Lexi was born September 13, 1993 in Gulfport, MS. Growing up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast made a lasting impact on Lexi throughout her life.
Lexi was exuberant, hilarious, ambitious, bold, opinionated, truthful, and generous from the time she was tiny – qualities her family celebrated through every season of her life and continues to celebrate as they mourn her loss. She will be remembered for her magnetism, vivaciousness, humor, compassion for the vulnerable, loyalty, and love.
As a child, Lexi enjoyed reading, soccer, and food, which influenced her adult life as a lifelong competitor, teacher and food enthusiast. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a 13-year old Lexi and much of her family moved to Mobile, Alabama. In Mobile, she attended St. Paul’s Episcopal School, where she made many lifelong friends, led her peers as junior and senior class president, and began dating her soulmate, David Martin Mayhall. While at St. Paul’s, Lexi earned more service hours than any St. Paul’s student to date and was awarded the Headmaster’s award upon graduation for the student who best exhibits the spirit of St. Paul’s and brings honor to the school. She attributed the kindness of others to her family after Katrina to her passion toward service to others.
Lexi and David Martin attended Loyola University New Orleans, and they were married in New Orleans in spring of 2016, during their senior year. The volume of her love for David Martin and the strength of their love and commitment to each other cannot be measured. Lexi majored in political science with a minor in Middle East Peace Studies. She earned high academic honors while working full time and making time to work with the homeless and teaching English to new immigrants to New Orleans. Lexi and David Martin studied abroad in India for most of their Junior year. David Martin’s proposal to Lexi while in the calm waters of the Arabian Sea was a fitting end to a semester abroad that proved to be a defining time in their lives and relationship. While traveling across the subcontinent, Lexi fell in love with Indian culture and reconnected with her childhood love for cooking. She was an avid fan of Anthony Bourdain, realizing the power of food in bringing people together. This informed her educational path as she studied food policy and food insecurity in Rome Italy as a graduate student.
In 2016, Lexi pursued a Master’s Degree in Sustainable Food Studies at the American University in Rome. While in Rome, Lexi made lifelong friends and learned from experts in sustainable food systems, which guided her career when returning to the states. Her master’s thesis and field study were conducted in her beloved New Orleans and focused on food injustice. Lexi established deep friendships and traveled throughout Europe during her time in graduate school, arguably living more in her short life than many of those her senior.
After Lexi graduated from AUR in 2017, she and David Martin moved to Philadelphia. She began her postgraduate career applying her learnings from AUR directly in one of the country’s most underserved communities, Camden, New Jersey. As a FoodCorps service member and later as county supervisor of Rutger University’s SNAP-Education program, Lexi taught children and adults practical ways to eat healthily, even while on government benefits. Ever entrepreneurial, Lexi devised innovative ways to assist the community, including a partnership with Google’s Virtual Reality team and writing her own e-cookbook.
While in Philadelphia, Lexi dove head first into Philly’s blossoming food scene. She and David Martin explored the Philadelphia-region, including spending holidays in Rehoboth Beach with one of their best friends. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lexi and David Martin loved being able to work from home together and do what they loved best: spending time together.
On February 15, 2021, Lexi was diagnosed with low grade serous ovarian cancer. A rare subtype of ovarian cancer, low grade serous disproportionately impacts younger women and is usually caught at a late stage. Lexi had been experiencing acute pain and discomfort in her abdominal region off and on for years, and various doctors could not pinpoint the source of her pain. On February 9, this pain led her to the emergency room at Jefferson University Hospital, where doctors performed an emergency ovarian cystectomy, and, as a precaution, biopsied a cluster of cells suspected to show signs of endometriosis. Because of Dr. Katie Lackritz’s initiative, we finally found the source of Lexi’s pain and began a plan to treat the cancer that had been silently and sinisterly growing in Lexi’s body. Dr. Lindsey (Minion) Ford performed a successful debulking surgery, and Lexi quickly began chemotherapy.
