the unfortunate reality part 2

In “the unfortunate reality part 1” I detailed my most recent hospital stay and the despair I was feeling. I can say that several weeks later I am feeling better. The pneumonia seems to be subsiding a bit, as predicted by the doctors. When I first got here I couldn’t handle a flight of stairs but now I am breathing pretty well. I blame the NH air but my blood pressure is down and the edema in my legs, a real killer, has virtually gone away. The kicker is I feel like I can go back to work but I know that if I do I will, eventually, get sick again and I will be back to square one. I am embracing feeling better, it is something I haven’t felt in a long time. But I miss working and the prospect of not working full time again really bothers me. For what has made me better is the absence of stress. And I got stressed from working. But I love to work. Hence my dilemma.

By pursuing disability I have resigned myself to a significantly lower monthly income that basically vaporizes my aspirations of owning a home again. Now it looks like it will be a struggle to just get the family back together at all. SSDI isn’t a very big check. I used to make a pretty good living so it’s a big adjustment.

I miss my family a lot, being this far away requires planning. My last visit, while fun was over-scheduled. It felt like a court ordered visitation.

But I also really miss working. I’m one of those guys whose profession was very integral to his identity. Not my income, I’m not a snob I do not think less of those with less nor do I envy those with more. But I accomplished a lot in my career and I am proud of it. I am not particularly bright, I did not go to a great school or do that well at it and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life (do I now?) for quite a while. What I did do was choose to change my life at great personal risk. I was stuck in a restaurant job where I was going nowhere and I got sick. More on that later. But let’s say that I was recuperating from surgery, I had some time to think and I made the decision to change my life. And that move to a more “professional” job allowed me to climb a ladder that culminated in a real satisfying career. I became a guy who was integral in decisions, people went to for advice and most important I was able to help people. After that job of 9 years ended I never reached that point again, I became just like everyone else. And now I’m not doing anything. This I do know, when I am able to work again (part time of course) it will be something that in some way allows me to help people. That was what made me walk like a man, it was my cape and I loved to let it blow in the wind.