11 Investigates local woman denied life-saving cancer treatment

A Westmoreland County woman fighting breast cancer is now fighting for access to a drug doctors say would prolong her life.

Cami McDonald of New Kensington was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018.

“When you first get that diagnosis, it’s kind of like a gut punch, you know? You don’t ever expect it,” she said. “And then it came back aggressively.”

She relapsed in 2020, and the cancer spread to her skin.

“I want to be here for my family. I want to live my life,” she said.

McDonald has a zest for life and a sense of positivity that is infectious. It comes as no surprise to the people closest to her, but her medical team admits they’re often amazed by her attitude amid the pain and difficult circumstances she’s enduring.

Cami McDonald has been married to her husband, Raymond, for 35 years. They have four children, three daughters and a son, and two grandsons. She says her faith and her family, including her mother, two sisters and a brother, are what keep her fighting on the toughest days.

Dr. Sarah Miller at the Allegheny Health Center Cancer Institute says Cami’s cancer has morphed over time and, as is typical, has become resistant to different drugs. That said, there have been positive stints. One medication kept her stable for 18 months.

Miller said Cami’s cancer has a rare gene mutation, known as an ALK mutation. She said less than .2 percent of all breast cancer cases have the mutation. It is commonly found in non-small cell lung cancer.

“Just like in lung cancer, though, cancer cells are smarter. It’s like they changed the lock, so we had to get a new key,” Miller said.

That key is a drug used to treat lung cancer, Lorbrena. She put Cami on a one-month trial of the drug a few months ago, and they say it started working within weeks.

“I had energy. I could tell it was working. I could tell I was getting better,” Cami McDonald said.

“We can see with our eyes when she was coming into our clinic that her disease was responding,” Miller said.

She showed 11 Investigates her patient’s scans. In them, you can see significant shrinkage in Cami’s tumor after just weeks of taking Lorbrena.

Then the McDonald family and Cami’s medical team suffered another blow. They learned Medicare will not cover Lorbrena, because it is not FDA-approved to treat breast cancer.

“I’ve been off of it for about two months and I feel myself regressing. And that’s been…” she trailed off before her eyes filled with tears.

“What is your quality of life when – without the drug?” Investigative Reporter Jatara McGee asked.

“I’m in pain all the time, and I’m on a lot of pain meds,” Cami McDonald said.

Raymond McDonald said it hurts him that there’s no way to comfort his wife when she is in severe pain, which often keeps her up at night.

“It’s hard on us watching her go through this and not being able to do anything for her,” he said.

Then there’s the fear that time may be running out.

“I’m always scared she’s not going to see me get married,” Cami’s middle daughter, Morgan McDonald, said. “She’s not going to see me have babies. That’s so not fair, you know?” she said through tears.

She said she’s seen a clear difference in her mom since the Lorbrena pills stopped coming.

“You could visibly see that she’s just sick,” she said. “And I can’t fix it.”

Without insurance, Dr. Miller said the drug will cost between 10,000 and 50,000 dollars a month.

The family is raising funds for Cami’s medical expenses via GoFundMe. You can also follow Cami’s Cure on Facebook.

Lindsay Poliziani is Miller’s physician assistant. She has submitted numerous requests and appeals to get Cami access to Lorbrena.

“I was not expecting for it to be this difficult since in this case, which isn’t always, we have proof that the drug worked for her,” Poliziani said. “Oftentimes, we’re using other patients and case reports to get these medications that aren’t guideline-approved.”

Now Cami McDonald is fighting two cancers, the disease and the cost to beat it.

“This is going to shorten my life, because I can’t get the medication,” she said.

Miller said they are “100 percent out of options.” Their last hope is a program they were already denied from once.

PfizerCares’ expanded access and compassionate care program is used to grant special permission when a drug has not received regulatory approval yet. The AHN team applied months ago and was initially denied. But Friday, the request was reopened.

11 Investigates reached out to Pfizer for comment and has not heard back yet. We will update this story when we do.

“I don’t know that it will save my life, you know what I mean? But extend my life and give me a great quality of life,” Cami McDonald said. “It’s been almost seven years, and I don’t ever feel like giving up,” she said. “I feel like I’m going to fight until I beat it.”,

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