Has the crappy economy hit you, too?

Have the past two years been crappy for you?

Has life been exceedingly hard this past two years?  I’m guessing everyone has been hit hard by the economy, foreclosures, and unemployment due to loss of construction jobs.  The huge downhill slide for me began August 2009, when we moved in with my parents because my mother was dying.  My husband just loss his job of three years in the construction trade, and started unemployment the same month.  We knew we would not be able to pay the mortgage on our own home, let alone the mortgage on my parents’ house, too.  My father was suffering from the beginnings of dementia and my mother was dying slowly from COPD, cancer and heart complications.  She needed full time caretaking and my father needed supervision, and that was left up to me alone since my brothers both live out of state.

So, my husband and I made a grand decision.  Dementia prevented my father from feeling comfortable living any where except the house he lived in the past 60 years.  It was not an option to move them in with us, especially since we live din Pahrump which was so far from medical care in Vegas.  So, we moved in with them and I became a full time caretaker for my mother. 

Our house is in foreclosure, due to be claimed in a Trustee’s Sale on April 25^th.  We moved out of our 3,000 square foot home and into 200 square feet of living space at my parents, with all our belongings stored in a shed behind the house.  The move-in included me and my husband, and our two-year-old grandson, who has lived with us since he was born.  The grandson suffers from seizures.

My mother’s health continued to decline.  She passed away, peacefully, at home, in March 2010.  My father’s dementia continues to decline although his health seems good.  The dementia is in the form of crazy, illogical thoughts.  My father gets paranoid about the government taking him social security income, or the baby killing his bird, or obsesses about his arms bleeding (but nothing is there).  It’s difficult.

My husband faithfully searched for work for months.  He spent tons of hours at the construction union hall, to no avail, and finally took a withdrawal (when the news said no work in construction for five years) and tried again with the Culinary Union (the one field touted as coming back the quickest).  We placed 340 job applications in less than 18 month.  We tried for everything from porter (janitor) to busser, to car washes, to stocking, to anything.  We received only four interviews.  It seems Las Vegas casinos are only hiring the young and beautiful who can wear bikinis and upsale $5,000 bottles of champagne.  Last month, we finally received a real interview and a casino hired my husband, part-time, on-call, for work in two restaurants.  He now works 2-4 days a week, part-time hours.  But that is better than nothing, because his unemployment runs out in May 2011, which reduces us real fast to zero income.  We don’t have many bills, but we do have a car payment, Cobra health payment, car insurance, and general expenses like food and diapers, plus our share of utilities.  His part-time work at least covers our basics.

Add to all that the devastating news we received last month, after his second week of returning to work.  I have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and given 2-4 months to live, maybe a year at the outside if I am accepted as a candidate for surgery.  We are scrambling to make final arrangements, line up reliable night time child care, cover our increasing expenses from medical, and find people who can help with transportation to doctor appointments in LA and motel expenses while waiting for surgery and consults.  It’s quite a shock knowing your time has been shortened so much. 

We’re still reeling from the news.  I have a couple blogs and Facebook page online (the Facebook will be approved soon and will link with the blog), and I’m hoping you will join the feeds on both and leave me encouraging messages.  We’re all getting older and facing a lot of the same problems.  Maybe you will have some ideas to help me cope and figure out some of the last day stuff, and to save money by trimming corners.  Maybe some of you are experiencing a parent with dementia and can share with me, or just lost a parent, or have been told you have cancer.  My blog is http://dying-wishes.blogspot.com/ and I’ll post a link on it to my Facebook page as soon as it’s approved.  I’m looking forward to hearing from any of you!