It’s an unfortunate reality of a cancer journey that family feuds can often intensify, not diminish, while a loved one fights the disease. And one regrettable aspect of the cancer journey of Beth Chapman, the celebrated bounty hunter and mother, has been her contretemps with her stepdaughter Lyssa.
Now, however, with Beth, 51, in a medically induced coma related to her struggle with Stage 4 lung cancer, Lyssa, 31, is setting aside their differences and offering an olive branch to her stricken stepmother.
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Also this weekend, Lyssa appears to have taken down a series of taunting bikini pics she took on a Hawaiian beach and posted on Twitter last week with an obscene comment that appeared to be targeting Beth, wife of Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman.
L’affair du Lyssa began after Mothers Day when Beth expressed on social media her concern that Lyssa had not acknowledged her on Mothers Day; had not invited her and Dog to Dog’s granddaughter Abbie’s high school graduation; and had blocked Beth and Dog on social media.
While Lyssa denied the allegations and called Beth an attention seeking liar, Beth stood her ground, despite the challenges both of her cancer journey and of filming her new reality series, “Dog’s Most Wanted”, set to premier on an unspecified date on WGN America.
A few weeks later, Lyssa reignited the feud between the two, posting the steamy beach shots and declaring herself a #milf (an obscene term for a sexually attractive mother). Lyssa was almost certainly slapping back at Beth, obliquely referencing a tweet Beth sent on May 27 at the height of their feud. In said tweet, Beth had written "Seriously who gives a f ??" regarding a news item about Lyssa that discussed her fandom of the reality television series "Naked and Afraid".
Seriously who gives a fuck ?? Lyssa Chapman, Stepdaughter of Beth Chapman from 'Dog the Bounty Hunter', Reveals Her Favorite 'Naked and Afraid' Contestant https://t.co/OmkYMcOwpB
— Beth Chapman (@MrsdogC) May 27, 2019
By Saturday, the racy bikini pics had vanished from Lyssa’s Twitter feed, and when the news broke Saturday night that Beth was in a medically induced coma, Lyssa came under enormous pressure to put down her sword.
“All of you talking s need to grow up and mind your business,” said one fan.
“Families fight no ones perfect, all that matters is that your there when you need them the most,” wrote another Beth supporter.
“Lyssa, Go and be with your step mommy, she needs you,” another fan wrote.
“Forgive each other and make peace. That regret will never leave your side. Praying for your family,” added yet another Beth fan.
Lyssa, known as Baby Lyssa, is Beth's stepdaughter and the ninth of Duane's 12 children (Lyssa's mother is Duane's third wife, Lyssa Rae Brittain). The granddaughter at the center of Lyssa's dispute with Beth is Lyssa's first daughter Abbie, who was born when Lyssa was only 15. The 24 year old father was arrested for statutory rape. Lyssa would later go on to marry and divorce a different man. She is now engaged to a woman with whom she operates a tanning salon in Hawaii.
Beth has been going through her cancer journey for a long time. She was first diagnosed with throat cancer in September of 2017, but she had surgery at the time and was declared cancer free. She was again diagnosed at the end of 2018, this time with Stage 4 lung cancer. Even though Beth has been really open about the struggles of battling cancer in the public eye, she has not been totally clear about how she is being treated.
On Mother's Day, in Beth's first public speaking appearance since she was diagnosed again, Beth told congregants at the Source Church in Bradenton, Florida, that she is not undergoing chemotherapy and that she's really putting her faith in God as she battles the disease. "This is the ultimate test of faith," Beth said during the event. "It is the evidence of things hoped for, and it is the substance of things not known. And although chemotherapy is not my bag, people, sorry, that's not for me. So for me, this is the ultimate test of faith."
For a long time, chemotherapy was considered the standard of care for people with stage 4 lung cancer but times have changed over the past decade or so. Precision medicine, or matching treatment to the biology and characteristics of a specific tumor, has made major headway when it comes to treating advanced lung cancer. Targeted therapy seeks out very specific cancer cells and leaves the healthy cells alone. Chemotherapy tends to cause a lot of collateral damage because it kills all fast-growing cells both healthy and cancerous.
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