Hi Vera,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I’ve been very down these last few days. I have a ton of things going on. If you’ve read all my posts you know that I used to have a good amount of money saved. Then of course blew it all. So I moved back into a room at my dads place that he normally rents out. In early November I hurt my back. It was extremely bad. I went to urgent care the next day and they told me to do PT. I asked to get an MRI and was refused. I went back to work taking the pills they gave me. But I think something is wrong. I go back to the urgent care doc the next week and tell him I need to get an MRI. He refuses and then comes out to me as I’m leaving and says he approved the MRI. The MRI can be scheduled two weeks away earliest. So I get through the pain with the pills and then get the MRI. I take the MRI to the Dr and he says I need immediate surgery. The surgeon won;t see me until the approval is made for Workers comp which takes 4 days then I get the surgeon visit 10 days later. He see’s me and approves surgery. The WC people need 5 days to approve and then he schedules me a week later. All in all close to 7 weeks until I get the surgery. During this time my dad sells his house and is moving a few hours away. I get the surgery and am told that I didn’t get the surgery fast enough and that the nerve damage could be permanent leaving me pretty badly handicapped. All this while dealing with a smoking cigarette and weed problem.
I tried to save money but relapsed every time I had a little bit. Now I am broke. Am having to go back to work before I feel I’m ready because I need the money. Basically I have to take a trip next week to another country for 8 weeks. This is a strenuous job that my boss had told me that I don’t have to lift much. I am grateful for the work but am worried because I can barely walk yet and don’t want to reherniate the disk. I have 18K debt currently and about a grand in the bank. I am due another $1k to come in. If I take this trip and all goes well then I’ll be close to debt free when I come.
My dilemma is that I am mad I am broke as I might have been able to make things happen faster for my back. I would;t have had to worry about working like I was and could have just taken time off and gone to a normal doctor from insurance and gotten it looked at. Instead I went the cheap way through workers comp and may have nerve damage. I’m a gambling addict and have gambled everything away. I have currently given all finances or whats left of them to my mom. I have banned myself from every website. I have to say that is getting a little easier day by day. I just can’t relapse. I have to move all my stuff out of my dads place with a bad back which means hiring someone for $600. My mom will let me stay there in her spare room for a week or so given I go to Central America and am out of there soon, am getting close to paying off my debts, and get my own place when I get back.
So I quit smoking cigarettes the day before the surgery and it’s been close to 3 weeks since I had one. That’s good. I quit gambling 13 days ago. So that’s good. I’m starting to save and pay off bills. That’s good. I’m just very scared that my nerve damage is permanent and won’t get better.
Today I started looking at Facebook and LinkedIn and noticed a bunch of old colleagues of mine doing amazing things with their careers and look at me…. Sitting here smoking weed, doing a semi-ok free lance job with shitty benefits. Maybe going to reinsure my back to pay back money that I gambled away, ruined my credit, and most likely can’t get a place when I get back. I also have a little dog that I love to death but he would probably at this point be better off without me now that I can’t walk, pay the bills, put a roof over his head, etc. Looking at how great others are doing, then thinking about myself, and then thinking about all the mistakes that I made, then thinking about why I decided to smoke weed instead of chase after the career I wanted. I’m so mad that I’m at this point in my life.
I don’t want to gamble. But I’m mad as shit that I did this to my life. Nothing I do seems to make me feel better. I feel like a failure. I feel like I’m a waste of space. I know I can do better. Why have I chosen these things? I’m so freaking mad!!