Help with expenses after cancer diagnosis

Dire Straits

The term originates in seafaring when ships were in narrow channels between land masses where one wrong move could be disastrous. It seems like as good an analogy as any when describing my financial situation. TL;DR: Lost job due to COVID, run of bad luck including death in family, loss of savings, cancer diagnosis, you know, life in general kicking you in the teeth. Currently putting up a go fund me, would rather have a job.

I don't like to put my business out there, but sometimes we do things we don't like in order to get by. I started an I T company with my fiancée, Lisa, in 2013. It began as a way to work after leaving employment as system administrator for eight schools in the county through a contractor. It was an introduction to political bullshit, as the situation came about after I failed to kiss the arse of the principal of a school I was working at with another tech. We struggled for a while working mainly as freelancers, but found enough work to hire a few others as contractors for us. Then I found out that I am one hell of a tech, one of the best in the state, but not much of a marketing person. Eventually all of the techs except one found different employment and I got a good contract as a network field engineer.

While I was in school for my networking degree, I became interested in security and asked the professor how to get into the field. I was following his advice; I had been volunteering to help at security conferences and found a local hacker group. About six months into the new one year contract they cut all our travel to bare necessities and had us working remotely watching the ticket q (I refuse to spell out all the silent letters) in effect increasing the service desk capabilities. Then COVID hit and everyone was working from home, first until the end of the year, then next year possibly longer. During that time, they realized that they were paying me way too much to be not going into the field and they let me go, two and a half years into a one year contract. Not too shabby.

It wasn't a terrible thing because I still had the company and all the other freelance work is still there, but about four months prior to that my ex wife, my son's mother who was a very close friend because of it, died suddenly while he was staying at his grandmother's helping her recover from surgery. I had taken on helping out with the farm and final expenses so had depleted my savings substantially. We had a small fund set aside for paying our taxes so that we could finally have that out of the way, but that had to take a back seat to life. Times were lean, but we had the cushion in savings and work was starting to come back to what it was before I took the contract, but it was COVID season, and even though I was fully vaccinated, I didn't want to bring it back home.

Then Lisa told me I should take a physical. I have no insurance, but since I get 20% disability, the VA is my health care provider. The doc was going over the results and said the PSA was a little elevated, not above the threshold, but close. He did a prostrate exam and felt a small lesion and referred me to a VA urologist. This was in May. She confirmed it, said it was so small she was surprised that he felt it. She laid out the course of action; watch it, get an MRI, or get a biopsy, and asked what I wanted to do. I told her the same thing I usually say: "What would you do if it were you?" I am great at what I do; right now computer networking and repair, but I have a lot of prior skills. Urology is not one of them, nor is any other medical field other than combat lifesaver. She consulted with another doc and said she recommended the biopsy, so I scheduled it. The VA didn't have that kind of machine, so I had to go to a local hospital. This was in June. They scheduled the MRI for 28 Aug, and the results came back as P4 on a scale of P1 - P5.

Now I needed that biopsy. The soonest they had was 14 Oct. On 13 Oct they called and said the machine was broken and they were going to get me in as soon as they could. On 20 Oct they called and asked me for a pre screen for my appointment. When I asked when the appointment was, they said tomorrow. Since I had a job scheduled, I had to cancel. I asked them to please call me before scheduling it to make sure I wasn't working, or at the very least give me a few days' notice. This happened twice more before I got mad and called the VA. I had the appointment two days after I called, which ended up being on 9 Dec, six months after the doc found the lesion. So much for early detection.

Just had the consultation with the doc who did the biopsy, one of the best doctors I have had. After he told us, Lisa and I, it was cancer, he was surprised that I was excited and happy, until I told him about how that would prove my disability claim for Desert Storm syndrome and net me around $60k back pay (I later found out that not only would this not count for back pay, it may not be covered at all, typical I guess). He was very optimistic about my prognosis, gave me better than 95% chance of survival, but I have to get my prostate removed. After explaining everything, he asked me what I wanted to do, so I told him what I told the other urologist, and again, it surprised him. I guess, after pondering it for a while, it seems the delays were a good thing. Maybe if they had been prompt, the lesions wouldn't have been cancerous yet. Who knows?

So, while it's been a tough couple of years, it isn't the end of the world, since the ones that are left are doing pretty good otherwise. I actually got another good job after getting my Security + certification, signed the acceptance letter for $73k salary. All I need to do is wait on the secret clearance to come back. The thing is one of the sections covers bills, things on the credit report and such. A big red flag is the past due taxes, it seems they would be ok if I had a payment arrangement, so I went to the website and tried to do that, thinking that if I was paying $100 a month until I got hired, I could finish it up quick since there wasn't that much due. Well surprise, surprise, they didn't let me set up payments; the whole thing came due in November. I remain cautiously optimistic, despite the fact that I just saw an ad for the job I was hired for. It could be another similar job, right? RIGHT?!?

I am going to set up a go fund me for the extra expenses incurred, the back taxes, the student loans (that should have been wiped out due to being a predatory school, but I had already graduated), and all the other expenses I will incur from being off work after the surgery and treatment. I would prefer to have a job with at least $75 salary instead, like in a SOC or NOC. I am very good at what I do I just need the chance to do it more often. Hell, it only took a week of study to pass my Security +, that's what got me the job in the first place. So, if you've got an extra buck or three, I could use it. If you've got or know of a job in a SOC of NOC, I can do it, or sys admin. I also have a degree in leadership so would make an excellent candidate for fast track to management.