Another victim of the recession

Well folks, here I am, another statistic of the never ending fun we're having called the Recession. Since 1992 I've been self employed and did pretty well for a kid that never graduated college (ran out of money actually). But after enduring 2 years of this recession, we've finally hit the end of the road folks. The software royalties that have been a rock of income to me for years and years had the plug pulled last year. Subsequently I lost my health insurance which is a scary thing because my wife is a cancer survivor and needs the ability to be monitored twice a year to make sure things are going well and to catch anything early. After losing health insurance I fell ill (first time in my life) and was hospitalized for almost 2 weeks. The hospital bill was enormous and has drained all of our savings. The economy has battered my business so badly that we're out of savings to pull from. So after 2 more payments on my house, we'll be done have to lose it in foreclosure probably later this summer. The value went from $600,000 to $300,000 in the last 2 years.

It's funny because there were times in my life when I never imagined that I'd lose it all and be in this situation. Never thought it was possible. Always tried to stay humble, never haughty and proud... sincerely tried to do all the right things. But here we are, facing a readjustment in my life that mimics the game of Chutes and Ladders where we just got on a chute leading all the way back to the starting gate. I'm familiar with the starting gate. I've been there twice before in my life. Once after leaving college due to lack of funds and living out of my car and having to figure out what the hell to do with my life. Then once again 10 years later having to declare bankruptcy because of payroll tax issues relating to my employer. So, I restarted twice, I guess (and hope) that third time's a charm and this time it can stick around for a while. My wife has been volunteering for the past year at our hospital's cancer treatment center in hopes that she can score a job (with insurance), so far nothing has come of that yet but she feels good at least that she can give encouragement to those going through that battle.

Stay tuned...