Help Hope Live for Emily Nussdorfer's successful treatment and recovery from Ovarian Cancer
Family and friends of Emily Nussdorfer are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with a Catastrophic Illness. Emily was recently diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer, Stage IIIC, and has just started rounds of chemotherapy. She will eventually need surgery to remove the cancer completely. She is a self-employed EMDR/IFS trauma therapist, mindfulness practitioner, and dance-movement therapist, and derives so much joy in helping people recover from psychological trauma using these modalities. She is currently writing a children’s book about a young girl’s mythic journey to save her village, and how she learns to face her fears and grow her courage and strength with the help of magical allies and guides she is led to on the way. Emily has chosen to fundraise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses. Because she is self-employed, her insurance does not cover much of the costs involved in this cancer treatment until she meets a very large out of pocket maximum, and she has high copays. This in turn makes it difficult for her to cover medical expenses and life expenses while going through this, as she will need to work reduced hours, and won’t be able to work at all during the month of surgery and recovery. The money raised willl help Emily to make it through this challenging period when she will need financial support. There are so many ways to give to Emily’s campaign through this program, with corporate or workplace matching as one wonderfully suppportive option, and all are tax deductible.
Updates (3)
June 1, 2025
THANK YOU so much everyone who contributed yesterday and during the month long lead up to the May 30th Hope in Action Day! Thanks to you all, over $5000 was added to the fund over a two week period! That is amazing! This funding will help me tremendously in this intricate time of treatment, while I am still recovering from surgery, with more chemos to come, that are increasingly tiring - all causing me to start up work again at a greatly reduced caseload for the month of June and perhaps into much of July as I recovery my strength and stamina. So I can not tell you how incredibly grateful I am to each and every one of you! And thank you so much for your messages of encouragement and support and love! Each message has meant so much to me! Bless you all from the bottom of my heart!
May 13, 2025
Update as to my medical status and info about the upcoming May 30th online fundraiser – Help Hope in Action.
First – a HUGE Thank you is in order! I think of all of you who have supported me here at Help Hope Live so often! Because of your amazing generosity I have been able to pay for my supplements, prescriptions, doctor appointments, medical copays, acupuncture before and after chemo to help me manage the effects, and support people to help me in my own home after surgery, while being unable to work. Looking at your names, your generous donations, reading your encouraging notes, both took my breath away, and uplifted me in ways I cannot even begin to describe. You all have helped my spirit keep up the fight! I was hoping to have sent a special thank you to each one of you directly by now, but with managing chemo and work in Jan- early April, and then the surgery and more chemo coming up, I have had less energy than I hoped. Please know first - how grateful I am to each of you, and second - that I will be sending each of you a personal thank you when this is over and my energy fully returns!☀️
Now for the Update! I had abdominal surgery to remove the tumor and surrounding cancerous organs on April 17th and it was very successful! I am incredibly grateful to the surgeon Karen Houk and her awesome surgery team at Fox Chase Cancer Center, and the amazing nurses who took care of me at Temple Main Hospital in Philly. After the surgery, I was whisked away to a beautiful home in Bucks County to convalesce just as spring started to unfurl, and was wonderfully taken care of by beloved friend Karen Dehaven and her husband. However, this is not the end of my ovarian cancer treatment journey. While my surgeon did an amazing job removing the tumor and most of the cancer, there is still a small amount of cancer left. I will need three more rounds of chemo treatments (May 19th, June 9th and June 30th) to completely kill off the remaining cells. I will need to continue eating a high-quality cancer-fighting diet (i.e. organic Mediterranean diet), working with my oncological nutritionist, and taking the researched supplements that she suggests that improve longitudinal outcomes for nonrecurrence of ovarian cancer. After chemo is finished, I will need to get an infusion of a powerful immune drug called Avastin, every three weeks over the course of a year to ensure these cells do not have a chance to regrow, and to improve my chances at non-recurrence.
So we have one last leg of my healing journey to push through that is upcoming - starting this May 19th. Fortunately, Help Hope Live is offering an online fundraising opportunity called Help Hope in Action just as I start this next stage of my healing journey! On May 30th, 2025, all day long, credit card fees of any donation made to my medical fund will be waived so more money can go directly to the fund. Any financial support made to my fund that day will go far and be so greatly appreciated!!! I am attaching a wonderful video the folks at Help Hope Live made for me to promote the reason for my fund and inspire giving on this day. Feel free to share the fundraising link that brought you here, as well as the video with all those you feel would be moved by it. Thank you again, with all of my heart, for your love and support of me!❤️
Photo Galleries (2)
Guestbook
June 7, 2025
Emily,
You are such a blessing to others with your work. I hope your healing goes well and you are fully back on your feet soon.
sean
Sean Forman
June 6, 2025
My thoughts are with you Emily. Praying for healing.
Jayne Williamson
June 3, 2025
Sending you love and healing, Emily!
Valerie Shoulberg
