Dr. Rasha Morsi Shares Story of Daughter Myrna’s Valiant Fight Against ITP, Inspiration Behind Naming Opportunity and BloodFeud Game

Tag Archives: leukemia

Myrna MorsiECN had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Rasha Morsi, an associate professor at the Center for Gaming Simulation at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia. She had originally contacted ECN in an attempt to pursue a naming opportunity at Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (CCHE). As we learned more about her background and intention in pursuing the naming opportunity, we discovered that Dr. Morsi and her family have a very special story to tell, one that is worthy of sharing with all.

Dr. Morsi is Egyptian-born, UK-raised, with a specialty in electrical engineering. Her young daughter, Myrna, was diagnosed with multiple ventricular septal defect (VSD) at the tender age of 8 months. Myrna’s case was particularly severe, as she had several holes in her small heart. She underwent multiple surgeries at just under 1 year of age to attempt to close the gaping holes that threatened her life, just barely surviving her surgeries.

By the time she was 5 years old, and now with a healthy heart, young Myrna had a fall that alarmed her family. They took her to the hospital only to discover that, she had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a blood condition in which the immune system destroys blood platelets. Platelets are necessary for normal blood clotting to take place.

In order to combat this, Myrna was put on intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) treatments until her body became immune in its response. She was then placed temporarily on a newer ITP medicine (Rituximab) used only for adults at the time, seeing overall improvement but still with limited immunity. She continues to receive IVIG infusions on a monthly basis.

Myrna’s experience with her conditions emboldened her, heavily influencing her priorities and goals from a very young age. Motivated by her interest in helping to raise awareness about these issues, Myrna began participating in many school fundraising competitions run by the American Heart Association (AHA). Myrna has raised over $2,000 for AHA thus far, and her younger brother, Kareem, has separately raised $1,300.

Both ECN and its partner, Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (CCHE), feature extensive advertising campaigns on Arabic TV channels throughout the world. Dr. Morsi had heard about ECN through such an advertisement and, when mentioning it to her father, she discovered that he had already made a donation to CCHE. Dr. Morsi is consistently careful and deliberate in choosing which organization is deserving of her zakat elmal donations, made annually during the holy month of Ramadan. After seeing one of ECN’s advertisements, she was determined to put her zakat towards ECN’s mission and causes.

She mentioned this to her children, who had seen her working on her donation for a naming opportunity. Dr. Morsi wanted to help children in her native country, based on her background with Myrna and her respective illnesses. Both her children noticed that she was working diligently on the application and promptly decided to contribute. Dr. Morsi and her family now have completed a naming opportunity request for a Waiting Room in the new expansion of CCHE, made in light of Myrna and her family’s experience.

Also notable is that Dr. Morsi, in her professional capacity, focuses on game design and development for her research initiatives. In this field Dr. Morsi has been responsible for developing a myriad of interactive training tools, games and simulations for educational games, including winning a $4 million grant to develop a 3d nurse training program. Because of Myrna’s condition, Dr. Morsi spent much of her times in various medical clinics amongst many sick children who she felt didn’t understand what was happening to them. She was therefore inspired to figure out an enjoyable way to educate these children on the processes occurring in their bodies.

Eventually Dr. Morsi found a niche which she thought she could further develop, inspired by Myrna’s condition and her work on the aforementioned health training tool. In collaboration with her students, Dr. Morsi developed a game called Bloodfeud, an educational game based on informing youth about several of the most common diseases that children suffer from: leukemia, sickle cell anemia and ITP, respectively. Dr. Morsi and her team worked with Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) in Norfolk, VA in developing the medical details for the game.

The key for Dr. Morsi in developing this game is that the game is played to accurately depict how the medicine works in the body. Each player has a choice to see how the medicine deals with the illness they choose to combat. This could be especially helpful, Dr. Morsi explained, in helping children who are noncompliant with taking their mediation by encouraging them to do the contrary in thoroughly understanding how taking their medicine benefits them.

Bloodfeud is available for free download for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bloodfeud/id568162520?mt=8. It may soon be available on Android also.Bloodfeud Logo

ECN is most grateful to Dr. Morsi and her family for their generous donation to a naming opportunity at CCHE, which will offer the hope for a cure and the gift of recovery to many children in Egypt. Patients will undoubtedly be inspired by the commitment of Myrna, Kareem and their parents to fighting disease and spreading awareness and understanding.

As Ramadan draws to a close, ECN wanted to highlight the numerous accomplishments that we have accumulated over the past year. These include our sponsorship of an emergency supply of leukemia medication, the architectural design and expansion of CCHE 57357, feasibility studies for new endeavors, Egyptian medical researchers in seeking higher education opportunities to build CCHE’s staff capacity and the approval of our international fellowship program, among other successes.

ECN has dedicated itself to contributing $10 million to the highly-anticipated expansion of Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (CCHE), which will ultimately cost upwards of $80 million. Other projects that are in receipt of our support are the construction of new outpatient clinics, a hospice care edifice and guest houses at the Egyptian National Cancer Institute (NCI). In the spirit of the new era that Egypt is now in, and in recognition of the need for all Egyptians to have opportunities and accessibility to services and high-quality care, this goal is certainly attainable. Thus far, during the first three weeks of Ramadan, we have raised over $1.6 million in donations. With $170,000 in donations, ECN could support the extended education and training of 8-10 Egyptian researchers at prestigious institutions in the United States and elsewhere. Naming opportunities can allow you to have various equipment, rooms and buildings at CCHE and NCI be named after you or a loved one. Naming opportunities range in price from $2,000 for an electrical room to $300,000 to sponsor the building entrance. For more information on naming opportunities and to view the list of naming opportunities, please click here.

In just one year we have accomplished so much, but there is always more work to be done in the realm of cancer treatment. Please consider donating to our organization so that we can continue to support endeavors that change the lives of cancer patients in Egypt and beyond. To learn more about the impact of your gifts thus far, please visit our accomplishments page, which we update on a regular basis to keep our donors informed of the progress of our major projects. To learn more about the impact of your future gifts, please visit our projects page.

 

 

 

A volunteer at CCHE 57357, Pasant, wrote a touching story Halima Drawingabout her relationship with one of CCHE’s leukemia patients, Halema. Halema, who grew up in the governorate of El Wadi El Gedid, was first diagnosed with sharp leukemia in 2008. After over three years of treatment, she is now nearly recovered from her illness.

What is unique about Halema is how her passion for art has helped her – and others around her – as she has been undergoing this stressful process of recovery. She is also a poet and a writer. To see some of her artwork and to learn more about Halema’s story, please visit click here.

Halima DrawingThis is yet another testimony to the impact that our volunteers can make. They are key allies of CCHE’s patients and develop strong relationships with them which not only expedite recovery but allow for mutual discovery and learning. We are so grateful to our volunteers and we wish Halema and her peers at CCHE a smooth recovery!