A Path to Remission, Built on Connected Care
September 11, 2026
Christy Perez credits Central Health’s connected system for helping her beat cancer
As Christy Perez entered her 50s, she was starting to build the life she wanted for herself. There was the school bus she was converting into a mobile home, her job as a delivery driver, and maybe best yet, her dogs—an adolescent Great Dane and 12-year-old terrier she loved dearly.
Perez had plans to make the next decade her best years yet.
That soon changed.
Feeling something was wrong, Perez went to a Central Texas health care system in April 2025 and was diagnosed with anal squamous cell carcinoma—otherwise known as rectal cancer.
“When I got diagnosed with cancer, I was right in the middle of (building my bus),” said Perez, 53, who didn’t have insurance at the time. “I had to put everything on hold. It put a barrier up. The cancer said, ‘You’re stuck now.’”
Connecting Care
Following colostomy surgery to create a stoma (a procedure to bring a portion of the large intestine through a port in the abdominal wall to redirect waste), an infection was discovered, prompting a return to the hospital and another surgery to remedy the situation. In the interim, Perez was unable to work, which compounded her financial woes.
Those challenges led her to lose stable housing, forced her to live out of her car, and even compelled her to give up her dogs for a time.
It all happened so fast.
Perez signed up for an insurance plan through the federal health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, but soon realized she couldn’t afford her out-of-pocket expenses.
She canceled it and didn’t know what to do next.
Then, when all felt lost, a stranger stepped forward and offered her some advice: maybe Perez should think about enrolling in MAP (the Medical Access Program), a Central Health coverage option for people with low income. Perez drove to a CommUnityCare Health Centers clinic in South Austin and filled out a MAP form.
“I went in and applied for it,” she said. “I had (coverage) five minutes later.”
Palliative care is compassionate and supportive care for people living with serious illnesses. This type of care helps patients manage pain and symptoms, provides mental and clinical support, and improves quality of life by connecting them to resources. To learn more, click here.
Providing a Path Forward
Perez was amazed at just how fast her health care journey transformed from that point forward. In December 2025, less than a month after enrolling in MAP, she was seen by a primary care provider through CommUnityCare Health Centers, part of the Central Health system.
She was referred to oncology and seen at Ascension Seton’s Infusion Center by Dr. Om Pandey, a clinical associate professor at Dell Medical School and an in-network oncology provider through MAP, before being referred to palliative care through Central Health.
Within weeks, Perez met with Dr. Brooke Wagen, Central Health’s palliative care physician, and April Collmer, an advanced palliative hospice social worker who specializes in mental health counseling and emotional support.
“I needed an advocate, and I needed someone to steer me in the right direction on this path,” Perez said. “When I found MAP, I found all that again through the medical system.”
Created by taxpayers in 2004, Central Health exists to provide high-quality and connected health care to Travis County residents who need it most. Over 170,000 people were served last year alone.
Dr. Wagen, however, could see that Perez was apprehensive.
To calm her concerns, she walked Perez through her plan, and explained that palliative care was focused on treating symptoms, pain, and stress during traumatic and life-altering changes in health.
One simple fix was to give Perez a pillow that she could sit on to relieve the pain she was feeling with her cancer. A more critical intervention was providing medical management during cancer treatment to avoid a relapse in addiction—something Perez had experienced in the past.
“It’s my job to ask, ‘What can we do to make it better?’” Dr. Wagen said. “I’ll say, ‘Let’s start with the most solvable problem.’ The biggest thing to me is to listen.”
“I needed an advocate, and I needed someone to steer me in the right direction on this path.” – Christy Perez
Managing Treatment
Perez’s fight to beat cancer began with chemotherapy and radiation treatments at the Texas Cancer Institute, which is another in-network oncology provider with Central Health.
To help Perez travel that difficult path, Dr. Wagen met with her once a month. Each time, she worked with Perez to ensure small steps were made—addressing her pain, counseling her through treatment, and providing steps to ensure she could stay on the right track.
Perez met with Collmer, who helped reframe the way she saw the world through cancer. “Part of healing for Christy wasn’t just making it through her treatments,” Collmer said. “It was making it through this difficult period of life in a way that still allowed her to be open and encouraged and hopeful about moving forward.”
Nurse navigators helped schedule transportation to appointments and followed up with check-ins afterward. Perez re-applied for MAP after her initial six-month term ended in June and was approved.
“My job is to care for a whole person,” Dr. Wagen said. “If we do that, we make it possible for them to do the other parts of their treatments.”
By April, Perez felt like she was back on the road to recovery.
There was truth to that feeling: the radiation treatments were shrinking the cancer.
Two months later, on June 11, Perez was told she was in remission.
The Road Forward
Perez will still need to ensure she’s taking good care of her health and meeting regularly with primary care providers. But remission also means a return to normalcy and a certain sense of flexibility back in her life.
Like caring for her dogs, going back to work, and living the life she once intended in her 50s.
Perez recently received surgery to remove the stoma. Soon enough, her monthly check-ins with Central Health’s palliative care team will end, too.
That’s a moment Dr. Wagen will welcome.
“For Christy, she took time to process her cancer, she had to really reckon with what this might mean for her, and she had to decide to overcome her own fear of mortality and say ‘I will try to get treated,’” Dr. Wagen said. “And then she did it.”
Perez says she’ll forever remember the care that was given to her during this trying period of her life.
“I’m hoping that within the next few months, I will be able to go back to work and live a normal life. I want to be able to go to the river with my animals and travel the country,” Perez said. “Before Central Health and before palliative care, that was not possible.”