It's Been So Long

Here I am, well beyond my life expectancy, and still breathing. 

There are days now where I do a lot of wondering. I wonder about the so-called "plan" that God has for me. I wonder why, of all the people I went through the clinical trial with, I'm like one of five who are still alive. I wonder why this gift I was given, life, has gotten progressively worse week after week. I'm going down a big drain. That would be fine if I were swirling the drain by myself, but I'm dragging a lot of people down with me. 

I've never felt more useless in my life. I contribute very little to my family's lives. I mean, sure, I do a lot of physical stuff, driving ,food shopping and all, but there's no income derived from those things. We need income, and lots of it. The cost of getting that gift of life comes with a lot of bills. See, everything that happened to me was all related to the attacks of 9/11. I now have cancer that's in remission. I have COPD, stage 3 kidney disease, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, (that's a dual diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus), and the loveliest of all, chemotherapy induced polyneuropathy. Now most times neuropathy is a condition that results in a lot of tingling in your arms, hands, legs and feet. I would pay good money to have tingling. See, in some cases, the neuropathy gets very painful. It's like a non-stop burning. Bad burning. When I was a teenager, I was playing football on the beach with a bunch of friends. I was "going long" for a pass. Some wonderful person had dumped their barbecue on the sand without putting it out. Yours truly ran through the hot coals barefoot. Lots of burns and blisters. Being a hot shot teenager, I couldn't cry in front of my friends. But boy, I wanted to cry. I ran to the water as fast as I could, but it didn't help much. However, I didn't cry, especially with the girls there. 

Well, I still don't cry in front of anyone. There are times where the burning will wake me up. If you know me, you know how hard it is to wake me up. (insert an LOL here). So I hope I've made that pain clear. It also gives me the added bonus of interfering with my balance. Ive gotten very good at taking falls. As a matter of fact, I fell hard just yesterday. I've been lucky. I somehow have avoided any serious injury from any of the falls. I'm a big enough burden to my family as it is. 

So, back to the drain. It's a big whirlpool that's sweeping up a few other people with me. People I love, people I care about. People who deserve better. I spend time wondering how things that were so go went so bad. I've tried. I lost a great career, in part because of an electronic trading system that I helped design. That system took over the NY Stock Exchange and eventually put guys like me out of business. The Exchange started in like 1792, yet I helped bring an end to a wonderful, long standing institution. I mean that sounds a little silly, but it's mostly true. 

I don't have a lot of time for self-pity, lamenting my life. There's too much to be done. Right now, I'm in the financial fight of my life. It's sick to think that someone can ruin my life with a few computer keystrokes. Just like that. I found out that the bank I thought was working with me, decided it was times up. We got a notice taped to the door that the County Sheriff's office was putting my house, our home, on the foreclosure market. And of course, my youngest daughter, my wonderful daughter, was the one to find it as she left for work early in the morning. We had been flying under the radar as far as the kids were concerned. The kids who have mostly given up a good part of their own lives to take care of us. I'm the useless one, and they are here, helping us every step of the way. And now they know that their ways of life are in trouble. They're putting a lot of faith in me, but I don't know how much I can do. One possible solution is a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. That will put a temporary stop to the foreclosure sale. We have a glimmer of hope as we might be owed a sum of money from their accident. 

It's a stretch. I mean I'm going nuts trying to figure out how to come up with the $5500 to pay the bankruptcy lawyer. Seems a little mean to charge a family who can barely afford to put food on the table that kind of money. I'm going over every possible solution but most of them aren't panning out too well. I'm what you might call desperate. I'm in such a way that instead of talking to myself, I'm writing in an online journal. Right now I'm in a horrible financial situation. I'm like $155,000 I'm debt. I mean if someone should happen to come across this sad excuse of a journal, a diary, and send me $155,000, I won't exactly turn it down. But, I'm living in the real world, the cold, cruel real world. And nobody is going to be sending me that kind of dough anytime in the near future. And "thoughts and prayers" only seems to go so far, ya know? Goodwill only counts for so much. Unfortunately, the answer to those prayers is $155,000. And please, don't ask how stupid I've been to allow myself to get that close to the drain. My mind, my brain, my intellect, well they're not functioning so well these days. A neurologist diagnosed "chemo brain", which apparently is a real affliction. For example, this 5 minute read took me the better part of an hour to write. So my head isn't on tight and every day I struggle to work on the paperwork that comes with being in trouble. 

So that's it for now. That's all I can muster with a half screwed-on skull. 

More later. This actually made me feel a little better. Meanwhile, if anyone knows someone with a couple of hundred thousand bucks lying around, please let them know I'm in deep trouble. 

Thanks for reading, if you are.