Patient Testimonies | February 10, 2026
My name is Payton Gao. I’m from Livingston, NJ, but I’m currently a business student at UNC Chapel Hill. I am not personally affected by any diseases and I am lucky to have a healthy body. I am not a patient. However, my grandma has metastatic breast cancer and my autistic brother takes medication for his tics.
My appreciation for drugs is rooted in my family, and I can remember the moment that solidified it for me. My grandma was diagnosed with cancer around 2020. She underwent treatment, had surgery and it seemed like she was in the clear forever. However, she relapsed in 2023 and the prognosis was poor. It was unknown how much time was left.
Family gatherings around the dinner table carried tension as a result, revolving around how my grandma felt during the day. I was sitting at the dinner table with my family, and I winced when I saw the dark red incision that stretched from one end of her forehead to the other. I stopped talking when I noticed that her hands shook when she picked up her utensil. Her tears, which flowed as a side effect, caused me to stare into empty space. I was scared that one day I wouldn’t be able to help her grab the food that she likes. However, when I reached for her bowl, she swatted my hands away in angry Chinese fashion, placing food into mine instead. Despite the tension I felt, that this was not normal, I smiled widely. The drugs were saving her life.
For a long time, I thanked the science and people who made the drugs. My family is middle-income and we could afford the drugs, so we were not focused on the affordability. That was until I naturally stumbled upon the statements from our private insurance provider and saw a five-figure cost next to the dollar sign.. Insurance was saving my family thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on medications. I felt relief for something that I was previously not even aware of.
Interested in learning a bit more, I did some research and realized that the medications my family members had been taking affected popular conditions. There were proper reimbursement policies and insurance coverage. While my family can handle the monthly out-of-pocket costs of these drugs (a couple hundred dollars a month), I know that there are so many families out there that are less fortunate than me.
A price should not be placed on an experience like having dinner with your family. When health is a concern, it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that nothing else is a worry.