Support Zoey Duranso's Fight Against Cancer

If you are able, I am asking that you please help support my 6-year-old niece, Zoey Duranso, who in January 2025 was diagnosed with a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS).

Zoey is the sweetest little 6-year-old girl you could ever meet. She loves animals, drawing and crafts of every kind, the color pink, Taylor Swift, and playing with her cousins. She is funny and kind and has a birthday party to go to every weekend because she is friends with everyone. Her journey with cancer is going to be a difficult one, but we have an amazing and generous community, so I am humbly asking for your help. By donating to this GoFundMe, we can help Matt and Steph focus on being there for Zoey through this unspeakably difficult time, and help them worry a bit less about the financial burden. You can also visit the Amazon Wish List I have created, if you prefer to send a gift card or other item. Everything given to this account will go directly to Zoey, Benny, Matt and Steph; and anything purchased on the Amazon Wish List will be sent to their home.

ZoZo’s story

Early in 2025, my brother Matt and sister-in-law Steph entered into every parent’s worst nightmare. Zoey had a little sore throat and told her parents that her neck hurt. Steph took her into the pediatrician, who noticed what she thought may be a peritonsillar abscess, so she sent them to the Children’s Wisconsin ER. After meeting with an ENT at Children's, they scheduled surgery to drain the abscess, during which they discovered it could not be drained. Her surgeon retrieved a sample to be biopsied instead.

After Zoey spent a couple of days in the hospital recovering from her surgery, she was sent home, but the next week was a stressful series of waiting on test results and scheduling new tests. Initially, they were told that the labs did not show cancer, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Zoey had an MRI scheduled for Friday of that week to learn more about the mass in her neck.

On Monday, Zoey woke up coughing up blood. There was bleeding from her surgical site. Matt and Steph took her back to the ER, where it was determined that Zoey needed another surgery for the bleeding and to obtain a new sample of the mass in her neck.

After the second surgery, they received the news that every parent dreads: it was cancer after all. As it turned out, because of the timing of the first surgery and the unexpected nature of the mass, the sample that they obtained during the procedure hadn’t been sufficient, yielding incorrect test results. For the next week, Zoey was kept intubated and sedated in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s while they performed additional tests and scans to figure out the nature and the extent of the cancer. This is when it was confirmed that the cancer was RMS, a rare cancer of the soft tissue, and that Zoey’s risk group was intermediate because of the location of her tumor. Surgery to remove the tumor would not be an option, and chemotherapy and radiation would be the best course of action.

On Friday, Jan. 31, she was put under anesthesia yet again for more procedures: to insert her chemo port, get a feeding tube, and have more tests in preparation for her treatment. Right now, it looks to be about a year of treatment for Zoey. She will undergo chemo for about 42 weeks, followed by a stretch of radiation as well, which will last for about 3-4 weeks with a daily dose.

As you can imagine, Zoey’s family’s life has been turned upside down for the foreseeable future. Zoey has a 4-year-old brother, Benny, who has been unable to visit his sister in the PICU and has been spending a lot of time with family. They also have two dogs, Cooper and Bingo, and a cat named Olaf, so there has been much traveling back and forth from their home to the hospital – trying to keep things somewhat normal for Benny and the pets while navigating caring for ZoZo in the hospital.

Zoey has amazing doctors at Children’s and is receiving the best care. That said, we all know that health insurance in this country is the worst. In addition to the toll this ordeal will take on Zoey and her family, for the next year and beyond, the medical bills will be astronomical, the gas costs from all of the traveling to and from the hospital will be huge, and the stress of trying to make things as normal as possible for Zoey and Benny will be great. I am hoping that, at the very least, we can help ease some of these financial burdens a bit. Thank you in advance for your consideration and for any support, financial or otherwise (good vibes, prayers and thoughts are also welcomed and appreciated!!), that you are able to share with Zoey and her family.