Jon Anderson: We found out what the worst job in the world was, was a poor social worker that would go through and kind of prepare people financially for the outcomes of these long hospital stays. And so she kind of started in on options that are ahead of us — whether we need to take a second mortgage, whether we need to declare bankruptcy. And she literally turned the page over on her folder and went, “Holy crap, you guys have great insurance. You’re gonna be fine.” And that’s when we realized how great the coverage was at Costco.

Host Anne: Hello, and welcome to Employee Podcasts, where Costco employees share their stories of how their benefits helped them. Today, we’re talking with Brenda Anderson, a Costco pharmacist, and Jon, her husband. Jon recently underwent treatment for stage 3 colon cancer with the help of Costco benefits.

Hi, Brenda and Jon.

Brenda Anderson: Hello.

Jon: Hi.

Anne: So Brenda, how long have you worked at Costco, and which location do you work in currently?

Brenda: So I am a pharmacist at Costco 484 in Orem, Utah. I just work part-time. I’ve been with Costco for 18 years, and I’ve been at the Orem location for about the last 5 or 6 years. And then I did several years before that at the Sandy location, which is not too far away.

Anne: Wonderful. So, what inspired you to want to share your story today?

Brenda: Well, a couple of years ago my husband, Jon, had cancer. He was diagnosed just over 2 years ago. And so about a year ago I wrote in and just talked about — there was an employee survey — and I just talked about how great the benefits were and how just having a max out of pocket that wasn’t super high was really comforting and how his chemo drugs that would’ve been just thousands of dollars were only a $3 copay. And so we just really appreciated the health care that Costco offered.

Jon: Yeah, I think the wake-up call for us was we had our middle son, Kyle, in 2019 ended up with Stevens-Johnson syndrome following walking pneumonia. It’s an allergic reaction where the body continues trying to fight a pneumonia that’s not there anymore.

But anyway, he was in an elevated care, excuse me, elevated care at a local hospital and for about 10 days. And so we kind of were expecting a big bill to come. And we found out what the worst job in the world was, was a poor social worker that would go through and kind of prepare people financially for the outcomes of these long hospital stays.

And so she kind of started in on options that are ahead of us — whether we need to take a second mortgage, whether we need to declare bankruptcy. And she literally turned the page over on her folder and went, “Holy crap, you guys have great insurance. You’re gonna be fine.” And that’s when we realized how great the coverage was at Costco, how much they care for the employees that they get taken care of through the medical system and that they not just, you know, make sure you keep around, but to actually have a quality of life for their employees and their families.

Anne: Absolutely. So, fast forward a few years, you went through your own journey to a cancer diagnosis. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like?

Jon: Yeah. So as a standard American male, I didn’t really wanna see a doctor. I’m also — one of the many hats I get to wear at work — I’m also a pilot.

So many pilots never go and see a doctor just for fear they’re gonna be diagnosed with something and lose their medical and their ability to fly. And so with those 2 things competing, never had a primary care physician, but about 5 years ago, started to notice a few things and tried to go get a colonoscopy.

And at the time, they had just changed the minimum age that they were suggesting you get a colonoscopy from 50 to 45. But during COVID, it was difficult to get an appointment without a primary care physician, trying to do it on my own. And so I just kinda put it off until 2 years ago, 2 1/2 years ago. The symptoms got to be a little bit stronger.

And so Brenda jumped in and got me set up with a colonoscopy at a specialty place. I went in, had the colonoscopy, and coming out of anesthesia, got the — you never wanna hear the C-word. And the doctor came out and said, “This is cancer.” We were like, “You sure?” And he’s like, “I do this for a living. This is a 5-, 6-centimeter mass that you, you have cancer. We’re gonna biopsy it. Get in touch with your oncologist, colorectal surgeon, and you’ll start to plan it from there.” Today we’re doing great. We ended up with chemotherapy for 5 months, 6 months of, in 3-week intervals with infusion and drug chemotherapy.

They were able to remove all of the affected area and possible tumor sites along with lymph nodes that were affected, and I have been cancer-free since about Christmas 2024.

Anne: Congratulations. That’s really, really wonderful news. So we’ve heard a little bit about the medications that you were receiving, the chemotherapy.

Brenda, as a pharmacist, what stood out to you about the cost and access to these medications that Jon was taking?

Brenda: Yeah. Jon’s chemotherapy consisted of an infusion every 3 weeks, and then also some oral chemotherapy that he took all the time. The oral chemotherapy, we got to use the Costco specialty pharmacy for that one.

They were super easy to work with. It took a little, you know, phone call or two to figure out exactly what we needed to get set up, but once we got the prescription to them, they were super easy to work with. They would send us chemotherapy every 3 weeks. The out of pocket, or the actual cost of the medication, was somewhere around $5,000, but because it was a generic, it was only a $3 copay for us.

Specialty pharmacy would let us know. They knew our schedule, and so they knew exactly what day we needed it, and they would give us kind of a delivery window of just a couple of hours, so we made sure we were there to receive it. And it was just really nice to know that we didn’t have to worry about this just being so expensive — that Costco was gonna take care of it.

Jon: And, in talking with my oncologist, he was impressed with how not just the efficiency, but the cost. That that is usually one of the bigger hardships on his patients that go through this, is the out-of-pocket costs required, as they usually fill the prescription out of their pharmacy in-house.

