Fork in the Road

Fork in the Road

December 6, 2012

                Yesterday I had an interview with Wells Fargo. Not exactly my dream job, but it’s the job that hopefully fits into this life plan I have. Which means it will serve the purpose of getting us ahead, and keep us afloat until I finish my book, Ashley is training for the NFL, and we win the lottery. Wells Fargo was the company I picked to try and get into when I graduated college. So basically at this moment in time I am standing at the fork in my life road.

                I only have two roads that I am looking at. One that is well lit and looks inviting, it has a bright future with a house and babies… Okay before I get completely sidetracked. The other road is just a detour for the road I’m currently standing on. This road still leads to the other future but it’s much darker, longer, and its keeping me from being on the road I would much rather be on. I find Irony in the fact that on Monday, December 10^th something completely out of my control is going to determine which road my life is going to take. The decision is completely out of my hands. Have I fought hard enough? Have I thought enough positive thoughts? Did I answer their questions so that they won’t forget candidate #1? There are so many factors that could change the outcome of my future.

                If things could just go the way I am hoping that would be awesome. This means if I have to do radiation I will be done by January 14th, when training for Wells Fargo starts. I just want a smooth transition for once. I would hate for these two roads to morph into one. Leaving me no choice but to try and juggle both, or worse make decisions I don’t want to make. I feel like this one time my stars are going to align in the right order. In 3 days we shall learn the direction of my next life chapter.

A day In the Unemployment Office

November 2^nd 2012

Today I really had the most disappointing experience at the unemployment office. Not that any experience in that building would be exciting or good, that’s beside the point. I had to be there at 9:00am for an orientation that is mandatory to even have them consider your claim. I walked in the door at 8:59am. Yes, I was running way late this morning, but never the less I still was inside the door before 9am. So I wasn’t late. The security guard asks if he can help me, I show him my letter and he tells me to have a seat on a certain side of the office. I didn’t sign in which worried me because everyone else that was coming in was being signed in. As I begin to go find a seat the guard points to my water bottle I had in my hand, and says “you can’t have that in here, you can put it away in your bag.” I looked at him, I’m sure dumbfounded, and said, “my water!?” So apparently water or any drinks are not allowed in the unemployment office. So I put my water in my bag and sat down to wait. At about 10 after 9 I decided to make sure I wasn’t suppose to sign in and the lady tells me that the class has already started, and rudely added, “Your suppose to be here at 9.” So I quickly responded with, “I was here at 8:59 and YOUR security guard told me to just have a seat.” So after the guard and the lady at the desk bickered for a minute about who announced the class and at what time it was announced, they finally let (the 4 of us) into the class. So they crammed 4 more chairs into a room that was already packed full. I’d say there were about 15 people sitting in a room equivalent to an apartment kitchen in size. 30 minutes into this orientation I felt like I was going to pass out because it was so hot in there. And I was forbidden to drink my water!

Side note to the point of this story: There was a talkative “know it all” in the class. Now we all know about this girl’s age, husband, aunt, dad, and grandfather. I was so close to telling her that no one cared, just get to the point of your story! (And she had a story for EVERY new topic the instructor started talking about.) But I refrained for taking my bad mood out on an innocent bystander.

Anyway, after enduring an hour of information I already knew, since I have a degree in human resources, we finally were released. Ironically on my way out the door I see a water fountain by the bathrooms. Well at least they don’t just dehydrate the people coming through there. But seriously, not everyone can just freely use a germy public water fountain. Like a cancer patient. I would prefer to stay out of the hospital.

I don’t know why I am so hyped up over a water fountain. I guess today just got to me. I am tired of feeling sick and I just can’t seem to feel better. Unemployment has added so much extra stress to all this mess. I really don’t want to deal with it. In order to get my benefits I have to actively seek full time work, not all my job searches can be online either. I just feel like it is going to be discouraging. Even if I do get an interview, I’m sure they won’t be jumping to hire the cancer patient. I don’t need anything else in my life to add more discouragement. I have enough days of that following my treatments.

I already feel terrible enough that I am not being my strong, grateful self right now. I see all these posts on Facebook about what people are thankful for each day of November. I feel like I should be participating in that and not feeling so damn shitty about all the crap going on. I always preach that there always has to be something good to be grateful for. I know it’s there; I just can’t get the good thoughts to outweigh all the stressful and bad thoughts at the moment. It is so exhausting to fight for life, and then to have to fight for stability, the roof over my head, and food, to survive in life. Sometimes I wonder if I really am strong enough to handle this. I already know what it is like to struggle for basic living life, I’ve done it since I was 18 (remembering those days when I thought I knew what was best for me, and disregarded any words my mother offered.) What I don’t get is why it is necessary that I have to struggle threw 2 forms of “life” at the same time?

I know this isn’t the Sam any of you want to see, as any other human being I am going to have good days and bad days. This is why I have my friends, family, and followers to push me through. The same way all of my “cancer buddies” pick me up when I just feel like giving in. I’ll find the strong one soon enough. She is here somewhere under all this chemotherapy hell.

