connell has set up this GoFundMe account to help offset the endless medical bills, lost wages and all the ancillary effects on the family for the treatment of Erin’s cancer.  Any amount of donation from her family’s caring friends  and others is greatly appreciated and will go a long way in helping Erin and her family get through this very difficult time.  Erin is an incredibly strong, friendly, outgoing, hardworking, caring and loving young lady. 

Her condition was detected in August of this year.  All this began when she was in the middle of her clinical rotation at St. Vincent’s Charity Hospital in the laboratory.  She attended her rotation  every day and was always on time. She started to not feel like herself one day, but, went anyway because she loved what she went to school for and loved where she was placed.  She was very exhausted that day and came home and slept for a few hours.  She kept on looking worse day by day and her parents decided to look for answers, so, they went to the Cleveland Clinic.

On September 16th, she got a PET scan and the doctors told her she had a mass in her chest and it was blocking her airway, which would explain the shortness of breath she was experiencing.  The mass was also blocking the superior vena cava of her heart and she was swollen on the top half of her body.  The doctors told her she needed to get a biopsy done on the mass to see what kind of cancer it was and they also wanted to drain the fluid built up around her heart.  On September 19th, the doctors drained 800 CC’s out of her chest and the biopsy was successful.  The results stated that the cancer was in her chest and was called mediastinal thymic large b-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  A few days later when she was healing from the surgery she underwent, she received chemotherapy.

She has undergone a few more very difficult chemotherapy sessions and has not worked since all this has happened.  She needs someone to be with her all the time, drive her to appointments, and when the emergencies happen, she needs her Mom and Dad for support and other family members.  She is home now and is trying to make the most of everyday, whether it’s getting friends and family to visit or watching a movie she has never seen.  She says, she can’t wait to get back to her normal life.  She misses her clinicals.  She misses the freedom of going out in public and not worrying about getting sick.  She misses her boyfriend.  She misses her hair. She has needed to be very careful in whom she comes in contact with which has put a tremendous strain on her as well.  But, her and her doctors are very confident that she will be in remission soon and gain all that back.  Once again, please help Erin and her family with any amount donation to lessen all the tremendous burdens this cancer has brought on her and her family.   God Bless!