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Hospice nurse facing life-threatening illness far from home

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Courtesy Lenley Lewis

Lexie Opal, left, with her sisters after arriving in Greece for a long-planned sibling vacation. Opal suffered a medical emergency on the trip and is waiting to be flown by medical airplane to UPMC Shadyside for treatment. Sisters, from left, Lisa Lewis, Lenley Lewis and Susie Watt

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Courtesy Lenley Lewis

Hospice care nurse Lexie Opal of West Middletown was diagnosed with meningitis and leukemia on a trip to Europe with her sisters. She is being treated there until she is able to fly via medical plane back to the U.S.

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Courtesy of wLenley Lewis

Hospice care nurse Lexie Opal of Washington County suffered a medical emergency Sept. 6 while vacation in Greece, and is awaiting medical air transport back to southwestern Pennsylvania.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the names of Opal’s sisters.

A long-time hospice nurse, Alexandra “Lexie” Opal has spent her life providing a loving, reassuring presence for patients and their families as they face the end of life.

Now Opal, 66, of West Middletown, finds herself far from home, facing a life-threatening health crisis that came without warning just days into a European vacation with her sisters. Her family is working to bring her home to Pittsburgh for medical treatment.

Opal and her three sisters left for Athens, Greece, on Sept. 3 for a long-dreamed-about vacation that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But two days into the trip, Opal started to feel very ill. She was tired and weak, and her sisters noticed some slight cognitive issues.

On Sept. 6, the close-knit siblings booked a sightseeing van to Delphi, but by the time they arrived, Opal’s condition had deteriorated.

“When we got there, it was apparent she could not walk up the hill and she was no longer making sense of what we were saying to her. We asked the driver to take us back to Athens and called an ambulance,” said her sister, Lenley Lewis, who has remained by Opal’s bedside since she was hospitalized.

At a hospital in Athens, Opal was diagnosed with meningitis, and the following day she was transferred to Attikon University Hospital, where tests revealed something else: acute myeloid leukemia, a fast-growing blood cancer. She is in critical condition in the hospital’s ICU.

“We were shocked to learn it was leukemia,” said Lewis. “This was a long-planned, trip of a lifetime. We were ready to go to Corfu and Rome and sight-see, and then it became clear our job now is simply to keep Lexie alive, get her treatment, and get her back to Pittsburgh.”

With the help of the hospital, the family contacted AirMed, an ICU-equipped air ambulance company, and on Saturday Opal will be airlifted from Greece to UPMC Shadyside, where she will undergo treatment in the oncology unit.

The sisters and family members cobbled together half a dozen credit cards, upping limits and maxing them out, to pay for the $125,000 cost of the medical airplane.

Opal’s husband, John Opal and son, Jack Opal, who flew to Greece after they were notified about Opal’s medical emergency, will accompany her on the medical plane, which is staffed with a physician, nurse, and a medic.

The family has started a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of the air ambulance and additional medical expenses.

As of Thursday, donations had surpassed $36,700.

“We’re so grateful to so many people. People are contributing out of care and concern and love they have for Lexi, and we’ve asked everyone to re-post (the GoFundMe) on their pages, and so many people have responded,” said Lewis.

Lewis described Opal, who is a hospice nurse for Heritage Hospice in New Kensington, as an “intelligent, caring, empathetic, kind, and sometimes bubbly person” who is beloved by patients and families she has cared for over the decades.

“She’s very intuitive, and sometimes knows or intuits what you want or need before you know it yourself,” she said. “The care she gives to hospice patients and the help she provides to families to make their passing much easier and help them stay at home has been remarkable, and it’s all the more distressing to see her in such dire straits.”

Opal is the fifth of the six Lewis siblings. Lenley is the oldest, followed by Fred Lewis of Denver; Dr. Lisa Lewis, a psychologist in Waynesburg; Dr. George Lewis, a veterinarian in Florida; Opal, and Suzanne Watts, a court reporter in St. Clairsville, Ohio. The sisters are all roughly two years apart in age.

Opal’s sisters are glad they are able to be with her when she needs them the most.

“We’re here for her, we have each other. We’ve had to make extremely important and critical decisions, and it’s been a blessing for all of us to be here together,” Lenley Lewis said. “We take turns freaking out, and we calm each other down.”

She said Opal is under the care of a hematology team at the hospital. Doctors believe the previously undiagnosed leukemia weakened her immune system, leading to meningitis.

Lenley Lewis said Opal was ill the week before the flight, and COVID-19 tests came back negative and Opal thought she was on the mend.

“She didn’t want to miss the trip. She said we’ve been planning this four-sisters’ trip for years and we’re finally making it happen,” said Lenley Lewis.

The sisters will return to southwestern Pennsylvania Sunday.

“We want to get her home to UPMC. She’s getting excellent care here and the doctors have been stellar, going above and beyond for us. But it’s a dire situation. She’s incapacitated physically and cognitively and we’re hoping against hope that it’s treatable and reversible,” said Lenley Lewis. “We’ve had nothing but kindness from everyone we’ve met here, and the doctors want to help us get Lexie home safely, and they know that being home is a key component for recovery. We want her to be in familiar surroundings and to see familiar faces.”

To contribute to the GoFundMe fundraiser for Lexie Opal, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/lifethreatening-medical-emergency-far-from-home?qid=db049d5220186b1e1045c3ab643a5d93, or go to gofundme.com and search “Alexandra Opal Life-Threatening Medical Emergency.”

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