Working to get health care is killing me

I haven’t been writing lately due to sheer exhaustion. Working 45+ hours per week is not agreeing with me. I love the job but there’s just way too much of it. I haven’t been able to figure out a balance yet. Anyway, I stagger home each weeknight and collapse. My energy is dwindling, not getting better week by week as I expected it would. I spend all of Saturday sleeping or doing quiet things and then usually by Sunday I feel better, at least enough to cook, shop for food, do laundry, clean my room, do some chores, and get ready for the new week. However, I’m not recuperating enough to have a useful Sunday; at least that has been true these past couple of weeks. Sunday came last week and this and I was too tired to do the self care that I need to regenerate. So I live in a messy room, I don't eat well because I can't get the energy to shop and cook the vegan food I need, and I end up scrounging for clean things to wear. I recently invested in a lot of underwear so that I had three weeks supply. That way, I can just use each piece of the other clothing over and over again. It's more ecological that way.

Last Thursday my clients were waiting for me to come into group therapy. They asked me, “Seiza, are you all right?” I brushed it off, but they persisited. “You look so tired. Really, are you okay?” I realized that I wasn’t really okay at all. I’m completely exhausted all of the time. I’m a piece of burnt toast. I promised them I would get more sleep, but the only way I can figure out to do that is to cut out meditation and yoga in the morning so I can sleep in until 6 am instead of getting up at 5 am.

I need to work to get health care. When I was paying COBRA payments after my last job, it cost $1100 per month to cover Howard and me, which was not something we could afford for long. Howard is no longer working for FKB (which didn't provide health care but did provide money sometimes). He’s going back to graduate school to study for a new career in biology. (He just got accepted to PSU after scoring 1530 out of 1600 on the GRE and a letter of recommendation from Al Gore, no less). Anyway, I’m really working so that we can afford health care, and it’s killing me.

I’m losing ground. I don’t have a solution but that is why I haven’t been writing. I’ve been in survival mode. Anyway, I’m supposed to go out tonight to a seder with friends but I may have to give up that as well. I end up giving up everything that is personally important to me these days, socializing, community organizing, meditation, and yoga.

I don’t have any solutions. I’m trolling the usual websites for job listings, hoping to find something part time with benefits. As was pointed out to me, the United States does not have a Health Care System. It has a health care market. That’s not good enough for any of us. I may be one of the currently insured, but I am not healthy as a result.

I'm told it takes about two years to really get one's energy back after chemo, but my energy is plummeting at this point. I'm one year out from chemo and I'm getting worse, not better.