Girl with brain cancer finds medical care with assistance from family, friends, doctors | by SYDNEY DEATHERAGE

Editor’s Note: Due to the sensitivity of the piece, the Gambrill family was not interviewed; only close family friends were interviewed.

Any mother’s worst nightmare is watching the child die before the mother.    Melissa Gambrill is living this nightmare.
Since Sept. 17 when her 15-year-old daughter Megan Gambrill was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a highly malignant and fast traveling form of brain cancer, Melissa has watched her daughter quickly deteriorate to a vegetative state.  Medulloblastoma is a highly aggressive cancer, which means it needs a fast discovery and diagnosis with high-quality treatment for any hope of survival.  At this point, there is little to no hope of Megan’s recovery and she is fading fast.
But Melissa and Megan are uninsured.
Melissa has only worked minimum wage jobs, none of which offered insurance plans. And now, as a single mother, Melissa has no income since she quit her job to be by Megan’s side day in and day out.
The dozens of bills over the past two months from  Megan’s four surgeries, countless CAT scans and MRIs, chemotherapy, radiation treatment, hospital stays, and other medical needs are projected to amount to over $1 million. These are bills Melissa can not pay.
However, despite being uninsured, broke and without her own home, Melissa has managed to garner medical care and support for her daughter.
Megan’s story is the story of the support that can be found when an individual has no medical insurance, yet great medical need.

Help Comes From the Government–Conditionally
Melissa Gambrill is a single mother. She has worked minimum wage and low paying jobs most of her adult life, sometimes multiple at once, just to make enough to support her and Megan.  No job has offered her insurance coverage. According to Melissa’s closest friend Cheryl Seperek, since Melissa made $6 to $7.50 an hour when working, she could not afford an approximately $700 bill every month for medical insurance.
Though her mother has always been uninsured, when Megan first began suffering from medical problems Melissa was able to qualify her for Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program for low-income individuals that helps cover health care costs.
According to the Missouri Department of Social Services, Megan qualifies for Medicaid as an uninsured child  ‘with gross family income up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. ‘ËœUninsured Children’ are persons under 19 years of age who have not had employer-subsidized health care insurance or other health care coverage for six months prior to appliCATion.’
Medicaid will pay some of the bills, like any insurance program, but it won’t pay all of them.  For Medicaid patients, hospitals will either negotiate the remaining balance or bill it all to the patient. Melissa has no money to pay for any medical costs not covered by Medicaid that may be billed to her. She had to borrow money from a nurse just to buy coffee.
‘I told Melissa, ‘ËœWhat are they going to do if you can’t get it done?” Cheryl said. ”ËœYou have no choice but to get medical treatment. What are they going to do? You don’t have a house; they can’t take a house from you. You got a 20-year-old car; if they want your car they can have it. You don’t have a job; they can’t garnish you your wages. This is your child. This is your child’s life. So that’s something we’re not going to worry about.’
Cheryl, who is insured, took her daughter Shelby to St. Joseph’s Hospital several years ago when she was suffering from headaches. According to Cheryl, the very first thing the hospital did was perform a CAT scan to rule out the possibility of a brain tumor.
‘That makes me think that [Megan’s] quality of care [wasn’t] the best it could be as it could with an insured, paying patient,’ Cheryl said.
Since many doctors do not accept Medicaid patients, Megan’s care could have been affected by her inability to see a quality doctor.
According to Cheryl, Melissa also attributes the very delayed discovery of her daughter’s cancer to Medicaid. She feels there was a lack of quality care from Medicaid doctors she took Megan to in the months before her diagnosis.
‘And Melissa has asked this herself: ‘ËœI wonder if I had good insurance, if I had taken her to another doctor if they would have found it sooner,” Cheryl said. ‘And this is a very fast growing, aggressive cancer. Back in May and June she first took [Megan] to the doctor. I’m not a doctor. But it seems to me if it was small enough then, then maybe it could have been controllable.’
Help Comes From Doctors
Doctors simply don’t get much money from Medicaid patients, and get no money from uninsured patients who can’t pay for medical care. Yet some doctors have gone out of their way to help Megan.
When Melissa took Megan to the optometrist, the optometrist immediately recognized that Megan’s brain was swelling and sent her and Melissa to the emergency room at Children’s Mercy South who wouldn’t perform a CAT scan.
Melissa called the optometrist back.
‘The optometrist had said ‘ËœCall me when you get to the hospital,” Cheryl said. ‘This optometrist was evidently very caring about [Megan’s situation]. [Melissa] called her on the way back from Children’s Mercy [South] saying Children’s Mercy wouldn’t do a CAT scan on [Megan]. The optometrist said ‘ËœOh no, you take her downtown. I’m calling them and telling them you’re bringing her in.”
It was after this CAT scan at Children’s Mercy that the tumor was found.  However this optometrist was not the only helping hand for Megan.
Many doctors do not accept Medicaid patients. If a person is on a Medicaid insurance plan they likely will not be able to foot the rest of the bill not covered by the insurance. And doctors expect to be paid.
However, one doctor did take a Medicaid patient, a Dr. John A. Clough. He took Megan. And Clough just happens to be one of the best neurosurgeons in Kansas City, according to Cheryl. Healthgrades.com gives him four out of five stars.
The night the CAT scan found the tumor, Melissa called Clough at home.
‘[Clough] said he wanted [Melissa] to call him the next day because he wanted to see this girl,’ Cheryl said. ‘They explained to him that she was a Medicaid patient, because he doesn’t take Medicaid. He said I’ll see her anyway.’

