TIME'CAN'T ERASE PAIN FOR MCQUAY

Time cannot erase the pain for Donald McQuay the agonizing ordeal of watching his wife wage a three-year battle with breast cancer.

It was a battle Patty McQuay ultimately lost. She died Dec. 22, 1990 at the age of 44, seven months after undergoing a costly bone marrow transplant.

Amid the grief, Donald McQuay had to cope with huge medical bills. The financial burden was too much for McQuay, who ended up filing for bankruptcy.

"It was just hell to go through. As far as I'm concerned, I lost three years of my life," said the Jackson Route 2 resident, who has since remarried.

Conventional chemotherapy treatment initially put Patty McQuay's cancer into remission.

But in the fall of 1989, the cancer resurfaced in a more critical form inflammatory breast cancer.

Doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant, but the insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri refused to pay for the treatment, contending it was experimental.

"That was the problem. We couldn't get in right away because the insurance wouldn't pay for it," McQuay recalled last week.

"We lost precious time because we were having to raise the money," he said.

In an effort to obtain the needed money, the McQuay family held a number of fund-raising events in the first part of 1990.

One fund-raising event, a performance in June 1990 by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh III, was held after Patty McQuay went into the hospital for treatment.

She entered Barnes Hospital in St. Louis on May 23, 1990 to undergo the transplant. She was expected to stay about four to six weeks, but instead had to remain for more than 10 weeks.

On July 28, the mother of two returned home.

The fund-raisers generated about $75,000. "I wish I could thank each and every person for all that they have done," said Donald McQuay.

The cost of the treatment initially had been estimated at $150,000 to $170,000.

But with Patty McQuay's extended stay in the hospital, the cost climbed. The hospital ended up sending the family a bill for $300,000.

In all, medical bills including costly drugs totaled $435,000 above the $75,000 raised.

McQuay said the medical bills and other financial burdens left him no choice but to file for bankruptcy.

"I don't blame the medical field. I mostly blame insurance companies," he said.

"I was bitter at the time," he added. "I feel the insurance company should have paid the whole thing. That's what you buy insurance for."

McQuay maintains the nation should spend more money trying to find a cure for breast cancer.

"They are spending millions and millions of dollars on AIDS research, and we've got millions and millions of women dying every day from breast cancer," he pointed out. "I think they need to be doing more research on that."

McQuay said the family elected to hold fund-raisers in 1990 rather than file a lawsuit against Blue Cross.

"We didn't have the time to do it (go through a court battle)," said McQuay, noting that the family wanted to move ahead with the transplant as quickly as possible.

"I had an attorney call me after Patty died and he wanted to pursue it," said McQuay. Exhausted from the ordeal both mentally and physically, McQuay decided to steer clear of litigation.

Nearly two years after Patty McQuay's death, Donald McQuay still bears the scars of the family's tragedy.

"I look at life differently than I did," he said. "I am mentally and physically worn out."