Amy, a mother of five, was 28 and apparently healthy when she suddenly collapsed. She woke up in the hospital to learn a tumor in her spine had ruptured one of her spinal bones. Amy lost her job and her savings in her seven-year battle with cancer, and when she went into remission, she still had intense pain in her damaged bones. Then Oregon Health Plan (OHP) mistakenly stopped covering her pain medication, leaving her as ill as she was during chemotherapy. Amy turned to legal aid, and legal aid worked with OHP to restore coverage. Amy said “If [legal aid] hadn’t stepped in, I would still be in horrendous amounts of pain, unable to function.”
