All through the spring, William “Bill” McIntosh waited on his front porch in Letts for hope to arrive. Every morning, he sat in his wheel chair while the tumor on his liver grew larger and waited for a delivery that might give him a few more months of mornings and moments with his family.

However, every day, the Fed Ex truck would approach his home and pass by, his daughter, Angie Dilkes, said.

McIntosh was waiting for a fairly new cancer fighting drug known as Nexavar, a product of Bayer Healthcare. When McIntosh was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer in January, Dilkes said the drug was the only little sliver of hope he had.

“That was the only course of action. It wouldn’t cure it or get rid of the tumor. It would only keep the cancer from getting bigger. It was the only thing they might’ve prolonged his life,” Dilkes said sitting in her mother’s kitchen with a memorial card for her father resting on the table.

Nexavar, according to Associate Director of Communications for Bayer David Freundel, is “not chemotherapy” but “a targeted cancer therapy” that “works by targeting both the tumor cell and tumor vasculature.”

It also is not cheap, Dilkes said. When doctors at the Hansen Center of Margaret Mary Community Hospital offered this treatment they cautioned it came with a price tag - $6,000 for 120 pills or a month’s supply. McIntosh, who was on Medicaid, couldn’t afford it nor could anyone in his family. Dilkes said he wanted it anyway.

“He wanted to fight it,” Dilkes said. “He was dying, but he wanted to take this medication. I didn’t want to look him in the eyes and tell him we can’t get it.”

Freundel said the normal co-pay for the medication is typically $50 but for those without insurance the cost can be unbearable. Bayer, he noted, had tried to address this problem by setting up an organization that the Hansen Center introduced to Dilkes and her father. The REACH (Resources for Expert Assistance and Care Helpline) program worked with the hospital and Dilkes to get the prescription into McIntosh’s hands at no cost with the help of another program called Cure-a-Script.

However, finding organizations and people to help was much easier than getting the prescription filled, Dilkes noted. What began in February extended well into the early spring as Dilkes filled out multiple forms, made countless phone calls and submitted a myriad of files and documentation.

REACH helped set up a joint effort with Medicaid. In late April, after countless headaches, she said the prescription was approved, paid for by REACH, and the pills would be coming via Fed Ex in a two to three days.

McIntosh began his vigil and the days passed, Dilkes said.

“The third day came and there was nothing. Then the next day and the next day. Dad even stopped the Fed Ex driver, who by this time knew what was going on, and had him search through the truck for the prescription,” Dilkes recalled.

She called Cure-a-Script, which reported there was no order. She called REACH and two days later they told her it was figured out. Five weeks after approval, the little bottle of hope, Dilkes said, arrived. That was mid-May.

By that time, Dilkes said the tumor had grown and not much hope was left. REACH and the programs were able to fill a second prescription for less than $800 after another lengthy process, she said. McIntosh received it with fewer problems, but only took half of it. He passed away on July 6.

Looking back, Dilkes said she never expected the drug to save her father’s life. It was the process and the high cost of the drug that frustrated her. When she looked at her parents, she said, she saw people who had worked hard and lived their lives the way people were supposed to do. At the end of his life, her father was abandoned by a system he held dear, she said.