Hard Times

First of all, I'm so upset that there will be no post on my blog dated October 15, 2010. I got taken out by a shower. I had this post mapped out in my brain and as a result of them taking a tad too much fluid off me at dialysis yesterday morning, I started getting leg cramps last night.

I used to be able to take quinine for them, but they aren't allowed to prescribe it in the U.S. anymore, unless you have malaria. So for me, a hot shower is the only thing that will relax my muscles.

Yesterday was a monumental day for me. It was the first time in MONTHS that I had a full paycheck.

2010 has been hard for me financially. I've never been real disciplined at paying my bills on time, it's a lesson I'm learning at my late age. (BTW it floors me that my sister got this lesson growing up, but I didn't. What's that about?) This was the year though that my son turned 18 and I chose to release his biological from financial support because I just don't want to deal with him in any capacity anymore. He's never chosen to be a part of his life (though his much of his family has)and good riddance.

I didn't forsee my employer forcing us to take furlough days. What is a furlough day? It's a day that they force you to take off work, without pay, so they can save money. It balanced out to roughly about $150 a paycheck. OUCH, right?

Well it also happens that I have a shitload of medical bills that I can't keep up with, though I have insurance (did you know it costs roughly $35,000 per dialysis treatment and most patients dialyze 3 times a week? For me, each of those treatments comes with a $50 co-pay) and right around the time I was hit with furloughs, I was also garnished for those medical bills.

So we're talking between the three, a loss of about $1160 a month on a single mom and things got tighter than a small t-shirt on Wendy Williams.

Oh, did I mention that the week before all this hit, my transmission went out and I had to take a loan out just for the $1700 repair?

Well, ya'll couldn't tell, because that's what I do, but I hit rock fucking bottom this past week.

I finally had to make the mama sacrifices that I thought I'd never have to make. I put my kidney diet aside and ate a lot of oatmeal, so my kids could eat meat. I skipped lunch, so there would be something for dinner. I ate one hamburger and used one piece of bread, so there would be enough to last til Thursday night.

I dug through my dresser drawers for loose change, so I could put $5.50 in my gas tank.

I stole a roll of toilet paper from work, so we had enough to last til payday.

I lived for one week, how people lived through The Great Depression, except it's the year 2010 and I have a "good gubment job".

I was in hallelujah mode all day, but I realized that if I'm going through this with a "good gubment job", there are people out there who don't even have a chance.

These are the kinds of things we need to think about when we go to the polls. Voting is the single free thing that we can do to make a difference. We need more than Obama being president, to turn this economy around.

One thing for sure, we need to learn how to pray again, because that right there is the ONLY way many of us are going to survive.