I skipped a month. For the last eight years, I have posted on this blog at least once a month. I did so because I enjoyed it. I loved crafting my thoughts and feelings into words and phrases. I still do. But for the last several months, perhaps even longer, I have been struggling to …
June 13th, 2009 began as an ordinary day. There was perhaps a little extra excitement as I drove to a Giants game, expecting an evening of baseball and beer. Then everything changed. That day, my world was turned upside down. My life—everything that I had created for myself, all of my future aspirations—began to fall …
This year has been one long push. It began with selling our house in Tuolumne and finding a new one in Vallejo. My health hadn’t been so good in 2021, but by February of 2022, I found myself taking my first long road trip in a decade, even using some of my limited strength to …
I love the holidays for many reasons. They give me an excuse to eat as much of just about anything as I want. The holidays also involve simultaneous gift giving and gift receiving, which is always a good thing. They even give me a feeling of timelessness, as if the magical season will last forever. …
It’s that time of year again—time for carving pumpkins, picking Halloween costumes, and eating lots and lots of candy. But it’s also time for something else, something unique to the chronic illness and disability communities, something far more sinister and frightening than your neighborhood haunted house. I’m talking about the October Slide, a spooky phenomenon …
My nightmare began with a phone call. The IHSS caseworker was calling to do an intake interview after I moved from Tuolumne County to Solano County earlier this year. I wrote about the experience back in July, but I left out some of the details because the situation was still in progress, and I feared …
Disability Benefits (And Other Things That Keep me up at Night) Read More »
It’s eight in the morning and I haven’t slept yet. In one corner of my room, I can hear the low rattle of my desktop mini fridge. In another corner, I can see the piercing green light from my air purifier. These, among other things, do not help me sleep. After more than a full …
The last few months have been rough. If you follow me on social media, then you know that I have been going through a brutal intake interview for In-Home Supportive Services, which provides me with caregiving hours. You may also know that the intake interview did not go well. I’m in the process of appealing …
In the summer of 2019, I was gearing up for my book launch the following January. After years of trying to get my memoir, When Force Meets Fate, published by a big publisher, I decided to take a hybrid approach and publish the book through Inkshares, an indie publisher. After selling more than 750 pre-orders, …
In the more than a decade that I’ve been sick, I’ve experienced just about every level of my illness. At various times, I’ve been near death. At other times, I’ve been well enough to function almost like a healthy person. I’ve also been stuck in the middle, as I am now, wondering what will happen …