Recording her cancer journey
Leukaemia patient livestreams to stave off loneliness and pay for treatment
BEIJING: At least once a week, Su Lingmin films herself singing, sharing health tips and chatting with hundreds of fans from her hospital bed.
“Now I’m a professional livestreamer,” she said with a smile in a video last week. “What else can I do?”
Diagnosed with leukaemia four months ago, the 27-year-old native of the northern Chinese city of Harbin is helping give a human face to the struggle for more affordable cancer drugs in China.
That cause has been bolstered by the popularity of a recent film, Dying to Survive, which follows the darkly comedic capers of a Chinese businessman-turned-drug smuggler who saves lives by illegally importing a leukaemia drug from India, where it costs several times less than in China.
Inspired by a true story, the movie has made more than US$400mil (RM1.6bil) since its release in early July, winning praise from moviegoers and critics and prompting government action.
State news agency Xinhua report- ed last week that several provinces have lowered drug prices by up to 10% since the end of June.
Most of the drugs targeted for price reductions are imported, like the Swiss-developed Gleevec medication in Dying to Survive.
For Su, the leukaemia patient in Harbin, the movie spelled out her experience with cancer when one character intoned, “There is only one disease in this world – the disease of being poor.”
Su thought at first that she was just stricken with the common cold. One night, she was walking home from a noodle restaurant when she suddenly felt dizzy. By the time she reached her apartment just a few blocks away, she was so weak that her cousin had to carry her to their sixth-floor unit.
Then came the diagnosis, which her parents had at first attempted to hide. They were an “average family,” Su said, with a stable income from her father’s salary as a public servant.
But it was not enough to cover her treatment.
So Su downloaded Inke, a popular Chinese livestreaming app, and started making videos about life with leukaemia. After six weeks, she had nearly 800 fans – enough to make up to 400 yuan (RM237) at a time from the virtual gifts her viewers sent her.
The meagre earnings were not yet enough to make a real dent in her medical bills, Su said, but livestreaming boosted her confidence and staved off the loneliness of being stuck in a hospital room.
“I am sick, but I’m happy,” Su often tells her viewers. “I know I can be cured.” — AP