Hello & Goodbye

Earlier in the month I made a “this is the end of” post. For the time being this is goodbye. I haven’t truly blogged in a few years as I’m quickly approaching my 50s. (Yikes! When did that happen? I’ll be 49 by the end of 2023.)

While beauty products still interests me, there are younger people whose creativity & voices are stronger & more entertaining than my own. Let’s face it, I’ve never been the fun one in any aspect of my life. lol But recently my husband had his second heart attack known as the Widowmaker, while he has survived it & is in recovery, the fact remains we don’t know if the damage to his heart was permanent or not. In two months he will see his cardiologist who will then determine if he is to have bypass surgery to repair the left anterior descending artery.

My focus right now is on our grandchildren, whom I’m currently caring for while their mom is deployed overseas until next summer (if not longer). Our business is currently closed & while we have zero income coming in from that I do get child support from both their mom & dad as well as their BAH. The little income from that is covering some bills. On paper we do not qualify for any other assistance which has made things extremely tight for us. To be frank, we’re drowning in debt with being behind by several months in debt.

Our financial problems started when we first opened our food truck (trailer) business. We had a massive fire within weeks of opening which destroyed the truck & damaged the trailer. Insurance covered part of it but we lost over $50,000 that year. The following year there were other issues but we managed to pull through. Then COVID happened in 2020 which hurt a lot of people including us. Still we managed until we moved to our current location last year. My god, this area has cursed us.

I moved here last January (2021) to provide care for our grandkids. My husband & our sons remained in New England until the twins graduated high school last summer then made the big move the day after they graduated. The following month our daughter got into an accident with a deer which totaled her car. Since she didn’t have full coverage she was out that vehicle. Lucky for her it was sold for more than her loan & she made a small profit to buy her current vehicle. Then in September my husband was in a wreck with the food truck & trailer which resulted in us being forced to be closed until November (parts shortage). In October, my car was involved in a hit & run while I was inside Target. Then winter came & by the time we were up & running again it was early 2022.

This summer was awful with the entire summer being in the 100s or upper 90s. We had a total of less than two weeks where it was below 90°F. That caused us to shut down as temps inside reached into the 150s. When we reopened in August, it was due to the fact we were months behind on bills & barely holding on. We continued to struggle with my husband ignoring his health until November when he began having chest pains. He refused to see a doctor because we had our electric & water shut off, we had our grandkids here, & we were on the verge of going homeless. After two weeks of ignoring the pain, he finally went to the hospital because his at rest heart rate was between 110 & 114 bpm. The local hospital ended up sending him to a hospital an hour & a half away that specializes in heart problems. Due to weather they couldn’t send him by helicopter & was sent by ambulance. (We do not have private health insurance.)

At the heart hospital, he was diagnosed with having the Widowmaker heart attack with his LAD being nearly blocked. The doctor was shocked he was able to walk & had ignored the pains for the previous two weeks. Within hours of arriving he had a stent put in & was released a few days later. His following appointment last week with the cardiologist resulted in him being told his heart has damage but we won’t know for at least two months if it’s permanent or not & whether or not he’ll need bypass surgery to fix the LAD.

Our daughter flew out on emergency leave within days & wanted to send the kids to their dad until she returned. As such I had a mini nervous breakdown because right now those two are my anchor to sanity. By the end of her visit I got to keep the kids mainly due to weather where their dad is & that he is in no position to take them because of it (they’re currently buried due to blizzards).

Our youngest son is Autistic & as such I use to get SSI for him but once he turned 18 & graduated they cut it off. I had to fight to get it back & it was only approved last week. So I’m holding things together by DoorDashing & Instacarting to pay things as I can. It has been a struggle for us but we’re of the generation where our problems are our own to figure out. Problem is I don’t know how to figure this one out at all.

We have decided not to do a GoFundMe page simply because we don’t know where we stand in our debts (other than we do owe over $14,000 in past bills) coupled with his hospital bills & transportation bills (I’m dreading those bills as I’m sure this will lead to us going bankrupt). We have encouraged our customers to buy gift cards from our business & consider it as a donation since GFM also takes a % so at least the fees from our point-of-sale will be a business expense. While we haven’t made enough money to pay a fraction of our bills, at least we have a roof over our heads & food on the table with warm cloths on our backs.

While Christmas was the poorest we’ve ever had, at least my husband is still here & his children & grandchildren still have him around. If, & I hope this if doesn’t come to pass anytime soon, he dies from his heart problems then I’ll put a GFM page up because I will need help with burial expenses as we do not have life insurance & he doesn’t qualify for any except for ones that cost like $400 a month with a $25,000 pay out.

But that’s what’s going on with our lives right now. I don’t know if or when I’ll be back to blogging. But I did want to let long readers know what’s going on.

If you wish to help my family & myself with a financial donation you’re more than welcome to. You can find me on Venmo, PayPal, & CashApp as Zadidoll.

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