November 2008

Where to begin? I started the month sick and ended the month even sicker. I started the month employed and ended it unemployed. Once upon a time I had health insurance, now I no longer do. And my stepfather died. It was a long month.

Due to losing my health insurance, a very long and tragic ordeal, I was unable to receive my infusion (the VERY EXPENSIVE) drug, that keeps me in remission for 8 weeks at a time, for 5 weeks. After some paperwork was filled and sent to the drug company I was approved for a program that gives patients the drug at the cost of the time spent in the doctor’s office. Tell me why I did not hear about this program before I started paying through the nose to COBRA? Suffice it to say, the cost of time spent in the doctor’s office is a fraction of the amount I was paying to not have to pay regular retail ($5000/infusion). Yes, $5000; that was no typo. Since Nike I have been sick like it was 1996 all over again, except this time I knew what I was fighting. I lost 15 pounds from malnutrition, vomiting and other nefarious indigestions. Why wouldn’t everyone want to try this diet of losers?

Then I lost my job. I am looking and it is getting harder by the day. I think I have a good lead and it disappears. Did you know 533,000 people lost their jobs in November? At least I am not alone out there in the market already saturated with job seekers. I’m in great company and out numbered.

After a long, defeating and ugly battle with emphysema and COPD my mother’s husband of 25 years finally died November 18th. Mom took a leave of absence to care for him in his final months. She was a real trooper. He was a real SOB. He was only worse as the end dragged on and on. If I believed in it, I would probably go to hell for that ”SOB” comment, but I wouldn’t be alone. We did not see eye to eye and I will leave it at that.

After his death Mom and I spent time with family in CA. Friends and family we had not seen in almost 3 years, because we were unable to leave her husband alone for more than a couple of hours, we got to see.

As this year draws to a close in 21 days, I look back on it. It sucked. I spent most of the year sick, fighting with my changing disease and symptoms. I stood by my family in Tucson and watched death take her sweet time. I lost my job. I couldn’t even run my half-marathon. I lost more than I gained in 2008.

Yes, I am down. I am very down. I hope 2009 is an improvement. I usually fight and put on the face of someone who does not give up or let "it" get me down. I do not have what it takes right now to fight and I am very tired. I ask for permission to be sad and feel defeated.