northern california has the rain. sacramento, redding, that's where the rain will be this afternoon and tonight. alison, have a happy easter. >> you, too, thanks. i'll see you right back here at the top of the hour. first, "dr. sanjay gupta m.d." starts right now. hey there. thanks for watching. you will meet a former soldier who's got five daughters. he was having a hard time back from iraq until he found this unique program. he calls it a life coach. we'll explain. and fighting cancer -- the fun way. ♪ the woman with the helmet in the middle is unforgettable. we'll introduce you. and there is a lot more. let's get started. first up, when desperate parents meet the high cost of medical care. autism is a case in point. studies show early intervention

is important and children can improve dramatically but the gold standard treatment can run tens of thousands a year. a third of u.s. states do not require insurance companies to pay so, of course, they don't. georgia is one of those states a group led by three mothers decided to fight for more help. they are fighting for a bill called ava's law. this is ava. this is her mom, anna. they are at the state capitol in atlanta. >> i met a mom whose daughter was diagnosed two months ago. >> reporter: it's late february, day 23 of the 40-day lawmaking session. >> if it could be voted on -- >> reporter: megan recently adopted a 10-year-old boy with severe autism. melissa's son was diagnosed with

autism a year ago. on his 4th birthday. >> i think we started noticing differences in him as early as 9 months old. >> say mama. >> reporter: by age 4 he wasn't even potty trained and he was barely able to speak. >> he wouldn't walk by himself. i had to carry him or put him in a stroller. he wouldn't eat by himself. i had to feed him. if i didn't, he wouldn't eat. his main method of communication was screaming and pointing. he never would play with me. i remember arturo would come home and try to play with him and he was like, i can't get him to play with me. i said, you have to try harder. >> reporter: the official diagnosis was terrifying. >> you have this baby and you have all of these hopes and dreams attached to him. you want him to have this fulfilling life.

then in one moment, all of that gets robbed from you. >> reporter: that was the nightmare. >> my camera got broke. >> reporter: a year later arturo speaks in full sentences and goes to a regular preschool. >> in my mind there is no way he would be in this position without the therapy we did for him. >> are you ready to sound it out? >> mm-hmm. >> look at my finger. >> reporter: the key, melissa says, is intense therapy. behavioral therapy. >> hat. >> you get two tokens for that. awesome. >> reporter: she does hours each day. she's also training a new therapist. there are two weekly visits from a more experienced behavior coach. and a monthly visit from the program director. >> she makes $150 an hour. >> plus mileage. >> plus mileage because she comes from charlotte.

>> reporter: there are few specialists nearby. the experts had to drive 200 miles each way from charlotte. it adds up. last year solares and her husband spent $115,000. all of it out of pocket. >> do you want the helicopter or ipad? >> reporter: she knows she and her husband were fortunate. >> i think it's very unfair to say, you know, that is medical issue, this is medical treatment and because you are not wealthy your kid can't have a chance at life. >> reporter: melissa, meg, and anna. they are pushing a law to require private insurers to pay for evidence-based treatments. >> she said our best chance is to find another bill that can be amended. >> reporter: self-funded plans would be exempt but some companies like home depot do choose to cover autism. the sticking point is cost. even a group setting like this special class can be

prohibitive. >> our most expensive classroom is $26,000 a year. most treatment, the intensity they receive here costs between $40,000 and $80,000 a year. >> reporter: those numbers are a big concern for the insurance industry which says other customers will end up paying the price. >> the cost of the mandated benefit has driven coverage to a point where a lot of employers can no longer afford to purchase it. >> reporter: but the group autism speaks, they helped draft ava's law and say in states with similar laws, autism treatment pushed up premiums less than $4 a year. >> state that have this for a while like korea, indiana, no one is losing their health insurance. the sky has not fallen. there is no indication of that at all. >> he will not need as much services this year as he did last year. he won't need as much the year after. we are already decreasing what he needs.

>> reporter: that's part of the point says john albers, who sponsored ava's law in the senate. pay now and save money later. >> first and foremost it's about children and families which should be number one. for those of us like myself who are conservative this is a huge cost savings. we know what it costs when a child needs to be taken care of with special needs throughout their lives. >> reporter: early march, day 28. the insurance side seems to be winning. >> the chairmen are not taking my calls. >> reporter: suddenly -- >> we have a small chance here. >> reporter: word came the senate insurance committee would hold a hearing. >> today we are going to hear senate bill 191 in a hearing only. >> thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee. to put a face with the name of the law i would like to introduce ava to you.

