Fighting the big guns

I met an amazing family today. Little Paxten Mitchell has a rate form of childhood leukemia that doesn't respond to conventional treatment. His parents, Robert and Amy, were ready to take him home to die when the doctors at Duke (of course) sent word to the doctors at Mission that there is an unconventional treatment with a 40 percent success rate. That's a hell of a lot better than zero, so Robert and Amy decided to go with it. The insurance company refused to pay. They have appealed, to no avail. So I went over to Mission Hospitals' Memorial Campus today to meet them. Paxten, 3, is crabby because of the steroids he's on, but I got him to talk to me. I told him I know how awful it is to feel icky and if he didn't want to talk to me, he didn't have to -- he could just pretend I'm not there. After awhile, he let us know it's hard to pretend people aren't there if they're talking and he can't hear his cartoon. So Robert and I took the conversation elsewhere -- Paxten couldn't leave because he was hooked up to chemo.

We talked about the bond that forms betwen parents when children are in the hospital. You can't really know what a scary experience it is until you've experienced it, and parents who have spent a lot of time in the hospital know it best of all.

We spent weeks on end in the hospital when Michael was little.

I don't think anyone can understand what the Mitchells are going through unless they've faced losing a child.

And like Michael, Paxten faces death from lack of insurance coverage. Robert's a firefighter and Amy had to quit her job as a nurse so she could care for Paxten. The hospital went ahead with the treatment. They have to get Paxten into remission if he is to have any chance of survival. If the insurance scompany continues to refuse payment, the family could lose their house,

But what's a house when your child's room sits empty because some insurance executive has decided your child doesn't get to live? Suddenlty, priorities change. They woiuld live in a camper if they can keep Paxten alive. I know that feeling,

The story is on the front page tomorow, Maybe we can shame the insurance company to cover it, This is not a child who should be left to die -- no one should be left to die when there's a chance treatment will work. Not a child not an adult -- nobody.

Whatever happened to compassion, anyway?