Life and Lymphoma

Life and Lymphoma                                                                                                          10-18-2012

I’ve been sitting here for days trying to figure out how I was going to put into words the disappointment I feel. I never knew the extent of discrimination I was about to endure in the months following my diagnosis of cancer.

Let me start from May 2^nd 2012. The day I sat in that small, stuffy office, crammed in with my mommy, Dahel, and my daddy. When the surgeon walked in I knew I had two outcomes. Surgery, to remove a 5.4 centimeter mass located in my chest. Or cancer. I really don’t remember breathing the entire time he was talking. We all know doctor’s talk is equivalent to trying to understand a foreign language. The only actual word I heard and remember is “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.” I’m sure the blank look on my face made him say “It is cancer.” From that moment and probably for the next week I remember nothing that happened. All I can recall is many doctors’ appointments, followed by a number of procedures at the hospital, and a good bit of anesthetics.

Once my mind snapped out of shut down mode, and overwhelming calls, texts, emails, Facebook message, and get well cards subsided, I finally snapped into, oh “holy moly” I need help financially. Welcome to the World Wide Web. Hours and days were spent searching webpage after webpage. I was ready for anything at this point.

Discrimination #1. First stop on the list. Medicaid. As a recent college graduate, with student loan balances totaling that nice Audi I have always dreamed of, I could not afford the medical insurance my job was offering. So medically I was uninsured. I Googled the local Medicaid office and decided to pay them a visit. Let me just be real about this “office,” we walked into a trailer in the middle of nowhere. I remember the musty smell, and the AC window units, and thought “oh dear god.” They sit us in this small waiting room, now that I am thinking about it I am pretty sure it was a hallway with a door added somehow. I am really not sure. Thank goodness there was no one else in the waiting room. Ironically we still waited like 25 minutes. The lady we needed to speak with was getting a cart full of files and didn’t even know we were sitting there. So we sat down at the desk, and explained my situation. Seeming like she didn't even care about the story I was telling her, she pulled out a small piece of paper and went through five questions. (Source: www.scchoices.com)

1.       Do you have children under the age of 18?

a.       No

2.       Are you 65 years of age or older?

a.       No

3.       Are you blind or totally, and permanently, disabled?

a.       No, I'll explain this when I get to the disability option

4.       Are you under the age of 19?

a.       No

5.       Are you a parent, or caretaker, relative living with a child under 18 (low – income)?

a.       No – you asked me that in question number one

“Based on these answers, you are you are not eligible for Medicaid. Here is the number and contact information for disability; they may be able to help you, sorry good luck.”

Hi ho hi ho, off to the disability office I go. Discrimination #2.

Five main factors of Social Security disability: (Source: www.socialsecuritydisabilityhelp.ws)

1.       Must have worked five out of the last 10 years – Yep

2.       Under age 65 – Yep

3.       Disability must have lasted, or be expected to last, longer than 12 months, or is expected to result in death – To SC No. I will explain this in greater detail soon.

4.       Unable to perform work activities or maintain a work-like schedule. Fully no, thankfully my treatments are every two weeks. Can I work my 40 hours a week? No, and I have financial obligations to continue living, these obligations are based off my 40 hours a week paycheck I get. Does my monthly gross pay of less than $1200 allow me to pay my bills plus the $7000 for a chemo treatment? Absolutely not.

5.       Must provide medical evidence that supports your claim. I.e. A doctors note

Wait a minute, that last statement triggers a glimpse of hope. This is when I find out that Hodgkin's Lymphoma is generally not expected to last more than one year. Yes that is my glimpse of good news. At this particular moment that is not helping. My doctor explains to me the outline of a "typical" Hodgkin’s Lymphoma case. Because every case is different they have to abide by general guidelines. I don't want to see my doctor commit fraud. I'll figure this out I always do.

So the next few months I turned to my family, friends, co-workers, and even acquaintances. So many people wanted to help. For a couple months we had meals prepared for us from friends just offering anything they could. The doctor’s bills we will have to figure in later. Right now I just needed to prepare myself for treatment and being able to stay financially independent. Over the course of my first four months of treatment I was able to raise enough funds to keep my apartment, pay for basic living necessities, and also pay slivers of the medical bills that just kept doubling. It actually worked out that I ran out of funds around my last scheduled treatment. I planned to return to work almost full time while I waited for my CT scan, and waited for my news of my remission.

Let me backtrack to discrimination #3, although, discrimination really isn't the correct terminology here. Let me just say a stroke of bad luck. Back when I was in the middle of testing, scans, and doctor's appointments, the assistant manager at my job put in his two week notice. Finally! (No disrespect to him) I knew it was my chance to be promoted in the company. My boss even vouched that I was ready. Unfortunately, three weeks before he left is when I found out it was in fact cancer. As an assistant I had to be available 40 hours a week and at all times if a problem occurred. Clearly that wasn’t a commitment I could make. Business life had to move forward; unfortunately I couldn't go forward with them. At this point I’m heartbroken for the last year of hard work I put into that place. I guess we can say that wasn’t the road I was supposed to take.