>> south carolina -- in the past five years we have worked hard. >> economically this is the way to go. >> that part can be the narrative for every family dealing with autism in the state of georgia, if you allow it. >> the cost of treatment he needs is the salary i gave up. >> i think it went great. we accomplished what we wanted to. that was to put the information out there for them to see that there is nothing else to study. >> that was impressive. 32 states. north carolina coming on board. >> just wanted to give them space, let them take it all in. of course i will hit him probably tomorrow. >> reporter: the optimism didn't last. the bill was sent to another committee. it was stuck. >> we're not going to give up hope, stop fighting until the very last day. >> reporter: the last day. day 40. back at the capitol. >> we are not giving up. if nothing happens today we are going to keep going through the

mandate commission. you know, we said we're holding out. >> reporter: on and on -- into the night. ava's law didn't even come up for a vote. >> he's been in a year. we have liquidated our entire emergency fund. basically all of our savings is gone. it's gone. we have gone into debt for it. we can't afford to live in georgia for much longer. >> good job! >> a number of private companies including home depot and capitalone bank have decided to, on their own, pay for autism treatment for families of employees. some government programs like tricare do as well. a lot of this is new. so people are still getting a handle on the true cost as well as trying to determine which treatments are going to be the most effective. coming up, an iraq veteran with five daughters. he was almost ruined by a brain injury.

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well, this number is shocking. traumatic brain injury has affected nearly 20% of the veterans of the iraq and afghanistan wars. the usual cause is explosions. the injuries can be mild but for many the damage is permanent. sergeant vaughan was injured in 2005. he suffered a severe brain injury and it's been a long road back. >> i had a feeling that i would be injured when i went to iraq that second time. >> reporter: army combat engineer vaughan was injured in

an ied explosion in iraq in 2005. >> we were riding to a mission to blow up ieds. my driver ran over an ied and i lost one of my eyes. and the left side of my skull was fractured. and they had to take out a piece of my brain because it got infected. >> this is the part they had to take out because of the injury and to take pressure off your brain? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: unlike the physical wounds of war, traumatic brain injury can be invisible to the eye. it is not uncommon for vets to suffer in silence. what was recovery like? you have these operations. you're seven months in the hospital. >> lots of pain, torture, it seemed light will cause me to have migraines. i was having seizures. >> reporter: that whole chapter is hard on you and your wife. >> it caused me and my first wife to get a divorce. luckily, i have tremendous parents.

>> reporter: now he's happily remarried. >> can you wash that pan out? >> reporter: communication was still a major challenge for him and his wife and his five girls. >> i could tell something would be bothering him sometimes. he wouldn't know how to express himself. >> i just didn't feel like i could offer anything to society. >> nice and strong through the core. >> reporter: just last year he found the share clinic, a comprehensive rehab program in atlanta. focusing on helping vets recovery from trauma dick brain injury. >> a lot of people have trouble with planning. you will see difficulty with emotion control. >> how do you describe the program? >> the one stop shop for everything. treating the different symptoms in a cohesive way. >> for vaughan, regaining independence was key. by living in the share provided

housing. >> that's independence. >> he surprised himself by discovering a new hobby. >> what does this do for you physically and mentally? >> it gives you patience. >> what are you looking for? >> we're paying attention to the left side in particular. >> reporter: vaughan completed the program. it took him 81 days and now he's living at home with his family. he still meets with his life coach weekly. >> put 3:00. >> it could be appointments, a daily routine, things they want to accomplish. volunteer time, how they are structuring their time. >> i'm going rock climbing in utah. >> do you have goals now for the future? >> to become a personal trainer. to be the best father i can be to my five children. >> how do you rate your quality of life?

>> scale out of one to ten, ten. >> that's fantastic. >> would you go back to iraq? >> if my country needed me. i would go back. >> just remarkable. i heard the exact same words from jesus vadayna, the marine i operated on in iraq i went back and saw a few weeks ago. he said, i would go back. i also love this next story. this woman i'm about to introduce you to. the one in the helmet there. she has a wild sense of humor, zero sense of quitting. she'll make you imagine what it's like to be in the fight for your life.

