The Price of Remission

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked even me. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. The pain jolted me awake. It was barely dawn, a misty February morning in 2023. My side felt as if I’d been stabbed. I had been dealing with pain for weeks — a bothersome ache that felt like a bad runner’s cramp. But now it was so intense I had to brace myself against the wall to stand up. A few hours after arriving at the emergency room, I heard my name. A doctor asked me to follow him to a private area, where he told me a scan had uncovered something “concerning.” There were lesions, areas of bone destruction, on top of both of my hip bones and on my sternum. These were hallmarks of multiple myeloma. “Cancer,” he said. Multiple myeloma ... Read full article.