Sa’Ra’s Story

I have lived with type 1 diabetes since the age of 5. Even with insurance, a 30-day supply of my insulin runs me $1,000. It’s a cost I simply can’t cover on my own. Managing my diabetes on my own while I was in college was such a challenge. I began to eat less to make my insulin last longer, and my sister and I began to share insulin in order to cut costs. But last May, my sister rationed a dose and went into diabetic ketoacidosis. She almost went into a diabetic coma and had to be hospitalized for four days. Things turned bad so fast. To see my sister fighting for her life made me feel like it was all my fault. To know people at Eli Lilly who control prices were headquartered less than 20 minutes away from us, as we sat by her hospital bed, enraged me. I almost lost my baby sister.