Sick, Broke and Scared

I'll try to be brief, as this pathetic story is hardly unfamiliar to regular readers at this point.

I'm still recovering from the ailments that landed me in the hospital again recently. I continue to be exhausted, and I spend most of my time sleeping or lying in bed, unable to perform even simple tasks around the apartment. It may be that the exhaustion and weakness are inevitable aspects of a "normal" recovery process, but some symptoms are causing me to wonder about that. It would be helpful to have access to semi-decent, ongoing medical care; since I have no money and no insurance, that's not an option for me. So I'm left to wonder about what exactly may be going on.

By the end of next week, I'll have to pay the April rent, electric and telephone bills, plus a few additional outstanding bills. And I'll need to get two prescriptions refilled. One of them costs $200. Yes: $200 per month (30 pills, one a day). Thanks to some very kind individuals who have sent in donations recently (a multitude of thanks, as always), I have a little less than half of the rent. That's all I have.

Given my health problems over the last few years, and especially since I've had to call 911 twice now, I'm not particularly frightened of dying. I'm deeply unhappy (which can frequently be read as: murderously angry) that I'll certainly die ten to fifteen years earlier than I might if I had regular medical care, but I'm pretty much resigned to that. If I manage to make it to the beginning of May, I'll be 63. These days, that seems a little young for such concerns. These days, of course, more and more people find themselves in similar circumstances (and much worse), to say nothing of all those people who are maimed or murdered at much younger ages thanks to all the missiles and bombs our beneficent government drops around the world.

So dying itself doesn't bother me all that much. What does bother me is the thought that I might spend my last month or two homeless on the street, together with related concerns about what will happen to my cats. I guess this is the time I have to seriously think about finding new homes for them. I still don't know if I can bear to do that, which is a weakness on my part that I'm beginning to despise. My only solace is that I know I won't last for long on the street, so it should be over very quickly. Still, the specter of homelessness is the one that deeply unnerves me.

Well, that's the happy news here. Obviously, I could use some help. I still want/hope to complete some long-planned articles; if I get a little more strength back, I'll turn my attention to them. The few recent posts that have appeared here burst forth because of the outrage I was feeling about current events. The other articles awaiting completion are considerably more complicated and require that I hold a lot of information in my head. At the moment, I simply can't do it, try as I might.

I'm deeply grateful for any support you might be able to provide, especially in these increasingly uncertain times. Christ, this is depressing. All right, I'd better stop here.

Many, many thanks for your consideration.