Health and Caring

Health care is a huge issue today.  I'm just about done with addressing the political issue, because the die has been cast and what I predicted back in June is about to happen.  No, my interest in health issues is personal.  Health and women.  Kylie has been sick for two weeks now.  She's been to student health twice and the ER once.  She finally was prescribed anti-biotics at the ER.  She has bronchitis and ear infections.  She does not seem to be getting better.  I am out of ideas as to what to do.  I don't understand why she's not getting any better.  It is screwing our life.  She hasn't had any exercise for two weeks.  We have to freaking drive everywhere.  She is missing classes, lacking energy for school work, and just had to give up her shifts at work this weekend.  There's a loss of $100 we cannot afford.  It's also a black cloud pressing down on her mood -- understandably.  It's just one more thing to deal with.

Finances.  The car payment is coming due in 10 days and we still haven't paid last month's.  The electric bill just arrived and we still haven't paid last month's.  We paid the August bill a week or so ago, just before the cutoff notice expired.  And the state is paying me for my legal work in droplets of money too small to matter.  I need thousands, and they are sending me a couple hundred here and there.  We are in danger of losing everything.  It has been this way since late July.  We ran out of money around July 15 and have been slowly going under ever since.  I thought it would be better now.  "It will be better in September," I said.  Well, $900 of my August work got continued to October and could not be billed.  So that's money not coming this month.  And all my August billings were in the second half of the month.  The state is not paying me two weeks out like they were earlier in the year.  No, it's at least a month out.  That means pretty much nothing has come in over the last two weeks.

At least Kylie got financial aid.  School is paid for.

At least I know that I have work for 2010.  I already have 10 duty days for Richmond and 7 or 8 for Chesterfield.  I will get four or so for New Kent/Charles City when they do theirs.  I have an income for 2010.  Just not enough.  And the frigging economy is even hurting referees.  Fewer teams are signing up for soccer tournaments, which means fewer games to ref.  Because there are no jobs for teenagers, high school and college students are signing up in droves to be referees.  And because nobody has money, fewer referees are quitting.  So there are more of us competing for fewer games.

Just my luck.  I graduate law school during the worst employment market for law school graduates in 40 years.  It rebounds a few years later, but too late for me.  I enter teaching school to switch careers just as the wave of people switching into teaching happens because we all have been hearing about the teacher shortage for years.  Teacher glut -- especially high school social studies, which is all I can get certified for.  So everywhere I apply for work, the principal has a thick file of applications, many from experienced teachers.  Now that I am a referee, the economy goes bust and the normal acute referee shortage turns into a referee glut.

All of this is placing great strain on us, and on our relationship.  We are both weighed down by the financial issues.  She feels like crap.  I am worried about her.  She is scared of failing in school.  I am weary from constantly having to be supportive.  And then there's my daughter.

My ex-wife is apparently dying.  Not officially "dying" as in told she has a terminal illness and has only so much time to live, but physically falling apart and on lots of medication.  Let's just say she's blowing up the actuarial tables for her health insurance group.  She had a brain tumor on her pituitary gland for two or three years.  It spread into her nasal cavity.  It was making her blind.  She was almost completely blind, and was driving my daughter around, and never told me until the surgery was imminent.  The surgery removed the golf ball pressing down on the gland, but they have to use chemo or radiation on the nasal strands.  Apparently, while her eyesight is back, her health is failing all over the place.  She's very sick and very scared, and the brain tumor will probably come back.  From my research, most do, especially when they were big or aggressive.

Next year my daughter goes to middle school.  My son goes into the Army in December, although I have my suspicions that he is going to back out of that.  If he goes to the Army, who will take care of his mother?  Who will take care of his sister under her auspices so that her father can't get her?  I suspect that a combination of the need to take care of his mother combined with his native fears and laziness will cause him to drop out of TCC and sabotage the Army enlistment.  And his mother will let him.  Kylie and I think my daughter should live with us next year.  And that prospect scares Kylie shitless.  I understand.  A step-mother at 21, being the acting mommy for an adolescent while her mother withers away.  Scares me.

So yeah, life is a chore right now.  Those are only some of the stressors we are under.  Probably the biggest, but I'm sure there are a couple big ones not coming to mind at the moment.  That's all right -- I don't need to think about all of them at the same time.

I have a book idea I think has merit.  I am going to try to follow through on this one.  It contains an old idea.  It will be an epic (do I write anything else?).  It will be set 25 years in the future.  It will have three strands: in one strand a huge female celebrity (her celebrity is huge, not she) and a regular guy fall in love.  This strand will explore social-cultural issues such as narcissism, gender issues, personal success and failure, loneliness and attachment, depression and happiness.  In the second strand, a group of friends form a political movement that turns into a popular revolution.  It is an electoral revolution with mass movement, violence and chaos occurs, and these four friends wind up running the executive branch and putting their program into action.  In the third strand, a young mystic ignites a new religious movement through his earnest re-examinations.  All of this is narrated by a 110-year-old man who brings a historical perspective to the story.  The narrator will tie together parts of the story told through different "media."  I want to combine a sweet romance with an exploration of cultural, social and political issues, inside of a philosophical quest.  And I want it done in three years.

Refereeing today, then driving my daughter home.  Nice four hour drive for me.  Kylie would probably come, but I want her to stay home and rest.

Check out the slideshow.  It's all our work.