BOCA RATON, Fla. — A Palm Beach County woman and teacher who has dedicated her life to helping kids is now asking for help of her own.
Donna Leech, a teacher at Grandview Prep in Boca Raton, is battling aggressive cancer while dealing with denials from insurance.
For 30 years, the former Teacher of the Year has devoted her life to the future — a future that is now uncertain.
WATCH: Boca Raton teacher speaks to WPTV about her struggle to get her chemotherapy covered by insurance
“I’m one of those crazy teachers who enjoy watching my students get it,” Leech said. "I always try to tell them, you've got to face things with an open mind. If you don't have an open mind, then you didn't learn anything."
It started as a bump on her head, which Leech showed to the school nurse, not thinking much of it.
"She said, 'You need to go to the doctor right now,'" said Leech. "So I did."
Tests quickly confirmed that Leech had cancer, which started in her salivary glands, spread to her lungs and now the base of her brain. Her oncologist told her it's the fastest-growing cancer she’d ever seen.
She had surgery, then radiation, all covered by insurance through Redirect Health, but then coverage stopped before her next critical steps in treatment — chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
Leech's husband, Ken Leech, told WPTV reporter Michael Hoffman that the chemotherapy will cost them $1,000 every three weeks. Searching for answers, WPTV reached out multiple times to ReDirect Health and is still working to learn why her chemo is not covered.
As Leech battles her insurance company, her community has raised nearly $50,000 to help via a GoFundMe. In what she calls a sink-or-swim moment, she wants to swim.
"So I've decided I want to float my ship and not sink it," Leech said. "So I'm just doing everything possible that I can to be here another day for us to tackle a fun math question that they all hate, or just something like that. Yeah, just to make me feel better."
