Swallow, Then Breathe
Cole Schmidtknecht, 22, couldn’t. One pill is all that separates me from the same fate.
By Taylor Allyn
June 7, 2025
Writing this Psalm has kept me up at night. Because for me, it isn’t abstract.
I live on one pill—my one big beautiful pill—that lets me stay alive. A future I never imagined would be in jeopardy now is. And this country is making me watch.
I used to think I was safe.
Not invincible. Not naïve. Just safe enough.
I have health insurance through my job. A good plan. It covers my Odefsey—the once-a-day pill that keeps me undetectable. Keeps me alive. I’m thankful. Because without it, the full price would be devastating.
Odefsey costs over $4,100 for a month’s supply—thirty tablets. Without insurance, that’s what I’d be facing to survive. Every single month.
Because healthcare isn’t just expensive. It’s expendable. And people like me—we’re always first on the chopping block.
I call it The Trifecta:
Black.
Gay.
Undetectable.
And in Trump’s America, that’s not a biography. That’s a bullseye.
This administration has made it clear: if you're not white, not straight, not cis, not Christian, not marketable—you’re negotiable. A cost to be cut. A footnote in someone else’s policy win.
I never used to worry like this. Not even when I had to switch meds after my kidneys started showing strain. I adjusted. I adapted. Like I always do. But now? I feel the walls closing in.
I just read about Cole Schmidtknecht, 22, who died because he couldn’t afford to refill his asthma inhaler.
His inhaler.
He had insurance. But when the cost jumped from $70 to over $500, he couldn’t cover it.
Not a transplant. Not an ICU bed. A device that should have kept his lungs open and his heart beating.
He didn’t die of asthma.
He died of America.
And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hit me sideways.
Because my Odefsey isn’t a miracle. It’s a margin.
My one big beautiful pill. And it keeps me alive only because someone somewhere hasn’t yet decided I’m too expensive to maintain.
It’s a thin line—between living in celebration and living on borrowed time.
What happens if they gut the ACA?
What happens if mRNA HIV breakthroughs are defunded into oblivion?
What happens when the one pharmacy refill I depend on stops showing up—because someone in office decided I was too costly to carry?
I’m not afraid of the virus.
I’m afraid of the vote.
Afraid of the next “cost-cutting measure” dressed up in moral panic.
Because here’s the truth:
Insurance is not immunity.
Undetectable is not unkillable.
And The Trifecta—Black, gay, undetectable—feels like a countdown.
So tomorrow, like today, I’ll swallow my pill.
And breathe.
Because Cole couldn’t.
And in this country, neither can I afford to forget it.
Let that be enough—to swallow, to breathe, to live. For now.
