Ga. teen battling cancer nearly loses insurance
Governor steps in so girl can continue treatment
Fifteen-year-old Alexis McRae and her family were already on a long, grueling journey as the girl battled cancer when things somehow got worse: they were on the verge of losing her healthcare coverage.
Alexis, who goes by Lexy, has been battling cancer for the past four years. Her mother, Katy McRae, told USA TODAY on Friday that the Columbus, Georgia, family was devastated when they got a letter with unthinkable news: their renewal of a Medicaid waiver for children with life-threatening illnesses had been denied without explanation.
The letter gave vague instructions on how to request an appeal and no way to check the status of that request. McRae said a phone number would direct her to another number, which would lead to a phone call – a crushing cycle without a clear path on how to get answers.
“Frustration would not even begin to describe it. When you have a child who is medically frail and needs something and you literally cannot give it to them, it is the absolutely most helpless feeling,” McRae said. “Because there is something that you could be doing ... but you’re caught in a trap and a cycle and there’s nothing new on your end that you can do.”
With less than an hour before the denial was final, what seemed like a miracle happened: With the help of the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research, the family was able to catch the attention of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who helped reinstate Lexy’s insurance with only minutes to spare.
“It literally was down to the hour,” McRae said. Lexy met Kemp last year while serving as a childhood representative when Georgia proclaimed September as childhood cancer awareness month. McRae said Lexy shared with the governor her story of being diagnosed with osteosarcoma and seeking treatment. Lexy read him a letter that she had written to him.
“Chemo is the worst. Being in the hospital 3-5 days sometimes more feeling sick (and) nauseous but also lonely and isolated,” Lexy wrote when she was 14. “I’ve missed so much school not because of cancer but because of the side effects of treatment.”
McRae said she believes that experience “put a face to her” and may have inspired Kemp to help the family.
“It wasn’t just a name and a number. It was a person that he had met and hugged and a child that he got to see and so in a lot of ways, I feel like it made it more real for him,” McRae said.
Lexy started treatment again on Wednesday, according to her mother. McRae said it will take three to four weeks to determine if it is slowing down the progression of her daughter’s disease.
After an initial October 2019 diagnosis in her right humerus, she’s endured chemotherapy, multiple drugs and several surgeries, including one replacing her humerus with a donated cadaver bone. For eight months she was cancer-free before it returned five
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times in her lungs.
In December 2022, Lexy’s cancer reached her lungs, bones of her legs, hips and spine, which led to another six months of chemotherapy and three failed clinical trails. McRae said her current treatment is her last option.