My Lowest Point

Funny, the lowest point of this entire process was not with the illness but with the finances.

For two years, State Disability Insurance paid 2/3 of my income and my sick pay covered the difference. The long-term disability insurance policy was to kick in during year three. As written in a previous blog, that didn’t happen.

My monthly long-term disability insurance check arrived on November 1, 2007. On November 15^th, we were told that it would be our last check. No more income.

Michael had left a job when it became a problem taking me to doctor’s appointments and staying with me in the hospital for the various surgeries and emergency room visits. In the meantime, he was trying to open a small shop where he could generate some income and come and go without the threat of being fired.

We had no income.

That was my lowest point. It was the second time I cried during this whole process. It was such a hopeless feeling.

Earlier that year, my aunt had been under hospice care suffering with Parkinson’s disease. At one point, I mentioned the concern of her hiding drugs to commit suicide. The wonderful hospice nurse told me that if a patient commits suicide, it most often happens when they realize the impact of their illness – financially and emotionally – on their relatives. It is earlier in the process of the illness.

That made no sense to me. Why would one commit suicide and miss the final years with the people they loved?

After we receive notification that there would be no more income, this conversation re-played in my brain. Don’t worry, dear reader, I cannot commit suicide. I have just enough Catholic religion in me to fear the afterlife following suicide.

But I got it.

I got what the hospice nurse said. It made sense to ‘exit stage left’ at that point, not cause any more stress to Michael, not make us spend copious dollars on long lists of medicines that we could not afford, or not waste any more of the doctors time. It is a fatal illness. Why prolong the agony?

It was a really bad few days. I re-arranged some retirement funds (who’s going to live to retirement anyway?) and we were covered within a few weeks.

That was my lowest point.

Next: Money and Relatives