Andrew Camponelli said he will never be able to find words to adequately thank everyone who helped save his life. Instead, he is living his life filled with gratitude because you support the extraordinary lifesaving care at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center.
Camponelli was a young Army helicopter pilot in Kuwait when he was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma. Returning stateside for cancer care, he and his then-girlfriend (now his wife) knew they needed the best in lifesaving treatment. They came to Penn Medicine.
“Being a 30-year-old guy, the only thoughts in my head were about my ticking time bomb. Will I see 40? Will I ever get married? Will we even have a kid? All of these were thoughts racing through my mind,”he said
With Penn’s Ara Chalian, MD, an ENT surgeon, and oncologist and director of the Tara Miller Melanoma Center, Lynn Schuchter, MD, Camponelli received lymph node surgery and a course of immunotherapy.
At the four-and-a-half-year mark of being cancer free, Camponelli’s cancer returned.
“All the thoughts I was starting to ease up on came back,“ he said. “In those four-and-a-half years since being treated the first time, I had gotten married and had a son. I was living life. Then, all of a sudden, it was like a ton of bricks, a right hook, and we were instantly right back to where we started.”
Cancer took a toll on Camponelli physically, mentally, and emotionally, he said, but things are looking up. Continuing scans since 2020 show Camponelli is cancerfree. He’s built a successful career in finance, and has a new appreciation for all the little things in life.
Camponelli is grateful for everyone who helped him along the way, especially Schuchter.
“She means more to me than she knows for sure. It was tough to go from a confident, Top Gun-loving pilot to ‘Am I going to live in two years?’ She wasn't just my oncologist. She was kind of my therapist, too,” he said.
“When you donate, you're letting somebody like me or the 29-year-old mother of two or the 70-year-old grandmother with cancer find the hope, care, and competency that they're looking for. There's no cure for cancer, but you can have a better or longer life depending on where you go and how you fight it,” he added.