Miracle Ride

"11th grade was so not a picnic."

For 16-year-old Tzipi Caton, eleventh grade meant tests, friends, homework, and play tryouts. Then, suddenly, it meant cancer.

"I was the girl who loved everything about being a girl... My days as a JAP seemed to be changing into my days as a JACP. A Jewish American Princess turned Jewish American Cancer Patient."

Facing batteries of tests and a frightening new world of IVs, biopsies, needles and cell-destroying chemicals, Tzipi made a courageous and unusual decision. She would face the ordeal before her with honesty and with humor. She wouldn't try to play down or deny the reality of her illness; indeed, she would keep a detailed, upbeat account of the entire experience.

"I honestly believed Hashem knew what He was doing when He sent this test to me."

Miracle Ride is Tzipi's journal. In this remarkable work we cry with Tzipi, we laugh at her outrageous jokes and pranks. We meet her friends, her family, and the neighbors, classmates, teachers and health professionals who stood by her side. We learn, from the inside, the poignant and sometimes heartbreaking stories of the cancer patients she befriended. In these marvelous entries we find courage and humor and warmth. We learn how valuable true kindness can be - and how much insensitivity can hurt.

Though Tzipi's story is certainly unusual, the issues she must confront are universal: keeping relationships strong while under great strain, the often-misguided demand for "perfection" in a potential marriage partner, and, most important, our search for Hashem's Presence and mercy in a time of fear and darkness.

Join Tzipi for the Miracle Ride she took from diagnosis through treatment, and to the final fairy-tale ending. It's a journey you will never forget.