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tough disease versus even a tougher woman. you don't want to be on this woman's bad side. whether it's in court, she's a lawyer, or on the court. she loves to play basketball. but when gloria borjes took on the fight of her life, she decided to have a little fun along the way. >> on december 10th, 2010, i received news that no healthy 28-year-old expects to hear. >> gloria is a fierce opponent. calculated, competitive,

unrelenting. >> i had joined a gym in the beginning of 2010, i had lost about 30 pounds of pat, put on about 10 pounds of muscle. so i thought my body was going through changes in general so the gi issues were tied to those changes. >> as the year progressed, gloria's symptoms got worse. but she toughed it out until one day she got fouled in a basketball game. >> she put both hands on my gut area and didn't slap me hard. it was just trying to kind of throw me off balance and the pain was excruciating. and i remember hobbling over to the free-throw line and realizing, there is something very serious here. >> gloria finally checked herself into the hospital, bloated and vomiting ferociously. an emergency operation uncovered a large tumor in her colon. >> my mom told me initially was, it is stage iv colon cancer and it is very aggressive. and i said, well, i'm an aggressive girl, so what do we do? >> doctors told gloria she had one to two painful years left,

at best. she was undaunted. here she is, at chemotherapy round one, sporting a rocky t-shirt. then came round 2. round 3. at round 45, she'd beaten the odds and decided to have a little fun. today, gloria's checking into usc's cancer center for round 46. >> cancer is tough and i'm tougher. >> like that? >> that is a good one. >> with her husband, will, and her parents by her side. they launched a foundation to find a cure for colon cancer within the next decade. >> i said, all right, if you had all the money in the world, could you cure it? do you and your team of doctors know what to do? and he said, yes. >> their goal, $250 million. >> my answer to cancer was no. this is not going to happen. >> i'll tell you, 100% of

donations to the wonderglow foundation go directly to research. if you want to learn more or donate to the cause, logon to thewonderproject.org. up next, do you want to learn to eat smarter, have more energy, even lose some weight? we'll get a crash course in food school. bal phenomenon we call the internet of everything. ♪ it's going to be amazing. and exciting. and maybe, most remarkably, not that far away. we're going to wake the world up. and watch, with eyes wide, as it gets to work. cisco. tomorrow starts here. with command strips from 3m. designed to stick and eliminate odors anywhere. like this overflowing trashcan. to test it, we brought in the scott family. so what do you smell? beach house and you're looking out over the ocean. some place like, uh, hawaii in like a flower field.

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so here with alana katz, a registered sports dietitian. thanks for joining us. this is a very important part of training for a triathlon, so i want to go through a couple of the food diaries. so talk about the value and

importance of smaller meals throughout the day. >> what we found on annette and ray's food diaries that you guys are waiting a long time before you eat. what small meals more often does during the days prevents us going from between grazing and starving. and it's the grazing/starving that cows eat that causes us to store fats. >> the prevailing wisdom is i'm going to eat less and that's going to help me lose wagts. >> right. and that doesn't work, eating less to lose weight. because if the body's starving, it holds on. so eating less more often is much better. i call it elmo's law. eat less more often. elmo. >> well, you know, i can relate to some of what you do. because, you know, i didn't learn how to cook when i was younger, but you eat out a lot. talk about some of the reasons why that is the case for you, but you saw will's food diary. what first jumped out at you. >> all your food's coming from restaurant food. pa lot of fast food, and it tels

me lack of planning. >> from a sports dietitian standpoint, he's got a little bit of time on the weekend to cook for the week. what should he be focusing on? >> focusing on food that you can separate into containers, make your own lean cuisines. personally, i make a big pat of quinoa and i can eat off of it throughout the week. i just add things to it, like pumpkin seeds and almonds. i make a big pot of chili, lots of lean veggies. i throw baked potatoes in the microwave and have them with greek yogurt, like sour cream on top. >> that's a good segue, we should navigate the supermarket and figure out where we should be spending our time and money. >> how many of you have tried kale before? for breakfast, you can put it in your smoothies. for lunch, you can make a salad out of it. and for dinner, you could saute it or bake it. so this is our seafood section. one thing to keep in mind is that if you see something that has bones and skin on it, if you

go to the grocery store, they will take the skin off and take the bones out for you. don't be afraid or intimidated to ask about that. >> the leaner the meat is, the less white stuff you're going to see. you can tell the higher fats of meat are going to be your ribs and your brisket, whereas your tenderloins, your loins, and your ground round are the leanest cuts. >> here's another thing i take away from all of that. these guys are now part of a team. but chasing life isn't just about diet or exercise. it's proven that people who stay socially active tend to live longer and be healthier. having friends outside of work provides a sense of purpose and it keeps your brain sharp and can lower your stress. there is no magic number. many people are fine with just one friend. and i realize it isn't as easy as when we were kids, but do make the effort. chances are there's a social group nearby you can look to interest, a common interest, a common activity, that's aat