Tag Archives: poverty

disability, poverty

The Privilege of Having Enough

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Black Friday, the day that foreshadows how the market will perform through the new year, was actually a dark day in history (in case you didn’t know) representing a large-scale financial crisis because of greedy Wall Street financers in the 1800s.

Gosh, sounds familiar.

Now we’ve reclaimed the meaning of that day, or rather, corporations have reclaimed it and turned it into a day of splurging and materialism. Cash flows from regular folks’ pockets into the wallets of billionaires and executives who source labor from the underemployed and materials from China. I mean, I am exaggerating a little.

A little.

Let’s Back Up a Bit

I used to spend the day after Thanksgiving going on hikes or long runs and enjoying how empty everything was that wasn’t a store. The outside world was my oyster for that quiet, quiet day.

I refused to utter the words “Black Friday” because I staunchly opposed what the day had come to mean: greed and a blatant disregard for the environmental destruction that comes with unfettered materialism.

Instead, I called it Buy Nothing Day along with millions of other environmentalists who human-cott the spending spree that is Black Friday.

On Buy Nothing Day, I distanced myself from over-stressed employees and screaming throngs of people breaking down doors, running people over, and fighting over highly discounted flat-screen televisions. I was horrified by this violence that resulted in mountains of plastic, cardboard, and Styrofoam and; inevitably, piles of broken electronics and discarded toys after mere months of use.

To me, Black Friday represented the worst humanity has to offer – a piling up of vices so-to-speak – and I stayed as far away as possible.

Then My Life Changed

In 2013 I was diagnosed with a disease that runs in my family (Ankylosing Spondylitis)  that upended my world and disabled me in a matter of a few years. Continue reading The Privilege of Having Enough →

disability, poverty

I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California.

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I moved to Sacramento in 2011 because it was one of the most affordable big cities in California. The cost of living was fairly similar to Raleigh, NC at the time (where I lived before moving to California). In recent years Sacramento has faced one of the fastest climbing housing booms in the nation as a result of Bay Area residents moving in. Rent has climbed at astronomical rates, and so has the price of homes. Low-income and affordable housing has not been a priority to the city and region, and homelessness has grown as a result.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with the same disease that killed my father, Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). My health deteriorated and I became disabled and impoverished as a result of not being able to work.

Ten days ago, on January 23rd, 2019, when I woke up I didn’t know I would be writing an offer on a house that night. I didn’t think it was even possible.

But when I saw a listing pop up in the MLS search that evening for a house I could afford, I told my real estate agent (who also has AS), “I want a house more than anything. I want to move on this.”

Continue reading I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California. →

chronic disease, disability, Equality, Inequality, SSDI, SSI

Being Disabled Is a Job

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I’ve heard some say disability benefits are unnecessary hand-outs for people who should just die off, and why should hard-working people foot the bill for people who are lazy, whose lives mean nothing?

The disability process itself mirrors these same sentiments – the 3-5 years (on average) process for applying, fighting for, and receiving disability (SSI or SSDI) in the USA is by nature a grueling process, with analysts hired to deny applicants not once, but twice (standard procedure), forcing the applicant to appeal their case twice over several months before a hearing is granted, which then takes years to schedule due to a shortage of judges. It is a process intended to force people to give up.

You usually have to be literally dying to be automatically granted disability in the USA. And yet 10,000 people still die each year just waiting for a decision. Continue reading Being Disabled Is a Job →

#sickbody, Advocacy, ankylosing spondylitis, Arthritis, Charis, chronic disease, chronic pain, disability, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medi-Cal, Medicaid, Mental Illness, open letter, Patient Advocacy, Politics, spondylitis, spondyloarthritis

An Open Letter to Congress from a Poor, Disabled American

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Dear Congress,

My father died last September. He was 68. He experienced severe, debilitating pain from his early teenage years until his death. I now experience similar pain from the same disease he had, Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), and I fear daily that my life will follow the same path his did.

My dad looked like this (below) because he did not have access from a young age to effective treatments to slow down the progression of his disease:

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He didn’t have access to the treatments because they didn’t exist until 2003, when the first biologic drug was approved for treating patients with AS. By that time he was already a 90-degree hunchback, his spine fused in a rigid column of bone from knobby, painful bone spurs – he was slowly suffocating. The only thing a biologic drug could do was prolong his life and perhaps reduce some of the symptoms.

He died after two surgeries meant to straighten his spine, relieve his organs from being crushed, and give him a more horizontal line of sight. He’d been looking straight down at the ground for decades, unable to see in front of him unless he pivoted his body backwards with one foot pushed toe-first into the ground.

I learned I had AS in 2013 after a period of sudden, un-treatable illnesses that left me in pain and unable to breathe. Urgent Care doctors blamed my frequent visits on panic attacks and attempted to send me on my way with anxiety medication, but I knew my body better than that. Continue reading An Open Letter to Congress from a Poor, Disabled American →