Hi Colleen,
Thanks for your interest in my cancer experience. Actually, I’ve been severely disabled from CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, FIBROMYALGIA and CHIARI MALFORMATION for the past 30+ years. My Prostate Cancer has been a recent event in my life during the past 16 months.
As a result, it’s not actually been my cancer that’s responsible for my long term disability.
I’ve been so debilitated for so many years that it’s been impossible for me to return to work or employment of any kind.
I’ve certainly given and continue to give it all of my best efforts but I have so many different debilitating symptoms that it has made it impossible to manage and be able to do much of anything including work.
Fortunately, I had private disability income insurance so I could provide for myself financially until I was 65 years old when my policies coverages expired.
I would never have made it without my disability insurance and would have ended up homeless because I couldn’t take care of myself for many years.
If you can’t work and you’re too debilitated to care for yourself it’s a very untenable position to be in.
Fortunately, I had a very loving and committed wife who took care of me full time for the first 11 years of my total disability, unfortunately, my condition was so bad that it was extremely stressful on her and when her health and overall wellbeing began to fail we separated. Even though we still loved each other very much I couldn’t put my wife’s life and well-being in jeopardy. Sometimes you have to make decisions you don’t want to make but you know it’s the right thing to do. It took her 3 years to recover physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually from the incredible amount of stress she had been under. I will be forever grateful to her because she saved my life and gave me the opportunity to survive which I could not have done without her incredible endurance and commitment to my life. Even though I was only 36 years old when I first became ill and debilitated I was existing in life like a 90 year old man on his death bed. Had I not actually experienced the past 30+ years I would never have believed or even conceived of the fact that one could be so devastatingly debilitated and survive. It’s taken everything I’ve had and have learned to make it to this stage in my life.
Although nobody wants to get or live with a cancer diagnosis and treatment regime, my cancer experience has been much easier to live with than my past and continuing disabilities.
I wish all of my fellow Prostate Cancer patients and Cancer Patients of all kinds for a total remission and complete wellbeing.
GODSPEED