After her diagnosis, Lexi leveraged her social media platform to inform thousands of the symptoms and signs of low grade serous ovarian cancer. She raised not only awareness but nearly $100,000 in donations toward research to expand treatment options for these patients, met with congressional representatives, and was interviewed for multiple podcasts. Nonprofits dedicated to low grade serous like STAAR and Cure Our Ovarian Cancer recognized Lexi’s passion and sought her social media savvy and fundraising prowess. Lexi’s activism was on display for the whole world when her beautiful face was shown on a billboard in Times Square honoring World Ovarian Cancer Day. Adopting Valentino (“Val”), an 11-year old pit bull/terrier, was a bright spot in an otherwise challenging year.
After finishing chemotherapy, Lexi and David Martin moved back to Mobile, Alabama to be closer to family and spend more quality time on their beloved Gulf Coast. While in Mobile, Lexi continued to fundraise and be a source of strength for other ovarian cancer patients. She received care from low grade serous expert Dr. David Gershenson in Houston, Texas at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Lexi was feeling better. She returned to full-time work for Visit Mobile, decorated her and David Martin’s beautiful midtown home, spent time at Fowl River with her in-laws, attended best friends’ weddings, and participated in a camp for young adults with cancer in sunny Hawaii, where she learned to surf and got a tattoo showcasing a nickname one oncologist gave her: “Firecracker”.
In the summer of 2022, Lexi and David Martin felt ready to move to New York City, which had long been a goal for the young couple. They moved into an apartment in the East Village and jumped into NYC’s bustling culture. Lexi quickly became a Broadway enthusiast and soaked up the city’s diverse food scene. All the while, Lexi continued to fundraise and support other patients with comfort and clarity. She received care at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a renowned cancer hospital in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Shortly after arriving in New York, Lexi’s cancer began causing complications in her lungs, abdomen, and legs. She received highly attentive care from a team of doctors at MSK, led by Dr. Ying Liu. Ultimately, these complications compounded and disrupted Lexi’s breathing and blood flow to the heart, which led to her passing in the early morning of June 4, 2023.
Lexi was a loving wife, a thoughtful and engaged daughter, a devoted sister, and a doting aunt. She is survived by her husband, David Martin Mayhall, her parents, Pete and Lisa Mestas, her sisters, Heather Duffy (Matt Ruiter), Liana Mestas (Rob Gallegos), Raven Mestas (Emilie Tolley), Rachel Mestas (Sterling), and Alina Christen, her maternal grandparents, Robert and Joy Dean and paternal grandmother, Clarissa Avila Moore, and by her beloved nephew Wally, Aunts Connie Congdon, Susan Wozniek, uncles Jeff Dean (Diane), Todd Dean (Jan), cousins Holly Wozniek, Hank Wozniek and Sunny Watson (Dylan); in-laws David and Becky Mayhall, Cameron Davis (Addie), Evan Davis (Mary Elizabeth), emotional support dog Val and a community of fierce friends across the globe, all of whom were held dear. She was preceded in death by her paternal grandfathers Pete Mestas Sr. and Robert Moore.
A memorial service and reception to honor Lexi’s life will be held at a later date. Information will be shared about that plan within the coming weeks; details will be announced via social media and direct contact.
In lieu of flowers, please consider honoring Lexi’s memory with a donation to her legacy fund at STAAR Ovarian Cancer Foundation, an organization Lexi cared about deeply and spent innumerable hours raising funds for the next breakthrough in treatment research. STAAR exists to fund life-saving research for women living with low-grade ovarian cancer, and is the only US-based non-profit dedicated to this rare sub-type of ovarian cancer.
Memorial gifts can be made online at https://tinyurl.com/46sybjj2 or by mail:
#LiveLikeLexi
STAAR Ovarian Cancer Foundation
230 E Ohio St, Suite 410-1185
Chicago, IL 60611
Finally, Lexi’s family wishes to acknowledge and thank Dr. David Gershenson and the expert staff at MD Anderson for their care and for the hope their work inspires, as well as thank the nurses, fellows, oncologists, specialists, pharmacists, and other providers at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Mitchell Cancer Institute in Mobile, and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City for the special care they gave to Lexi.
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