Marianna Triolo

On Thursday, March 2nd, Marianna was rushed to the emergency room after a followup appointment with her doctor. The chest x-ray she had done, showed fluid in her lungs. She had been having trouble breathing for the past few months, and when she went to health services at her school, they had diagnosed with her with a bad case of pneumonia. But after the long duration of having trouble breathing, in addition to taking all prescribed antibiotics and inhalers, she knew there was something wrong. After finding  a big pleural effusion in her right lung, the doctors performed a thoracentesis and drained 1,200 mL of fluid from her lung. After sending out the fluid for testing, the news came back that the cells are cancerous.  On Friday, March 3rd, Marianna was diagnosed with cancer at the age of only 23. 


She was immediately transferred to the Smilow Cancer Center at Yale, and has been treated wonderfully.  A transvaginal ultrasound revealed a large number of growths and tumors in her uterus and around her ovaries and when the pathology came back from the lung fluid on Monday, the 6th it showed that she has ovarian cancer. On Tuesday the inserted a pleuravac (denver drain) into the right side of her chest to help drain the fluid that continued to accumulate. On Friday, the 10th, Marianna went in for surgery where the thoracic surgeon assessed and biopsied what was going on with her lungs (it looks like they should be able to reexpand on their own with the help of the drains). The urologist inserted a stent into each kidney due to some hydronephrosis that was present.  Then the oncologist biopsied the tumors in her uterus and near her spleen and after receiving the pathology, determined that the bets course of action will be to start chemotherapy, shrink the tumors and then go back in for more surgery where they will debulk the tumors, and likely remove her spleen and perform a hysterectomy. 


Marianna has been in remarkable spirits and we encourage everyone to keep her in your prayers. Her faith in God has helped her fight this battle and will continue to help as she overcomes the biggest challenge in her life.