Twenty-year-old Morgan loves playing pickleball, traveling, cooking, eating sushi, and spending time with her friends and family.
Morgan and her family
In September 2012, at the age of 8, a softball sized tumor was discovered near her left kidney. The tumor, originally inoperable, was wrapped around her aorta and hepatic artery. A diagnosis of extrarenal rhabdoid tumor, an aggressive childhood cancer that is usually diagnosed in babies and toddlers, followed. Not fully understanding what a cancer diagnosis meant at the time, the first question she asked her parents was, “Am I going to lose my hair?”
Left and right: Morgan a hospital bed. Middle: Morgan with her primary oncologist, Dr. Jeffrey Hord, MD, during treatment at Akron Children’s Hospital.
Following diagnosis, Morgan had surgeries to place her port, a tumor biopsy, 10 rounds of chemotherapy and a month of radiation. Luckily, the tumor responded to the treatment and shrunk in a way that allowed a surgical resection. She currently follows up with her oncology team yearly. Even though Morgan is 11 years out from treatment, she isn’t immune to treatment-related side effects, such as kyphosis (curvature of the spine) and kidney disease from the tumor located behind her left kidney due to radiation.
Morgan holding a photo of herself during treatment.
Morgan and her parents feel that treatment caused her to mature much faster than her peers.
“I like to think I am who I am with or without cancer, but the reality is the people I met and the things I went through shaped me for the rest of my life. For years after treatment, I was in denial. I wanted to move on like it didn’t happen. That’s because most things that came from cancer right after were bad. Everyone around me thought of cancer so I wanted to be the one that didn’t. As time went on, I became more and more grateful. For example, my oncologists have gone to work for decades watching kids die. How hard is that? Yet they come to work day after day and put themselves through emotional turmoil for the chance that they make kids better. That’s amazing. Yes, cancer took so much. But it also gave me the opportunity to understand and cherish how important selfless people are. And how valuable life is.”
-Morgan
Morgan and her family at the North Canton Racquet Club St. Baldrick’s Event.
Morgan is a seven-year St. Baldrick’s fundraising participant at the North Canton Racquet Club event in North Canton, OH, and her family started the Friends for Hope Hero Fund, which has raised more than $469,000 since 2013. However, the Hero Fund became about much more than one family and their child. It revolves around many kids and their families. It is about forging ahead to create purpose out of seemingly meaningless suffering.
Morgan’s high school graduation in 2022.
Always ambitious, Morgan will graduate a year early from The Ohio State University in May and then move to Colorado to start as a 7-12th grade science teacher with Teach for America. After two years, she plans to attend PA school to become a physician assistant and work in orthopedics or pediatrics.
Left to right: Morgan taking a selfie, Morgan showcasing her email confirmation of becoming an ordained minister, Morgan ziplining in New Orleans.
“The biggest irony of it all is that the darkest parts of my life are shown through the brightest pieces of me. I am courageous, compassionate, and optimistic because I have experienced cowardness, cruelty, and pessimism. I have friends who, figuratively and literally, share the same scars as me and who show me every day the value of those scars. I have been exposed to the importance of living my life and I have already used that experience to help someone else live theirs.”
-Morgan
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