WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Palm Beach County woman who created a support group for people undergoing cancer treatment is also going through the same fight. Nechie Fischman is now looking for help.
Fischman, 32, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2021.
"I knew one other person my age with cancer locally," she said.
She found there was a lack of adolescent and young adult cancer support groups in the area, so she started an organization called the Butterfly Promise.
"You kind of need something to live for," Fischman said. "You need just people your age to get out with and continue living so through our organization it was like, 'Let's just do regular social things with other cancer patients.'"
Angela Ciliberti was brought in to teach a makeup class for members of the organization. She said she could see how the support group has impacted these women.
"I know it meant something to those women because I gave them something back, and it was only with make-up," Ciliberti said.
Fischman is more than a thousand days into her cancer fight, but her body hasn't been responding to treatment and her kidneys have started to fail. Last November, she learned why.
"I found out that there's a mutation that's responsible for all of this everything and at first thinking that there was no treatment to going to that there is possibly probably a chance for remission," Fischman said.
She was recently accepted into a drug trial at a hospital in Italy to help her treat Blau Syndrome, a rare disease that has been complicating her cancer treatment. She said it'll give her a fighting chance.
"I don't have words. I don't know what I did to deserve this," Fischman said.
Now, she's turning to the very same community she helped for assistance. She needs to pay for a drug which costs $250,000. As of Friday night, she raised $72,000 from more than 1,200 donations.
Through it all, her friend Ciliberti said Fischman is still smiling.
"Her spirits are always so high and she's always trying to help people and laughing and smiling," Ciliberti said.
Click here to donate to help fund Fischman's trial treatment.