Rejuvenating Jeff

In more than half a century as a professional writer and editor, I’ve composed pieces on a vast array of subjects, from sports to the arts to education to medicine to politics to journalism itself. I’ve never written a piece like this before.

That’s because, in my 75 years of life, I’ve never before gone through anything remotely resembling what I’ve been going through since late last spring, when I first began feeling ill. I had four major abdominal operations in less than a month, the last three in eight days, and now I’m broke and too wiped out to work most of the time. That’s the short version.

The longer story begins with my learning that my illness was caused by a huge mass blocking my colon. It turned out to be a diverticular stricture, a fairly rare and very serious condition but not the cancer the doctors had all but assumed it was. My relief soon dissipated in that siege of surgery. The last two operations were emergency procedures to correct mistakes that were made in the preceding operation. The fourth lasted seven and a half hours and, when it was over, I was minus my spleen.

After five and a half weeks in the hospital and eight days in a rehab facility, I came home to a demanding regimen of self-care. More than three months after my last operation, I’m only functioning at about 50% of what I still think of as normal. To twist the familiar saying, what my mind can conceive, my body can’t achieve. I’m in bed, if not necessarily asleep, 11 or 12 hours a day.

This all might be inconvenient but manageable for someone who’s financially comfortable or has a spouse. But I’m not and I don’t, and for a gig worker – I’ve been a free-lancer for 27 years – it’s potentially fatal.

My fixed income is about half of what I need to live on. I depended on work revenue to provide the other half. Doing what I need to do for my recovery and taking care of my household leave little or no energy for producing that income.

Adding to the pressure are considerable medical expenses and the fact that I’m facing at least one more operation, probably early next year, which means several more days in the hospital and four to six more weeks of recovery.

I need to buy time. I figure I’ll need a year to get back on my feet physically and professionally. $20,000 should do the trick. I don’t know what else to try. And I’m grateful to you for considering a gift to “Rejuvenating Jeff.”