Clough operated on Megan five days later.

Help Comes From Friends
At a website called CaringBridge.org, terminally or seriously ill patients can create a personalized web page with photos, a personal story, a journal where a family member can post health updates, and a guest book where friends and relatives can leave messages for their loved one.
Shelby, Cheryl’s daughter and Megan’s best friend, writes notes to Megan and Melissa daily.
One note reads, ‘We love you and Megan with all our hearts! We hope she gets better and makes it thru this! We are praying every day for you and Meg. We are Still hoping that she will make it. You just have to believe in yourself and God. We are keeping you and Meg in our Thoughts and Prayers. I wish me and you could talk on the phone again Megan.~Love Shelby.’
Though Megan may no longer be able to comprehend things, Melissa shares the notes with Megan.
Cheryl and Shelby have not only been the primary emotional support system for the Gambrills, but have also attempted to assist them monetarily.
Shelby contacted the Grandview Elks Lodge, a service organization, and through them almost single-handedly organized a fundraiser for Megan. The fundraiser was a $5 all-you-can-eat chili dinner with an auction, and they raised over $6,000.  Freshman Amanda Sloan, whose stepfather Al Wholf works at the Elks Lodge, helped rally the STA community around the cause.
According to Cheryl, the money was not intended for medical costs. The money was to help Melissa get an apartment or extended stay hotel room near the cancer center, but was never used for this purpose because Megan nor Melissa have practically never left the hospital since the diagnosis.

‘The only thing I’m worried about now is that that money will be used for funeral costs,’ Cheryl said. ‘I have a feeling that’s probably what the money is going to be used for. But then again, she’s got the money to give Megan a nice funeral, where before she didn’t.’

Help Comes From Strangers
In churches across many denominations and across the nation, congregations include Megan in their daily prayers and masses. Beginning with Cheryl’s congregation, and then spreading by means of friends and family to more remote congregations and people, something called a ‘prayer chain’ has been trickling across the country for Megan.
‘Everyone is told in their nightly prayers to say a prayer for Megan,’ Cheryl said. ‘They tell another person and another person and pretty soon you have 50 people including Megan in her prayer that have never even met her or know anything about her.’
Most of the people that attended the fundraiser held by Cheryl and Shelby don’t know Megan. Most of the people who have donated items or funds don’t know Megan. Freshman Amanda Sloan has only met Megan a few times through Shelby, and yet she hung up posters all over the school and helped organize her fundraiser at the Elks Lodge.
‘People have been very giving in this–extremely giving,’ Cheryl said. ‘It’s amazing to me how many people have rallied around this and I don’t know if it’s because it’s every parent’s worst nightmare–because for the grace of God there goes my child or what–but people have really identified with this and have done whatever they can to help with the situation.”