The First Challenge

Last week seemed to be the week for bad news in our house. Not only did the tax deal pass, without any help for the 99ers, or any real, tangible plan to create jobs, included; but we also found out that my husband is going to need another major surgery - soon.

This will be his third surgery in a year. First there was the sextuple bypass surgery last February. Then there was the aneurysm repair at the end of April. There was also a third hospitalization beginning on Thanksgiving day for a bleeding ulcer. As we learned last week, the ulcer was caused by three tumors on the outer wall of his stomach. Those tumors are the reason he will need another operation - which is likely to take place some time in late January or early February (depending on when they get all the testing and preparation done). If the surgery is done before February 12, it will be the third in exactly one year's time.

Complicating all surgeries is the fact that my husband is a hemophiliac. He's also diabetic, and has other complications like diverticulosis, anemia, sleep apnea, and acid reflux. So the idea of surgery is always a very scary prospect. The fact that this must be an open surgery (can't be done laparoscopically) just makes it all the more daunting. Even if we assume that everything goes perfectly (and I refuse to consider any other possibility), he is facing a long and very painful recovery.

Yes, I know what I'm not talking about. Naturally, there is a risk for "the big C". At the moment the GI doctor thinks the tumors are benign, and I'm fervently hoping he's right about that. We won't know until they are removed though, as doing a biopsy would have posed too much of a bleeding risk. So for now we just don't know, but we can hope - and I plan to cling to that hope until I'm given a reason not to.

Of course, this presents a huge problem for us financially as well. We are already in debt to the hospital for well over $9,000 in copayments from his first two surgeries (after Medicare paid its share). That's not counting the bill for the most recent hospitalization, which hasn't come in yet - or the charges that will be added for the new surgery. That's also not counting what we pay out in copayments to his doctors and for his medications. And, of course, I'm a 99er. Our monthly income has been cut by about 60% from when I was working 2 years ago, first by the drop from a salary to unemployment, and now by the loss of the unemployment as well. All we have left now is my husband's disability check.

It's so easy for those who have jobs or substantial incomes to say "just get a job", but they haven't walked a mile in our shoes. They haven't sent out hundreds of resumes and applications, only to have most of them ignored. They haven't been told over and over again that they are "overqualified" to do the job they've done all their lives. They haven't had to figure out how to find and keep a job while also being the sole caretaker for a seriously ill spouse. They haven't had to face the reality that the care they give that spouse is not considered "work" or worthy of compensation - even though the insurers and government programs would gladly pay a total stranger to do the same job (but with less compassion or conscientiousness, because it's not their family member).

The coming year is going to be one of the biggest challenges of our lives. Somehow I have to get both of us through the medical nightmare that is about to begin, while also keeping us afloat financially - all without a job and without any help from unemployment or the state.

The other day a friend posted a question on her Facebook page about what New Year's resolutions we were making. My answer was simple: I resolve that my husband and I will survive 2011. I have no idea how, or where we will be in 12 months, but if both of us are still breathing, still standing, and still together, that will be a "win".