You got it from the title. I need help. I need HELP. Now. I have been unemployed and unemployable for 2.5 years. That's right, years. I shattered my left wrist, and that's pretty much the end of the game, listen to the Fat Lady singing, sort of injury for a violinist. I am fairly certain, with guts and determination, I will be back to my first love. And recently, because of pain, I've been avoiding this site. It's the pain, stupid. And it's the unemployment, the cost of drugs, the pain, lack of income, no disability, no retirement besides Social Security, and medical bills floating up past my eyeballs. And I need help. I need to stop crying. I need to get some work, and therein lies the question.
I've not been commenting on Daily Kos recently. It's been the pain. In the past weeks we have seen the nation on the brink of meltdown. Patrick Fitzgerald did his job, and continues. The fearsome frolics at 1600 Pennsylvania Aveenue continue. Leadership is beginning to emerge after a horrifyingly long hibernation. Voices are being heard. And I couldn't come back with either a diary entry or a pithy one-liner. I couldn't survive the act of writing.
C.S. Lewis discussed the problem of pain. Bill Moyers had spoken and written often about pain. God even has that collection of writings that addresses pain and the surrounding and accompanying life events that spiral downward. And where the spirit is overburdened, we march on.
I have cried for days about the victims of our own chemical warfare and torture in Iraq. I have cried about the survivors of hurricanes. I've wept with families that have lost one so dear to their hearts. Children searching for their parents make me cry. And this is odd for me. Usually I am not a crier. So much is similar to my own situation.
The past weeks have brought home how much damage has been done to this country. And I wish we could all take a long trip in the WayBack Machine to pre-2000 election time. Not gonna happen. At least it would also put me pre-accident along with a country pre-decimation.
The enormity of the national debt has caused me to weep. Children dying in an earthquake where aid is delayed or denied entirely because of the remoteness of their homes, the bad construction of buildings and the absence of potable water. It all is too close to home for me.
The streets of heaven are again overcrowded. By our own hand, or in our name.
And so, persons of good will and character have been slimed, smeared or destroyed in order to gain a few square inches of political real estate. And our collective wealth has been squandered. Depleted. Just like my situation. Demoralized and depleted.
Which brings me to my absence from blogging. Simply put, it is the health care crisis. It's the pain. It's a national debt sized packet of unreimbursed bills.
I have health insurance. I broke my left wrist, shattered it really. I'm a violinist and this is a really, really bad injury. I am running up to two and one half years away from the fracture, and I still can't write without enormous pain. For a while, I tried blogging as a way to find out if I would be able to hold a job.
Blogging is extremely connected to white collar jobs. In any area where I could even qualify for a job, I would have to use my hands. Writing this has again hammered home the gruesome truth that writing on a computer isn't as easy as before. I figured a page or two of text a day, spread out over many hours, would mimic the amount of keyboarding I would have to do in an office. When finished with my "test" page or two, I had to double up on pain meds for 4 days. Thus, for two months I have tried a page of text a week. Same painful result.
I have run through all of my savings. My retirement accounts are down by 50 percent. As I am self-employed so this is a critical loss. Social Security Disability is still months away, if approved. And my wonderful insurance plan has not paid claims. Or those that they didn't have to pay because of the outrageous deductable and out of pocket limits still add up. You see, my own debt is about the same in severity as the national debt run up by W.
So, I am asking for help. Not for charity. No handouts. Just some suggestions. A hand up.
What ideas can you send me about work that I can do that involves no lifting at all. I do still want to get back to violin playing again, and reinjury would sink that possible dream. It may take five years, but, quoting Scarlet O'Hara, "As God is my witness" I will perform on the violin again.
So, to The Question. I am in the neighborhood of middle age. I have a college degree. I can think. I need to make money. Any job ideas out there? I still spend 6 to 8 hours a day working on getting my hand back in shape. It will be long. It will be slow. It will take a lot of determination. I can do that. I can survive on so little after the past 2.5 years.
What can you think of to make it possible for me to earn money? I figure that somebody must have ideas. I am too close to it any more to figure out anything.
Like half of bankruptcy filers, my problem is medical bills and no income. My problem is that the Social Security definition of unable to work for a year as a qualifying indicator of disability has not been honored. And they may never approve my claim. I also take some pretty powerful pain medication daily, in order to function minimally. My flat shows exactly what the term "minimal function" really means.
Please respond with suggestions. I'd like to earn money. I'd like not to be in pain. I'd also like to, simply, be able to function as a part of society. I'd like to have a few good ideas from this community. Thank you for your consideration and suggestions. My brain is no longer able to consider the question without tears.
And, yes I have thought about activating my life insurance policy. However, even in death, I wouldn't have enough to pay my debts. So, I stopped considering that, and have turned around to asking for help.
If this Administration gets any more compassionate about helping those who need a hand up, not a hand out, we will be burying homeless people by the thousands every week.
So I ask. Please send ideas. Only my right hand works. My IT abilities are about what you would expect from a musically gifted, programming idiot type of middle aged person. And due to overuse for the entirety of my recovery from the fracture, my right hand is overused and causing pain too. All suggestions are welcome.