Chapter 22 Up. · 5:53am Mar 28th, 2015
Sorry for the wait everypony. Been dealing with a great deal of challenges in my life - looks like my author perhaps has seen fit to write some drama into my life.
First - I am dealing with what others around me, some medical based, have identified as 90% probably clinical depression. I will eventually get it diagnosed formally...once I can break away from working an average of 55 hours a week in I/T. To combat it I'm managing to carve out 16 - 18 minutes on the treadmill. This makes me feel better because I can't effectively do anything else but walk at that time. This leaves me in a kind of 'zen' space where I don't think about the things that are worrying me.
I'm 46 years old, I'm nobody I wanted to turn out to be. I'm nowhere I really wanted to end up. And...I've forgotten most of my happy memories.
Second - my wife. She has a ruptured disc in her C-spine. It's causing her issues with her left arm. We are doing physical therapy and home traction to avoid surgery because the surgery often fails and leaves the person worse off than before. And it's extremely expensive. Thus we are doing are best to avoid it. Her physical challenges are greater than mine - spinal stenosis, arthritis, and fibro, so I correspondingly am doing more stuff around the house when I'm not working. Sucks but not a lot of choice in the matter.
Third - add to the mix a 17 year old daughter who is moderately on the Autism spectrum. A handful to take care of but we aren't the kind or people to shirk that responsibility.
Fourth - We never seem to be fully out of the money pit. We are working on it but we still don't seem to get above a certain point despite our best efforts. (This is NOT a plea for donations. Seriously I don't believe I deserve that from anyone.)
Enough of the excuses. Sorry this one took so long and I'm going to do my best to make the next one less than three months. (Not. Dead. Yet. Lol)