I'm not alone in having my chain jerked to hell and back because of the American healthcare system.

I'm not alone in having the "health insurance" talk with my parents.

I'm not the only person that gave up what they love to pursue a career that will give them reliable health insurance.

I have always been aware of how much I never wanted to go into biology.

I am not a lizard person and I don't have a science brain.

Don't get me wrong, I love science. But I love English far more than having concepts shoved down my throat instead of having a discussion about literature.

My friend, Billy, is not a lizard person. One of the first times I was around Billy, we laid on a beach in the middle of the night and he tried to hide his tears while telling me that he doesn't want to die because of this condition, but he knows that it's inevitable. He shed tears for the children he can never have. We shed tears for the years of our lives that this illness will steal from us. After the tears were finished, he looked at me and told me, "Carolina, I don't want to die like this. I'm scared." And we just continued to lay in the sand in haunting silence. He is newly diagnosed and terrified because this changed the entire course of his life. Billy doesn't need modern civilization, he needs to live off the grid. He belongs in a national forest. I've watched the city suck his soul out of his feet. I've never witnessed a person thrive in nature as he does. He stops in the middle of the road to pick flowers, calls me to go with him on 2 a.m. fishing sprees, and asks me to come with him to the forest to clear his head. The mountain man spirit was passed on from his turpentine farmer family and it flows through him with great force. Can he maintain a reliable job with good health insurance and access to a major hospital by living off the grid? No.

My friend, Louise, who also suffers from the same medical condition that drove me to give up my dreams of pursuing a career in English is not an accounting person. Louise is an incredibly talented visual artist who cannot pursue what she loves because of our healthcare system. I am constantly amazed by the creativity that flows through her veins— but this will come to an end in a few months. She has had multiple portraits displayed in the Halsey Museum of Art, but when she graduates, her displays will end.

I've watched Louise shed tears. I've shed tears with Billy. Both of my friends made me realize that our shared illness stops us from doing what we love, as much as we try to take the reigns of this illness and control our own lives.

I've sat in the bathroom with Louise while she sobbed and spilled her guts (hypothetically and literally) in a drunken stupor. Louise is one semester away from graduating with an accounting degree that she doesn't want. Louise already suffers mentally from her medical condition, but she also suffers because she's been forced to ignore what she loves in order to get a job with good health insurance. As much as she tries to not think about it, the "health insurance" talk always comes up when we're together.

I've wandered into the Francis Marion forest in the middle of the night with Billy. He is able to ignore reality much better than I am. I know it weighs heavily on this mind. I've seen him have a bad day with his condition and chug cough syrup or smoke enough marijuana to incapacitate himself. But he goes into the forest, shuts off his brain, and does what he loves. He picks up bugs, reptiles, and flowers to teach me about them. He plays old banjo music and sits in silence, admiring Earth's creations.

I've ignored my own condition to the point of hospitalizing myself.

Billy has ignored his condition to the point of believing that he was cured.

Louise has ignored her condition to the point of having grand mal seizures in the middle of busy streets.

We can maintain the illusion of control, but this illness controls the greatest aspect of our lives.

Underneath it all, the harsh reality of the American healthcare system is that most doctors go into medicine for profit.

Insurance companies are monopolies with nothing controlling their inflated prices and coverage options.

Pharmaceutical companies price gouge live-saving medication to the point that 26-year-old men keel over and die because the precious liquid life that was once $24 a bottle in 2002 is now $1,334 a bottle. The cost of production for synthetic insulin is $2-3 a bottle.

This harsh reality takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The cruelty of our healthcare system does not discriminate. It does not care about who it kills.

The CEO of any healthcare-related corporation sees you as another number.

Were you about to get married and died because you couldn't afford your medication? Doesn't matter.

Were you in your early 20s and had so much more life left to live? Doesn't matter.

Could you have lived if you were given equal access to your medication? Doesn't matter.

You are a number— you are a statistic. And you will suffer until you take your last breath because of a healthcare system that our politicians continue to ignore. Until this becomes the greatest crisis in America it will be ignored (and we are on the fast-track to this being worse than the opiate crisis).

I may be bitter in saying this, but I can only hope that they are personally affected by an awful chronic illness one day.

If Ivanka Trump had cystic fibrosis, there would be a cure.

If Baron Trump had type one diabetes, there would be a cure.

Louise and Billy have changed their lives so they can continue to put money in the pockets of CEOs that kill because of their insane price gouging. Our shortened lives are dedicated to stuffing the pockets of CEOs and greedy doctors.

If you are chronically ill and can't afford your medication, don't be a martyr. There are ways to find your medication online. Even though it's considered illegal, it's better than dying because of our twisted healthcare system. This article only scratches the surface of how fucked our healthcare is.

I'm sick of seeing articles about how illnesses don't change people's lives. I wish I could live in such ignorant bliss.

Our healthcare system doesn't just fuck people with chronic illnesses, it fucks everyone.

Fuck the American healthcare system.

Fuck politicians who choose to ignore the lives stolen because of our capitalist healthcare system.

Fuck the pharmaceutical companies that ignore the pleas of mothers who lost their young sons and daughters because of their price gouging.

But most importantly, fuck America.