EDISON – The word fearless is best used to describe 9-year-old Dylan Vitucci.
At first glance, Dylan is your typical child, full of smiles. She is a middle triplet with her sisters Peyton and Sydney. She loves playing soccer, loves to swim, loves to skateboard, loves to play touch football outside with her sisters and older sister, Avery, 11, loves school, loves her friends, and loves cooking with her mom.
However, at such a young age, she has endured the trials and tribulations of being diagnosed with osteosarcoma – a cancerous bone tumor found in her right shoulder in May 2017 – with nine months of chemotherapy and complications, which included a rare fungus infection throughout her bloodstream, a collapsed lung, a lung biopsy, and a blood clot outside of her heart that caused her to take two daily shots in her legs for three months.
She was just 7 at the time and spent her third grade school year in treatment.
With April marking Donate Life Month and National Pediatric Transplant Week taking place the last week of the month, MTF Biologics welcomed Dylan and her family – dad Frank, mom, Michelle, and sisters – to share her story on April 22.
MTF Biologics, based in Edison, is the world’s largest tissue bank and makes a big impact in the lives of people all around the globe, according to its website.
Dylan stood alongside her dad as he told their family’s journey through a Power Point presentation of photos depicting the good days and bad days.
“Luckily the way we found out was at soccer practice,” Vitucci said. “A couple of days before she was complaining about a little bit of pain in her right shoulder. We thought maybe she slept on it wrong or bumped it. Luckily in practice she got hit in that shoulder with a soccer ball.”
An x-ray showed something was wrong and later a biopsy confirmed a cancer diagnosis.
“When you hear that, you have no idea what to feel, what to say … it feels like a ton of bricks hit you when you hear your child has cancer,” he said.
Treatment began shortly after her eighth birthday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Vitucci said his family tried to keep everything as normal as possible for Dylan, celebrating all accomplishments and always having fun as much as possible.
Vitucci shaved his head when Dylan’s hair started falling out so she wouldn’t be alone.
“Bald is beautiful,” he said.
Dylan’s reconstruction of her shoulder was an 11-hour surgery. She received a bone graft from a 13-year-old donor from Nebraska. Vitucci said the recovery process was difficult, dealing with complications and physical therapy.
“One of the most important things I would always tell her and the doctors would tell her is if you don’t feel good, just sleep, just rest,” he said.
Vitucci said the local community where they live in Trumbull, Connecticut, has been an inspiration with fundraising efforts. He added Dylan also found ways to give back to her community during treatment, which included collecting 65 pieces of LEGO sets donated to Sloan Kettering.
Vitucci said his work family at World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. has been supportive and Dylan received a personalized message from former wrestler and now actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, wishing her the best.
Fast forward to this April: Vitucci said Dylan is disease free and showing good range of motion in her right arm, but has to go through scans every three months.
Dylan is in fourth grade and back to playing soccer after doctors gave her the OK. And through donations, Joe Yaccarino, CEO of MTF Biologics, presented Dylan and her sisters with new bicycles to ride around in the summer, as well as goodie bags.
The National Donor Life Month celebration with this year’s theme “life is a beautiful ride” is about encouraging people to register as organ and tissue donors, according to its website. One tissue donor can save and heal the lives of as many as 100 people. Donated skin, bones, tendons and fat are used in many life-changing procedures including post-mastectomy breast reconstruction, wound and burn healing and joint replacement.
Contact Kathy Chang at [email protected].