Stage 4 Cancer- FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Believe

My name is Zippy. I originally had Cervical Cancer which metastasized and now has spread all over my body-- I now have stage 4 terminal Cancer but I refuse to give up.

I am currently going through 2 forms of Chemo Therapy and 2 forms of Immunotherapy but its considered Palliative treatment and not Curative. Meaning they are only treating me to push back the cancer and prolong my life but not to cure me. So that is why I am working to do more on my part-- because I want to live.

I wanted to include pictures of my hair because I never cut my hair all of my life-- believing that it gave me strength like Sampson and that it was how I endured everything. Needless to say, having to lose it all was hard. But after my very first Chemo treatment -- One day I brushed my hair and it just all started falling out. I thought I would have a little more time to prepare and my a wig and tichels (head coverings).

HELP FROM A FRIEND

My much-loved and respected friend in Ha Eretz, Tania Sofia Bernoff Pomfrett, whom most of you know, and her amazing son Baruch who is so bravely fighting tongue cancer, pushed me to keep fighting during a really low time in life when I was given a pretty grim and hopeless diagnosis. She told me she would get for me the same immunotherapy drugs that she got for her son. These drugs are not available in America so her being willing to get them for me is a big deal.

Helixor $1000

Rigvir $6000

I also hope to raise a little money for some natural remedies which I am doing in addition to chemotherapy and immunotherapy. I intend to hit this cancer at every angle.

I am currently following the protocol if Thomas Seyfried and Guy Tenenbaum who treat cancer as a Metabolic Disease. Since cancer lives on sugar and on glutamine I have cut all sugar and foods high in glutamine. I basically live on low sugar plants.

In addition to this I am taking vitamins and supplements that are very effective in killing cancer cells and which are high in flavonoids and antioxidants: Dandelion root, Moringa, Nettle leaves, Ashwagandha, Wheat grass, Essiac Tea, High Polyphenol olive oil, sour sop, Juice Plus capsules (a way to get antioxidants without the sugar). And I am open to any other anti-cancer foods or supplements.

MY STORY

For a lot of my life I have felt embarrassed that so many bad things seem to happen to me. Everyone else seemed to have the perfect life and I seemed to have to life of Job. I have reached a point where I don't want to be ashamed anymore. I can't help the life that G-d gave me.

I was first diagnosed with Cervical Cancer in the Spring of 2023 and the Cancer Metastasized (spread all over my body) in September of 2024. This was a total surprise to me.

Ironically both times I ended up with Cancer I spent a year in excruciating level of pain, begging doctors for help, constantly going to the ER. Both times it took a whole year for them to find the cancer.

What has been so shocking about Cancer is how painful and truly uncomfortable it is. They don't show you this in the movies.

The first time I had cancer I went through extensive radiation including a very barbaric practice called internal beam radiation. I will never forget the date I finished this treatment because the next day was Shabbat and I literally came off of Shabbat to see endless videos of s.laughtered Jews-- Yes it was OCT 7TH. You can't even imagine going from this barbaric radiation that was so painful that I literally cried for my rabbi --"I want my rabbi" with tears falling out my eyes, to waking up to the horrors of Oct 7th. It was so much trauma all at once.

Once I finished radiation, I was told that the cancer was gone!! and that I was in remission!!! AND I TRULY BELIVED THIS. So when I progressively began to be overtaken by pain--- It did not even occur to me that it was cancer. The first time I had cancer the pain was in my cervix, ran down my left leg, and was in general-- in the lower body. The second time I had cancer the pain started in my clavicle and shoulder and would spread down to my lungs and spine. I was totally caught of guard and it didn't ever occur to me that I had cancer again.

I went to my doctor every single month-- begging for help, begging for referrals. I really truly believed that I had radiation damage in my bones which brought me total despair. I thought my body was rotting away because of the radiation. I literally had to start telling my PCP that I wanted to d.ie for him to even give me a referral to a Rheumatologist. When I went to the Rheumatologist he didn't even want to help me, saying I didn't have an autoimmune disease, so I was right back to a place of despair. It wasn't until a kind doctor at the ER decided to be more inquisitive and take a deeper look at my scans having put 2 and 2 together (knowing my previous cancer history) that he found at least 5 tumors in my lungs. I had gone to the ER so many times before this and was treated so badly and I was so dismissed. Also at this time he ordered a full body scan and my bones lit up like a Xmas tree. I knew it was not good.

More test were run and a PET scan and it showed that the cancer was all over my body. More specifically-- 7 lung tumors, cancer all through my spine bones, hip bones, shoulder and clavicle bones, liver, Lymph nodes, and thought to be in my intestines. The following are my PET SCAN results for those interested:

This probably led to some of the darkest and saddest feelings I have ever felt--came with my diagnosis because the cancer was just !! EVERYWHERE !!! What do you do with that?

Also by this time the pain was so completely crippling all I could do was rock back and forth in bed and moan in different cadences. In the month of August I was forced to shut down my Business and no longer able to work.