And usually with everybody else’s experience, there’s a large copay that goes along with that.

Anne: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, beyond these huge cost savings, were there other types of support that were helpful to you and your family during this time? I know that’s a lot to get a diagnosis like that.

Jon: I think looking back much clearer I see now, and especially as things ended, I realized that this just wasn’t hard on me, that it was hard on the whole family. We’ve got 3 amazing boys that I think they put me on a pedestal that’s definitely not deserved. But to see your dad and this hero model to be brought down during chemotherapy and treatments, and then also the time in the hospital, was really, really hard on them, too.

And then also, you know, the kind of the loss of 1 parent being able to support and to help them and whatnot. The stress and emotional toll on the entire family was something that I didn’t quite really appreciate at the time.

Brenda: Through Resources for Living, our oldest son had already had a counselor for some other things that he was working on.

And so he was already set up with a counselor, but Jon’s surgery was complicated by an ICU stay of a couple days, and it got really, really stressful for our kids. And he was able to get in extra sessions with his counselor, and we were able to kind of help him through that. Our second son also added a counselor about that same time, just to kind of deal with all the stress that was going on in his life too.

And so, yeah, it was really good for them to have options of other adults that they could talk to, just to kind of help with a lot of anxiety and worry that they had.

Anne: Absolutely. It’s so nice to have that benefit and know that, yeah, you can be supported in other ways by your benefits as you’re navigating this together as a family.

Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. Jon would get calls from the health concierge, I think it’s called, and yeah, they would kinda follow up, just check in with us, make sure everything was going okay. We were able to navigate it pretty well ourselves but, there was this constant check-in just to make sure everything was going okay.

Jon: And I can’t express what, as a cancer patient, you have a lot of empathy and sympathy for other cancer patients. As you sit there in an infusion center, you look around with 20 or 30 other people with a needle in their arm going through some pretty rough stuff. Sometimes it’s like, “Wow, I’ve got it pretty good, looking at what all these other people are going through.”

But I remember specifically going, “How do people go through this without a Brenda?” You know, having a live-in pharmacist that understands. And pharmacists, it’s interesting, they’ve got kind of a second degree in insurance and understanding all of that. And so Brenda understood the medical side, the appointments, what kind of doctors, the medicines, but also the insurance and managing all of that.

And that’s when I kinda took a step back and realized we had this concierge — because they kept calling and making sure everything was taken care of. And that turned into a comfort realizing, “Oh, there’s that great backstop and that great help to people that don’t have somebody that knows the industry and knows how all these things work and knows how the insurance works, that’s making sure you’re getting all of your appointments taken care of, making sure you’re taking advantage of all of the different options that are out there, making sure that you understand, yes, you can get help with the your family and with the anxieties and the help that they need there. But also, you know, you can go see a dietitian to be able to work on some of these side effects you’re going through.

You can… that to walk you through and to give you all those options and to make sure that you’re not just having your services paid for, but that they’re bringing your quality of life up. That they’re making sure that you’re getting better, and that you’re able to be healthy and well and happy.”

Anne: It’s great to have a Brenda. The Aetna Health Concierge is also great when you have questions about your medical plan. But when you’re dealing with something like cancer treatment, it’s a Live Healthy Team nurse who will reach out to you and provide that kind of personal support.

So Brenda, watching Jon go through this — having gone through it with your family, supporting your family through all of this — do you have any advice for Costco employees or family members who may be facing a diagnosis like Jon’s?

Brenda: Yeah. I think any hard diagnosis is really stressful. It’s a hard thing to deal with. For me, it was just put 1 foot in front of the other and press through it. You don’t really have another choice. And for us, it always got a little bit better. There were times it was really, really hard.

But now we’re healthier than ever. We’ve just really worked on a lot of different things.

Jon: But find a great primary care physician. Get the annual checkups. Get all of these things, and get ahead of your health. Having that, I think looking back, would’ve been huge for us — that I would’ve had somebody that could’ve set up the colonoscopy earlier, that somebody would’ve had the insights and the things to take care of things.

And I think, but just mainly for your family and for yourself, is to take care of yourself and get ahead of it, and to make sure you’re taking advantage of all the great, amazing opportunities that the Costco Aetna Health Plan offers us.

Brenda: Yeah. This is coming from a guy who never saw a doctor before, but yeah, now we’re healthier than ever.

Anne: I’m so glad, and that’s such good advice and such good reminders, I think for us all. So finally, we always like to ask, what is your favorite Costco product and why?

Brenda: We’ve been on a little bit of a health journey over the last 2 years. I love the Tattooed Chef Sheet Pan Vegetables. They’re like a frozen vegetable that you roast in the oven, and I like to throw in some chicken sausage.

It’s the Aidells Chicken Sausage, and that just makes a wonderful dinner. But a lot of times I use the leftovers, and I’ll mix it in with my scrambled eggs, and then I’m so proud of myself because I’m eating my vegetables for breakfast. So I love that kind of combination.

Jon: Oh yeah, there’s so many. There’s all the golf things. There’s all the electronics and the great services there. You know, Brenda’s got the Callaway set of clubs she golfs with every week from Costco.

Anne: Well, thank you both so much for being here and for sharing your story. And thank you so much to those who listened in. Until next time, remember: We’re in this together.