Reply #32: down on the bottom, looking up, with no hope [View All]

so the story goes like this...

-Hubby gets laid off from WorldCom on May 1st, 2002. No one wants to hire a tech worker over 50, with health problems. That is the last time he worked. Then all the jobs he could have done are offshored.

-Spring 2003: We sell the house in the Bay Area, gaining enough to buy outright in rural Northern California.

-I find a job that pays $10/hr with no benefits. I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me.

-Hubby's health heads downhill. He has to go on insulin, and cannot get his glucose levels under control (brittle diabetes). We have to spend down all of our possible retirement money and my small life insurance policy to qualify for rural adult public health assistance. remember, I have no benefits at the job, and Hubby is going into renal failure.

-Fall 2005: Hubby's kidneys finally fail, he goes onto dialysis, and finally qualifies for disability, Medicare, and Medicaid. I quit the stupid job to be a caregiver.

-Summer 2006: We file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Now we have no debts, other than our small mortgage, so we can "live" on the $14K/year that is Hubby's disability payment.

-Fall 2006: Hubby is turned down for a transplant. So this is how we will have to live for the durance of his life. I have minor mental breakdown, eventually getting low-income subsidized therapy thorough County Mental Health.

Our only "asset" is our double-wide manufactured house and the property it sits on. With careful budgeting and help from my family, we don't run out of money at the end of the month. We are thankful for the fact we own and have low house payments; otherwise we might need to visit the food pantry and have to bum rides to get Hubby to all of his doctor appointments.

No, this has not been a good time, and no, we are not having fun yet.