FEAR

November; the month of Thanksgiving. (I am thankful that Pinktober is over, and I'm sorry, but it wore me out on the subject of being aware of anything.)

On Facebook, my friends and sisters are posting a thing a day for which they are thankful. I didn't start on the 1st, and thought I could take a pass, but was told I could just list four things today, and catch up.

It's not that I am not grateful. I'm not ungrateful. I realized this morning that my biggest thing, which most may interpret as negativity, is that I live every day in FEAR. Sometimes debilitating fear.

Yes, I have cancer. I have Stage IV cancer. Surprisingly enough, the cancer itself, and even the prognosis, are not the sources of my daily fear.

I live in fear that I will somehow lose my disability through the private company, which supplements my SSDI. They regularly reverify my disability and the stress and fear from that lasts for months. I fear being told I am not disabled, and should go back to work.

I fear daily that I will never make it, financially, to Medicare. I have to have help paying my COBRA every month, for which I am very grateful. I'm at the end of a year right now, and at the out-of-pocket limit, which is good. But I can't afford co-pays still, and prescriptions are a huge chunk of my monthly funds, and right around the corner is January, and a big fat $500 deductible. I am grateful for a relatively small deductible, though, it's only been for the past two years that I've had one at all. So, come the first of the year, I will be paying for COBRA, but not be able to afford to use it because of the deductible. That makes no sense.

Everyday I stress and fear over the bills, and feeding my family. I fear that down the road I could end up losing my house. I fear not being able to put gas in the car.

Are you seeing a theme here? Fear, caused by money issues. Depression, anxiety and fear...not from my condition, not from incurable cancer...but from the lack of money.  I just realized that's what it all boils down to. It's hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel, any break in the near future, any hope in making it another year to qualify for Medicare.

And the bills need to be paid, and we still need to be fed. It's the month to express thanks, and it seems everything I list as something for which I am thankful comes with a caveat that is based in fear and based on finances.

Sorry folks, no great insights there today.