Grad overcomes years of health challenges to earn biology degree
- Laurie D. Babcock
- July 3, 2024
- College of Arts and Sciences
- Contributors: James Greco, Photos
4 – minute read
Like many of her peers in Florida Gulf Coast University’s spring commencement class, Marisa Manning’s high school didn’t have a 2020 graduation ceremony due to the pandemic.
“We were in the COVID group, so all we had was a drive-through,” says the Estero High School alum. She and her twin sister drove to the school’s parking lot to pick up their diplomas from masked teachers and administrators. She had her cap and gown but never had the chance to wear them.
“That was rough,” she says. But Manning might have been absent from her high school graduation anyway. She missed every day of school starting midway through her sophomore year.
Because for Manning, COVID-19 wasn’t the worst thing that happened while she was in high school.
In 2017, she lost the ability to breathe through her nose. A CT scan showed what looked like nasal polyps — but a surgeon found a thumb-sized neuroendocrine tumor deviating her septum. The type of cancer with which 15-year-old Manning was diagnosed typically affects men over 40 years old. She had surgery to remove the tumor and then lived in Jacksonville with her mom, an oncology nurse, for two months while undergoing proton radiation. The 40 one-hour treatments were successful, and Manning planned to return to her classes.
“School is my life,” Manning says. She’d been keeping up on assignments remotely until she was too sick to continue. “I couldn’t do without it. I wouldn’t know who I was without it.”
The summer after her sophomore year, another scan showed that the cancer had spread. Manning now had eight lung tumors. She started her junior year — and chemotherapy. When she shaved her head, “it was really sad. I remember going home and my dad just went in his room and cried.”
When six months of chemotherapy didn’t put her in remission, she started a drug therapy clinical trial — but the cancer worsened. One oncologist suggested the teenager make a “bucket list” and gave her six months to live. She started an experimental immunotherapy treatment that initially proved successful — until she went off the drug and developed three brain tumors. She started stereotactic radiation to zap the tumors and resumed taking the immunotherapy drug, which she remains on today.
Seven years after her initial cancer diagnosis, she and her twin sister, Kira Manning (’24, nursing), had a proper graduation in May when they walked the Alico Arena stage during FGCU’s commencement.
“I’ve lived five minutes away from FGCU forever, so I always knew I was going here,” Manning says.
Although her high school attendance was sparse through no fault of hers, “I had great attendance at FGCU,” she says. “I chose biology because I knew it would be the best route to vet school.”
Manning will start her master’s degree in biology this fall, examining the prevalence of intestinal parasites in pet dogs in Southwest Florida, under the supervision of Christina Anaya, assistant professor of biology. After grad school, Manning hopes her parasitology research will allow her to have her pick of veterinary schools.
“I am impressed every day with Marisa because there isn’t a task she can’t handle. She meets every one with vigor and enthusiasm. I see this in the classes, where she is often at the top of her class, and I see it in our research where she takes initiative, never being told what to do because she beats me to it,” says Anaya.
Manning continues to take an immunotherapy drug. “I have three 3-5-millimeter sized tumors. I get treatment every three weeks and scans every three months,” she says. “I’ve never actually been told I’m in remission or that I’ve beat cancer.”
Missing out on her high school graduation left her feeling let down. “I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything. I didn’t feel that sense of pride,” she says. “So to have the graduation here at FGCU was really awesome. I felt like I was celebrating my high school graduation and my college graduation at the same time.”
