Morgan Oropallo

Labor Day weekend, our 26-year old daughter went to the emergency room at the Hospital of the University of Penn with excruciating pain, barely able to walk. After a multitude of tests, they admit her and more tests are run and 7 biopsies are done on her “lady bits” as Morgan calls them and her lymph nodes. After a weekend stay at the hospital, they send her home. 2 days later, the day after her 27th birthday, she is told she has stage 3 Vulvar cancer. This type of cancer is not usually found in healthy young women and more typical of a 60-70 year old woman with a history of smoking. She was told that she would need to undergo 7 weeks of radiation therapy, 5 days a week, in addition to chemotherapy. They then tell her that due to the location of her cancer, the radiation will likely weaken her uterus destroying any chance of her carrying a child of her own. If she ever wanted a biological child of her own, she would need to go through fertility for egg retrieval. She was given 24hrs to make this life altering decision; not a decision she should have to make. She made the decision to go through with egg retrieval and started the expediated 2-week process with Penn Fertility before radiation began.

As a healthy young woman, this is not something we would ever expect her to have to go through nor expect to have to deal with but in true Morgan fashion, she has jumped in head first and giving it her all. Just a few days after her diagnosis, she told me she was researching online looking for a charity or foundation that she can donate to help bring awareness to other woman for this type of cancer. Sadly she said she couldn’t find anything here in the United States and anything she did find was in Europe and Australia.

Morgan has such a huge heart of gold and is always helping others, whether she knows them or not, in any way that she can. We are asking the same of you. Not only does she have the diagnosis of cancer on her shoulders, she also is facing a huge financial burden of all the medical bills. Although she has health insurance, the egg retrieval process is not covered by insurance nor does it cover her treatments and plethora of doctors visits 100 %. We are asking for your help , any amount possible, to help take the huge burden off her shoulders. Any thing left over, will go towards helping bring awareness to other women.

Thank you

David and Jessica Oropallo