Where Have I Been

It has been a very long time since I posted last. So much has changed. Sister is going to kill me for using her computer because I posted on some sites and used her account automatically by mistake. We have the same politicval views, but I can be more cutting in my prose and was on a bit of a roll. I'm just tired of all the bullshit in the world. I blame it all on faux-christian repubtards. There hasn't been an honest conservative in the repubtard party since the neo-cons took over. But I digress.

I finished a long journey taming materialism and continuing with survival plans. Like sister and her DH I also outfitted a plain white passenger/work van as a stealth camping van. What some folks may not understand is that homelessness can happen in advance of TSHTF, or you may need to travel for work farther afield and that having a stealth van camping situation will allow you to save a lot of money on lodging and travel expenses. On one of my last programming jobs I stayed in the parking lot and took buses to shop. The company had a gym available to contractors so I used it early in the morning and appeared to be an eager worker. They just loved me!

The changes though have come to a head. Years ago I had retinal detachments and scleral buckle surgery to repair them. My vision was sufficient for most tasks. But in the past year or so I noticed that I could not focus to read and that migraine attacks came quickly upon any attempt to read a computer screen. Plus the opthalmic migraines increased from one or two a month to one or more a day. That is when you suddenly lose vision for a period of 20-40 minutes at a time. I began to fear driving alone expecting an attack to come upon me. That lead to a decline in posts and overall interest in things that mattered to me. Yes, I finished all the urgent tasks then vegetated myself into a bit of a depression.

I just got a complete eye exam and found out I have advanced cataracts at a fairly young age. With the retinal detachment history I am not a great candidate for intra-occular lens implant surgery. I'm probably going to have it done, but not until I've gotten on disability and become eligible for Medicare so that I can get the best possible care. Unfortunately, anything that happens to me that affects vision is "pre-existing condition" and will not be covered by my health insurance. I could have a new condition, a brain tumor, and if it affects my vision in any way whatsoever it will not be covered. That's a sad way to run a health care system. An otherwise healthy and productive worker is forced to go onto disability to get medical care to help her stay productive.

My condition is not self-inflicted. But I see obese people get disability for back problems, smokers get disability for lung problems, people with diabetes from poor lifestyle and nutritional choices get disability. But I'm going to be going through hoops. A high school drop out will get disability faster than a nearly blind college graduate. Like, where do they think I can *go* and *work* without the training for the blind offered to younger people? Like my college degree somehow obviates a physical challenge. I'm using a screen reader to hear this site and Dragon Naturally Speaking to "type it".

It's ok. My trailer and van are paid for. I just paid off all the taxes so now I'm broke again. That ought to do it. I'm now more eligible to go on the dole. So for now, I shall say "I'll be back!"