The only good thing that came out of this diagnosis was that I was finally given Morphine and Codine--- Which completely controlled my pain, B"H. I had been going to a Pain Specialist for this entire year and it is amazing that they can see you living in so much pain and refuse to do anything because they won't prescribe any opioids. I can't even tell you what it is like to receive relief from the extreme levels of pain that I was living in-- you can't even imagine.

My initial response to my awful diagnosis was to just accept death. I thought to my self-- well I hate this world and what it has become any ways. I am ready to die. Not to mention the idea of escaping the pain seemed like such pure bliss. Luckily, I was met with such an extreme outpouring of friends demanding that I fight. This was surprising, shocking, and so moving!

My second response to my awful diagnosis was to be hit hard with the realization that I would be leaving my child (who is 18) all alone in the world and just feeling the greatest and most intense sadness in the whole world. I remember it was Yom Kippur and I truly cried my eyes out. It was a true time of Teshuvah and "sack cloth and ashes" for me. I just remember throwing myself on the ground and begging HASHEM for another chance to be a mother to Anna. This is not the world that I grew up in and the world has become such a bad place and how can I possibly leave my daughter alone in such a world.

I always felt like I would go through the "end times" myself and I always felt like everything I had gone through in life was HASHEM's way of preparing me. But the idea of me leaving this earth and My daughter going through all this alone was devastating.

Having come from a very dysfunctional family plagued by a curse of personality disorders and being the black sheep in that I became spiritually inclined and Torah magnetized from a young age, I always kept my children away from my family. I was always extremely protective of my children-- physically, spiritually, and mentally and had zero tolerance for anyone trying to harm or destroy my children or lead them astray. So dying was so devastating because I literally had nobody to leave my daughter with and entrust my daughter too. My daughter asked me how I made it on my own when I was her age (18) and then told me that she would make it just like I did. This made me break down and cry more because I lived a very, very hard life and I never wanted my kids to have to live the life I lived. Being all alone and by myself was extremely difficult. It was everything that I never wanted for my kids. I can remember being around 8 years old and thinking to myself, "I never want my children to ever have to feel this feeling"-- namely being so entirely alone and on your own. It felt so bad! I remember being so young and having to make decisions that I didn't even have the brain capacity for and always having to step up to the plate. I made so many promises to myself as a child about how I would be there for my kids and never let them down. Even though my daughter thought she would be perfectly okay on her own, she has never actually paid rent and bills. She doesn't know that when your a young female on your own you are constantly preyed upon and targeted. She doesn't understand what it is like to have a whole bunch of things go wrong in life-- like tickets, fines, fees, things breaking, etc and having nobody to turn to. She doesn't understand what it is like to have babies/kids and have no parents to baby sit or help. Anyways, all of this just made me cry and cry.

GETTING READY TO FIGHT

I lost my first born child, Rebekah, in the year 2020 after an 8 year fight with a horrible, terminal, lung disease that causes suffocation and heart failure. She didn't die of c.ovid but when c.ovid came all the people with serious medical issues got pushed to the back burner. This was devastating for me because I had fought for so long to keep my daughter alive. We were already pushed the maximum extreme and living on the edge and I was not at all prepared for something like c.ovid. It felt so unfair. I also felt like it was released intentionally because of the timing. So I had a lot of resentment over it.

There were two times in my life where I felt like I could just GO TO MY DAUGHTER...... I could see my daughter there waiting for me in my mind, kinda like in the Gladiator and I felt so much happiness, joy, peace. It seemed so easy to go to her. But then I had the realization that there was no way I could leave my other daughter, Anna, here. There was just no way. It was the hardest thing for me to have to pull myself back and stay on this planet. The first time this happened is when I first lost my daughter and I wanted so badly to go to her. But then I remembered my other daughter who was 14 at the time. There was no way I could add to her trauma and devastation by leaving. It would be so unfair to her. So I had to stay. The second time was when I was told that I had terminal cancer. At first I was like, "GREAT... Let's go.. I am so ready, I don't even like this planet." I felt all the extreme joy, peace, happiness at the thought of seeing my daughter, Rebekah, again. Then the reality hit me that there was no way I can leave my other daughter. She is just 18. And again, it is just way too much trauma for her in one life time.

However, I still couldn't get past my diagnosis and the feelings that there was no way I could beat cancer that has spread so much.

It wasn't until thinking about how if I could hit the cancer with everything and at every angle that I could really have a good chance.

I am currently being given two forms of Chemo Therapy (Cisplatin and Bevacizumab) and and Two forms of Immunotherapy (Keytruda and Paxlitaxel).

My current plan is just to use the Chemo to shrink down the tumors. Because currently I can't even breath because of the tumors in my lungs and I am so uncomfortable because of the pressure from all the cancer in my spine. The current immunotherapy drugs that I am on work miraculously in a few people and completely defeat the cancer, but for most people they just prolong life.

