After high-profile four-year battle with cancer, Columbus teenager passes away

After high-profile four-year battle with cancer, Columbus teenager passes away

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — A Columbus teenager’s four-year battle with bone cancer ended this week when she passed away on Thursday.

Alexis Jane McRae — known to her family and many friends simply as “Lexy” — was a student at the Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts.

Lexy was a spokesperson for the RALLY Foundation for Childhood Cancer research. She was described as brave, fearless and strong in her fight. Lexy had 11 surgeries, 35 radiation treatments, and more than 70 chemotherapy treatments.

Since her diagnosis, she spent more than 350 nights in the hospital over the course of four years.

Her fight drew the attention of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who helped her parents secure specialized Medicaid treatment last month. Kemp had met her last year in Lexy’s role with Rally.

Gov. Kemp issued the following statement Friday on X.

“Marty, the girls and I are saddened by the loss of such a brave and young Georgian,” it read. “It was truly an honor to have met her. Lexy’s family and friends are in our prayers.”

WRBL interviewed Lexy several times over the last four years. The last time was about three weeks ago.

Lexy found solace in the arts – theater and dance. WRBL intern Ally Craig asked Lexy about her dance. Here’s what one teenager told another.

“I’ve always loved dancing and dance taught me that I always had a community,” she said in a Jan. 16 interview with WRBL. “I could be in hospital gone for weeks, but I can’t do a dance cause when I’m feeling good, and my friends are around me and it’s like nothing has changed. It’s community. It’s a dance team. We’re all siblings.”

With all of the hospitalization, dance was the return to normal Lexy sought when she came home from Atlanta.

“Dance has really been there and it’s also been like kind of one thing where I’d be like, I’d be in the hospital for a week and then I’d come home and then I’d go do a dance class,” she said. “It kept me strong outside of the hospital because even though I had just been laying in a bed for, you know, 5 to 6 days, now I’m coming home and I’m feeling good, I’m going to go stretch my legs and do all that stuff. So, it’s really taught me a lot.”

Lexy McRae is survived by her parents Michael and Katy; and her big brother Peyton.

Visitation will be Monday from 5-7 p.m. at Striffler-Hamby on Macon Road. The funeral will be Tuesday morning at 11 in Wynnton Methodist Church.

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