My Unexpected Life Hurdle

I'll start of by saying that I'm a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, the number one stressful job in the whole country. I have stood my watch over our beautiful country for almost five years and deployed over seas twice once being a combat deployment in a hazard zone. My bad luck starts with a herniated a disc in my back putting pressure on my S5 to L1 nerve root doing augmented combat operations training back in July of 2016. This left me in agonizing pain, I don't think I've ever seen a Marine cry, but this definitely had me in tears. After being rushed to the hospital all they could do is start my heavy narcotic medication regiment until they could get me into surgery about a month later. During the month until the upcoming neurosurgery I was bedridden in extreme pain and sedated to sleep because of the heavy narcotics that I was and still am on. During this time I was also informed that I would not be able to deploy for my third tour because of my injury, adding to my already high level of stress seeing as this woukd be my final deployment before joining the civilian workforce. This deployment would be my last opportunity to be able to save money in order to have a leg to stand on once out of the Marine Corps. But that wasn't all, because of this injury I was also informed by doctors that there was a chance that I could stay in this shape for the rest of my life. That would mean no lifting anything over my head, no lifting more than 10 pounds, no bending over, no prolonged standing, no prolonged sitting, no walking more than 300 yards, no running, no jumping, no swimming and no twisting. All of this would of course add or more like take away from my sleep which was already about 4-5 hours a night all while under the effects of the many medications I am taking. I'm sure you can understand how heavily this limits my options when it comes to finding a job outside of the Marine Corps. When the surgery finally came and my hopes for going back to my normal life were at an all time high, God had a different plan for me because shortly after the post operation recovery process my hopes were crushed with a re-herniation of the same disc. So now with the re-herniation they put me under the knife for a second time, and with no change they put me under for a third time. Now here I am, three neurosurgeries later with nerve damage from the disc herniations, nerve damage that leaves parts of my right leg hyper sensitive to any type of touch, meaning the touch of a feather on the ball of my foot feels like a hot knife cutting flesh. So now after suffering from extreme depression and now pain for several months I decided to take some well deserved leave(vacation) and go home to see my family and friends during the holidays, this took up most of my savings. After I came back from this short vacation I found out that my wife of four years had been having an emotional affair with one of my very good friends and respected colleague from work. So I'm sure you can imagine what that did not only to my psychological state but my depression and anxiety levels. So soon after being submitted into the hospital for attempting to end my life I decided that I couldn't spend time here in San Diego together with her until I got a hold of myself again so I bought another plane ticket and went home again. While home I still tried make my marriage work but through that process I learned that the emotional affair with my friend wasn't the only thing that had occurred without my knowing. My wife had also had a physical affair with a friend from school, which ironically was also an Marine, so much for brotherhood am I right? So I spent the rest of my time at home with family and friends trying to get a hold of my life and think about what to do for the future. Unfortunately being married means I live outside of the barracks, which is where single Marines live for free. Out here in California rent is not cheap by any means, I am currently paying $2,100 for one months rent on a two bedroom apartment, which in reality looks like a studio. After a few months of being back in California and living here practically alone, and paying bills after bills on a mere Corporals pay which is not much in relative terms let me tell you, I have acquired more debt than I can handle. Everything included is close to $18k but I'm not here to have people solve my problems, I'm here merely to ask for some help in order to get my life back on track. Since after all this debt and pain and stress I wanted to simply go home for a couple weeks to try to de-stress and forget for just a bit about all the problems that I currently have going on in my life. But since I am injured or how the Marine Corps likes to put it "broken" I am being medically separated and this takes time. So my time in this beautiful Corps was supposed to be done in August 19 but my medical paperwork wont get processed for another six to nine months I was called back to California from Michigan 4 days after I arrived. Let me just say that same day plane tickets are not cheap by any means necessary, especially almost coast to coast plane tickets. So if it hadn't been for this series of unfortunate events, I would still be broke but I would at least have enough money to pay all my bills. Trust me when I say that there is a whole lot more that I can sit here and talk to you about regarding how I ended up in this situation, but I'm not here to waste your time, hopefully you've taken the time to read even this far. All I'm asking is that you find it in your heart to help this service member out. I've paid for the national security of everyone in this country with my being and my future, my relationship and even came close to cashing in the check called life. Literally anything helps. Please even if you personally can't donate to this cause, share this amongst your friends and family it would really help this Marine out. Semper Fidelis everyone and have a blessed and fully successful life for those of us who will never have the opportunity to do so. Rah.



-Cpl Cano, Sergio
Aviation Mechanic USMC