My extended family has taken time to reach a decision about my grandma’s daily care. As the rest of us age, I’m also preparing options
3-MIN READ3-MINRen YanPublished: 9:30am, 7 Mar 2026My grandma, now in her 90s, has long held together an extended family including four children and six grandchildren. As a Chinese saying goes, “Having an elder in the family is like having a treasure.” While my aunt, father and two uncles all live near her in the same city in northern China, my generation has ventured out to different places. Yet no matter where we have settled, no trip home is complete without a visit to Grandma.
When I first moved to Beijing, I had to travel about five hours by train – a journey that takes only two hours by high-speed rail nowadays. In the intervening decades, I have completed my studies, found a job and started a family of my own in the national capital.
Meanwhile, Grandma has been facing one battle after another: lung cancer, a stroke, Alzheimer’s disease. Her days follow a strict medication routine, increasingly and carefully managed by her ageing offspring.
Gefitinib, the key targeted drug sold under the brand name Iressa, was thus unaffordable for many, as the total cost of treatment could run to several hundred thousand yuan. My grandpa emptied his savings. My father and his siblings didn’t have much but also stepped up and shared the expenses.
