Dawn.....

New dedication

The last two weeks have been horrifying for me. I've been utterly and completely terrified at the possibility that I might have been developing cancer, and also scared of the possibility of having an ulcer. Fortunately, it turns out that I'm fine. Worst case scenario, I'll be glued to a daily dose of Prilosec OTC for the rest of my days. Best case scenario, they took a biopsy to check for a bacteria that, when erradicated, would likely eliminate my Acid Reflux!

So good news abounds!

But I've been through the emotional ringer during the last two weeks. There's a lot to cover, so bear with me. But you know that savings that I had acrued in case of emergencies? Well, that's mostly gone, and I have less than $100 in my savings at this point. So how did that happen, and what am I gonna do about it?

Monday, Occtober 17th, 2011.

I start having pains in my abdomen that felt like rocks moving through my intestines. This happening spurred Laura to state her concern about the possibility of an Ulcer, and urged me to get my reflux checked. This started during my last hour at my day job that day, the same day that I was asked to take on a new task at my day job, and I was really excited about that. That was very short lived with this new concern about my health. It was made known to me that it could lead to esophagial cancer, which is extremely untreatable and has a very low survival rating, so I called off work the next day and found a General Practitioner.

The first distressing thing to me was the loss of one day of income. I'm trying to stay on a certain track, and it wasn't very comforting to know that I was losing a day's wages to go spend money at a doctor when I have no insurance! Then, the doctor started expressing concern that I'd never had a Gastroscopy done to examine the depth of my reflux damage. He confirmed my fear that it could become cancerous, and wanted to have me checked a.s.a.p. for Barrett's Esophagus or for Esophageal Cancer. I started getting worried about the prospect of dying, rather than having a mildly annoying condition! Naturally, this stressed me out immensly!

So after paying $50 out of pocket (bear in mind that I don't make all that much money right now) and losing one day's wages, I found myself worried about money and death. Not a good combination. The doc then called the Smith Clinic in Marion to schedule an appointment with a gastroenterologist. The appointment was scheduled for 8:30am the following morning, which meant that I'd be missing another day's wages. Then I found out that the Smith Clinic wanted $100 down to be seen. So I was missing two days wages, paid $150 out of pocket, and was worried about cancer! Not a good day.

I went to the Smith Clinic expecting to have the Gastroscopy that day, but was informed that I was mainly there to be evaluated by the doctor to see if it was necessary. I found out at this visit that I was about to incur a $2000 (approximated) out of pocket medical expense to resolve all of this because I don't have insurance. They scheduled the Gastroscopy for yesterday, which meant that after missing two days of work last week, I was going to miss at least one day this week too. My finances were taking a major hit and I was worrying about death.

After finding out how much they would be charging for this procedure, I spoke to the financial department about the down payment costs for this procedure. They wanted $150 down to cover the doctors fee, and $250 down for the facility. This would leave me with about $1600 to pay out of pocket, but with rent due I wasn't sure I could swing the $400 down since I had missed so much work! So now I was worried about death, money, and keeping a roof over my head, all in the span of about 36 hours!

There was no question, I needed the money I had saved. I had $600 in savings, and I took out $550. $150 to cover the doctor bills I'd already paid out of pocket, and $400 to pay for the procedure's down payment. I decided to keep the scheduled appointment, because if I did have some form of cancer developing I'd much rather catch it now and be in debt than to postpone it and it be too late. That's one lesson from Steve Jobs, catch it early and treat it early. When applying the "what's the worst that can happen" scenario, I'll take homelessness over death.

I found myself in a bit of a numb panic. I left the Smith Clinic that day, bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, and drank myself into oblivion. I could have salvaged 1/2 of my work day, but there was no way I could focus on work after the mountain of worry that had just been piled up. I'm not much of a drinker anymore, it's a very rare occurance, but this seemed the best course of action at the time. I regretted it later when I was hungover by 7pm that day........

The next few days I found myself constantly on the razors edge. I found myself wondering what would happen if I didn't make it to 33? I found myself not being satisfied with the accumulation of my lifes work thus far, and feeling ashamed as though I had wasted my time thus far. I found myself regretting things I had done earlier this year while I was trying to figure myself out, and wandering how in the hell I would pay for any of the possibly insane medical expenses that could be approaching. I found myself considering illegal activities to generate the money to pay my medical bills (can you say Breaking Bad? LOL!), considering what I could sell to pay my bills, and trying to figure out how I could generate some business for the studio quickly. I got really pissed off at a colleague who has taken the last 3 weeks to get me the payment for a gig that I played (I still haven't recieved it, and I do take that personally since I did put in lots of effort to promote that show and was now DESPARATE for cash.....I won't name names, but since I haven't recieved the money and doubt that I will.....right here, buddy!)

So to recap, I had drained my meager savings, was worried about dying, was worried about losing my home, was worried about collecting money owed to me, all in the span of a couple of days! I was a bit of a wreck. All this was going on while I was trying to wrap up some recording projects, worried about midterms week, and worried about making myself look bad at work by missing 1/2 of my work week THE DAY AFTER being asked to take on more responsibility! There almost wasn't a single facet of my life that wasn't putting pressure on me in some way. I was about to snap.

The weekend brought some solace. Sunday I did a touch-up session with Enemy By Mourning to cap off their album. It's rounding 3rd, and should be done as soon as I can find the time. It was a hell of a lot of fun to hang with them all day and talk shop, while working on their album! It's gonna be a killer record when it's done, and I'm INSANELY proud of the work we've been doing. I needed that session.