So that is why I am campaigning for two other immunotherapy drugs that are only in Italy and South America.

Also I am going all out on a complete anti-cancer diet. I am cutting all sugars and as much glutamine as possible. The goal is to starve the cancer to death, while also completely flooding my body with supplements that have strong anti-cancer properties.

This will also totally weaken the cancer cells which will make the Chemo and Immunotherapy so much more effective!!

This is very hard because I am surrounded by delicious food everywhere all the time. So its difficult to live on salad greens and broccoli and olives and things like this. But I am so motivated to be here with my daughter.

MY LOVE FOR MY DAUGHTER HAS GROWN EXPONENTIALLY

Well two things have really grown exponentially since I got cancer-- my love for my daughter and the extreme sadness at the thought of leaving her.

I never appreciated my daughter, Anna, as much as I should have. She was an extremely difficult child to raise and I was always pulling out my hair and holding my breath.. but year after more I breathed a little bit more as I watched her grow and solidify in character. But when I got cancer and a terminal diagnosis I just found that my daughter was the only thing that mattered at all in this world. I found myself completely treasuring getting to stay up late talking and laughing with my daughter. I found myself so full of gratitude, happiness, joy at every little thing I got to do with my daughter. I cried my eyes out and told HASHEM I was so sorry and begged for another chance to be a mother.

For most of my daughter's life I completely neglected her because my other daughter was sick and always took first priority. Since the time Anna was young (around 8), she always sacrificed EVERYTHING for her sister. My daughter who was sick, Rebekah, well her life was always dangling by a hair over the cliff so we always lived in a state of extreme distress. I dragged Anna around like a rag doll-- across the country and to children's hospitals. She was always like this self-sacrificial rag doll flapping in the wind. She grew up in children's hospitals and also being left home alone and to do everything for herself-- shopping, laundry, taking her self to school on the Miami Beach Trolly etc. Sometimes I would come home from the hospital and find her sleeping with a butcher knife. Most people wont visit children's hospitals because they are full of sick children who are suffering from terrible diseases and people cant cope with this and need to turn a blind eye. But my daughter grew up in this environment. She is so out for the underdog-- the disabled, the disadvantaged, the bullied.

After we lost Rebekah in 2020, I couldn't get off the couch or stop crying the first year. The second year I had to force myself to get up and go through the motions of life even though I felt like I was completely dug out by one of those scoop digging machines and that I was like a "dead man walking." Then the third year I got cancer and my daughter had to take care of me. I never thought she would step up to the plate and be taking care of me. Our roles ended up totally reversed.

Long story short I have been begging and begging HASHEM for another change to get to be a mother to Anna.

HASHEM doesn't always answer, but He does expect us to get up and fight. Some times He doesn't give us a choice because the pain and discomfort is so extreme that you have to get up and fight to push it back-- cause the pain and uncomfortableness is so unbearable. SO that is what I am doing-- fighting like hell with all that I have got. I am totally fueled and motivated by my daughter.

She is the reason I can live on broccoli and brussle sprouts, olive oil, and mostly a diet of vegetables. Rather than all the delicious food that surrounds me. When you are bed-ridden life is so boring and you look forward to good food, so this is hard. But I really believe I have a good chance if I can pull it off.

THE LOVE OF FRIENDS

I have been so completely bombarded by the love of friends. It has reminded me of a word I don't hear very often: Loving-Kindness. Sometimes when I have really struggled to see G-d, I have been able to see him in my friends. They are like a tangible extension of G-d. I have recently learned that we can be a real life extension of HASHEM and that we can have IMPACT in this life. I have been totally blown away and amazed by the outpouring of love. I have friends buying me a wig and friends sending me bobo shapers and head coverings. Friends sending me rocks from Israel and books. So many thoughtful packages!!! I have friends who put all the work in to getting my mind right-- at times that I just haven't been able to do it myself. I have friends paying to run ads on FB to try to raise money for me. AND of course, all the friends that have donated to my campaign to try to save my life!! I have so many friends that constantly give me the most amazing pep talks and friends who continually tell me to fight! I know that G-d has a golden wall in heaven where He writes all the names of all these people who have done me such amazing mitzvot (good deeds). I never would have ever believed there could be this kind of an outpouring for me. AHHHH- MAZING!!

1. Who you are

Tzippy Cohen

2. Where you're from

Texas

3. The full names of the individuals or organizations you are seeking to support or aid, where they're located, and your relationship with them

Anna Lewis-- Daughter in TX

4. How the funds will be spent and how you plan to get them to the beneficiary

Anna Lewis, my daughter, is the account beneficiary, acting on my behalf. The funds will primarily be spent on Immunotherapy drugs. Any left over or additional funds will be used for natural products such as anti-cancer supplements.

I am trying to get a POST OFFICE BOX soon. I know people are always asking to send me stuff. The boxes got kind of expensive an seem to have more than doubled in prices.