Friends Rally Around Young San Clemente Woman who Learned She Has Stage 4 Cancer on her Honeymoon

Originally posted at 1:42 p.m. Sept. 11, 2014. Edited with new details.

Imagine going on your honeymoon only to end up in the hospital with a diagnosis of a rare form of aggressive cervical cancer in Stage 4, already spread to your liver.

That’s what happened to San Clemente resident Tara Marquez-Tortarolo, married only Aug. 23.

“She had no idea” she was sick before she left, said friend Shaun Hayward. “She and her husband were there for one day and then the second day she got very sick and couldn’t keep anything down which led her to the hospital.”

For the past nine years, Marquez-Tortarolo has been the manager at Pipes Café, where a fundraiser will take place Sept. 20.

She Hayward’s first-ever boss, who’s helping coordinate the fundraiser with a team of Marquez-Tortarolo’s friends.

“I have seen first hand how the SC community can rally around a person in need,” Hayward said.

Friends have also started a crowdfunding page that has already raised more than $23,000 in the first two days alone.

It’s “a true testament to who Tara is as a person,” Hayward said.