I also did some mentoring with my two protoge's, Michael Aylor and Brian Henken, who were there to observe the Enemy By Mourning session. They provided some background vocal on the song "On With The Show", which was needed as we needed as many voices as we could muster for the song. After EBM left, I discussed some audio principals with the protege's, and then got to my homework. I had a midterm due that night, and when that was done I continued my self distraction by doing some mixing work. It was a good distraction, and even though the day was long, it was great to stop worrying about the big "what if" for a bit.

.....but it didn't last long.....

Tuesday, everything came to a personal head.

I think I've been over-stressing myself about all of this, and my stomach hasn't been liking me very much as a result. Tuesday was a very bad stomach day. I actually left work 40 minutes early because of my stomach. I also had a test due at 9:00 that night, so this would give me a chance to decompress before taking the test and allow me to hopefully let my stomach settle.

But my car had other plans.

I leave work, and my battery is dead. When I say dead, I mean it melted my jumper cables because it was incapable of even HOLDING a charge! I started a downward spiral mentally, just wondering what the fuck could go wrong next. I had just taken my savings out to spend on the doctor bill, believing that rent was going to be $300 short and a week late. But I drive a 2005 Dodge Stratus, and replacing a battery in one of those is a hassle. I want to shoot the designer. I had to tow the car to the nearest NTB location, which cost me $40, then pay $160 to have the battery replaced and installed. They had to remove the front tire to access the battery! Whoever thought this was a good place for a battery should be drawn and quartered!

So essentially, I found myself doing the math, and only having $100 to pay in a few days toward my $600 rent. I started to panic, and just about fell apart. It was not a good day to be me.

Flash forward to Wednesday morning. Things started to look a bit better. I called the Marion Area Health Center, and they told me they'd wave their $250 down that I had to pay because of my situation, which meant that I was only going to have to pay $150 to the doctor on the day of the procedure! This was a HUGE relief!

Then around lunch time, I got a call from the Marion Area Health Center, it was a pre-procedure screening. They informed me that I'd be asleep during the process, which I've never had done before and it freaked me out. I'm a wimp, I know, but I hate needles and I've heard that some people don't wake up from anesthetic. I was scared. I was afraid of what they'd find. I was afraid that the anesthetic would wear off and I'd wake up mid-procedure. I was afraid that I'd not wake up at all......

Laura spent the evening with me on Wednesday, and instead of working on school work like we normally do on Wednesdays, I spent it trying to relax. It had been one thing after another and I was on the edge. I was mentally exhausted, and I evidently passed out before she left. She didn't wanna wake me, so she let herself out.

I woke up at 5:30am to find her gone, and I'm starving. Now they said I couldn't eat solid food after midnight, but I could have something liquid up to 6 hours before the procedure. The procedure was at noon, so I go to make a protien shake so that my stomach will stop grumbling. When I get downstairs, it's freezing cold. So I go to turn up the thermostat, only to find that the heat wasn't coming on. After the car problems, the money problems, the worrying about my own demise, and everything else, now my furnace wasn't working! I look outside, and there was no tag on my door, so I knew they hadn't shut me off for some reason. So i went back to bed and said to hell with it, I was going to worry about this one later. Luckily, it was just that the pilot light had gone out, and it was an easy fix, but I didn't worry about it til after the procedure. While I'm halfway doped up is probably not the safest time to deal with natural gas, but hey......

Anyway, I wake up to Laura coming in at around 11:45am, and hop in the shower. We head to the procedure, and they take me back. You can read my post about the procedure that I posted last night as the anesthetic was wearing off to read about what happened. But after it was over, and I realized I was going to be ok, it was a HUGE sigh of relief!

Another great sigh of relief was the fact that they NEVER ASKED ME FOR THE DOWN PAYMENT! I'll have to pay it when I'm billed later, but they never took my payment on the day of the procedure, so all of the money that I took out of savings is now available to pay my rent! It's gonna be a tight few weeks financially, but I'll keep a roof over my head, which is a good thing!

So let's reflect. I've been through the ringer emotionally, physically, financially, and in almost every other way this year. It's been a trying year. But as 2011 is coming to a close, I'm starting to reflect on this roller coaster of a year. I'm realizing that this year seemed to strip away my immaturity, re-dedicate myself to success, and help me appreciate the personal relationships that are right in front of me. I feel like I've never had my resolve challenged as an adult, but this year changed all of it. This year has been a character building year for me, and I know that after this last week of feeling like I'd hit rock bottom, that I'll be ok no matter what comes my way. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff anymore, cause it seems to work itself out. Instead, I'm going to take chances (what's the worst that can happen?!), work hard (there's only one way to build a better life for myself, it's certainly NOT going to be handed to me), and count my blessings (there have been a number of kindnesses this year that I don't deserve and cannot repay, without them I'd surely have collapsed.....I need to always remember that). I feel like I'm a totally different person in every way than I was in October 2010 when Sarah started showing signs of doubt in our relationship. I'm a more dedicated person than I was in the months that followed when I was hanging to sanity by a thread. I have weathered a hell of a storm this year, and I'm trying to find the strength to learn the lessons that are in front of me to be learned, and carry them through the rest of my life.

This is the dawning of a new era in my life.