Alright, so now we need to get back on track of my remission and returning to work.
Monday, September 24, 2012, my first day back to work as a full-time employee. I won't call this discrimination either because that is incorrect. We will label this life blow #4. I walk into the office 8 AM still feeling a little tired and lingering nausea, but glad to be back into my normal cancer free life. As soon as I enter the office door there sits my regional manager. Oh boy, what happened while this gone? He just doesn't fly into town from Jersey to say hey. I sit down, get settled, we all have small talk about how I'm feeling and things seemed to be going good. Wrong! "Hey Sam, can you shut the door I want to have a chat with you." Oh my... This cannot be good. After a few minutes of "business" talk, which only brought me back to my doctor talking in words I can't spell, I heard the words I did understand. "We had to sell this location to another company, as of October 18 you will no longer be working for this company, out of this location." Once again the blank stare and tears I was trying to choke back. He quickly added, "We would like to keep you and if you are interested we will find you a position at another location." Okay, I can handle this bad news, there may be hope. Plus the new company was also offering the people in the office the opportunity to stay, if they chose to hire me. My boss did put up a good fight and requested if she stays she wanted me as her assistant. At this point I still couldn't commit because I was not finding out my remission news until October 5^th. Once again business life must continue.

My boss ended up relocating because the new company could not give her equal salary. I'm not going to lie the company I worked for gave me options, all of them put my life path on a relocation to Florida. This decision rested on the results of October 5, 2012.

October 5, 2012. "The good news is the chemo is working and your mass has shrunk by 1/3, I think with four more cycles of chemo and maybe a few weeks of radiation, we will get that remission." It was good news, but still disappointing at the same time. I never prepared myself that I may not be in remission. I believed it was gone with my mind, body, and soul.

Discrimination #5. The one I can’t prove.

                The new company runs the business a little different. They only need a manager and assistant. And possibly one temp position that would last about a month. I guess that was to help finish the transition. After two weeks of not telling anyone anything, or honestly no one telling me what in the world was going on. I find out the location manager from Greenville was hired as manager and the current assistant (who got my position back when I was diagnosed) was being kept as the assistant. The other three girls in the office (including me) were left to basically fight for the temp position. Besides my boss that relocated, I was the next person in that office working the longest. The assistant had been there four months, the router probably eight months at the most, and my fill-in replacement worked three months. Not one person from UST even spoke to me about a position. I was never considered as a candidate for the assistant or even manager position. What's more degrading is I wasn't even given the temp position. They didn’t even tell me about it. The only reason I knew about it is because everyone in that office talks. I literally cried for days, even knowing I couldn’t accept the position of management without a label of remission, I was 100% heartbroken that no one cared to find out what I've done for that place in the past year and a half.

Next step: at least I qualify for unemployment. I worked every last day I was scheduled to ensure no one could deny me this right. I put in my time. I know it won't be much but anything will help at this point.

Discrimination #6. After completing my contract with work, up until I started chemo again. I put in my application for unemployment. A question on the application puzzled me, but honestly I didn't feel worried. "Do you have any circumstances that prevent you from seeking full-time employment? i.e. “health issues." Checkbox marked yes. Please explain… In the tiny box limiting my characters to 500 I explained as short as possible the last 4 pages you have already read. After completing my application and hitting the submit button, "oops” red letters.

                "Thank you for your recent application, we see that you indicated you have a medical condition preventing you from seeking full-time employment at this time. As a requirement of South Carolina unemployment, all applicants must be able to actively seek full-time employment. Please allow up to 10 weeks for a final decision."

Jaw dropped – are you kidding me? Down to the unemployment office I march. I need to speak with someone, in person, a real-life operator. After cramming into the office, where there were about 50 waiting people scattered all over the place, I finally found my way to the information desk line. I explained what was said when I submitted my application and explain my situation and asked "what can I do?” “Well if you can't actively seek full-time employment then there really is nothing we can do." Thank goodness I prepared myself for those words or I would have started to cry. “Come back Friday and you can speak to someone who deals with disability." And the circle begins again. The results of this discrimination are currently pending. I do have quite a few people ready to dial the news on this one, including my doctor's office.

Having and fighting cancer puts a tremendous amount of stress, not just on your body, but your mind as well. The last thing anyone fighting cancer should have to deal with is the past six things I have dealt with. Anyone on this similar journey is fighting their unique battles in this. This is my story. Some of the roads have been unavoidable; others are just a disgrace to the society we live in. I know there are more people out there who are in this same boat. You're not fighting alone. I know somewhere out there someone will read this and be touched enough to help me make a change. I don't want any handouts; I just want to help where help is more than needed. I want my voice heard, and I want to make a foundation that will help others in this kind of situation. I won't stand to see another cancer patient struggle because the government won't help. I did everything the government and society preaches we should do. Finished high school went on to college, graduated and found a less than mediocre job for a college graduate. I didn't have any kids during my teenage years, which in today's society will qualify you for help. Finding out you have cancer at 25 than being laid off, doesn't qualify anyone for help in this state. One day I am going to change this; somehow, I'm not going to let you down.

Princess Cancer Warrior