My Introduction to Steemit - Emergency Retirement

Hi All!

Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Que (pronounced just like the letter “Q”), and I am trying my best to live with a terminal illness.

I was diagnosed about six months ago with Scleroderma – an auto immune disease which makes your body turn against itself. In my case the Scleroderma has attacked my heart causing Congestive Heart Failure, it attacked my lungs causing Pulmonary Hypertension, and attacked my kidneys with some residual kidney disease.

With all of that going on I am still able (for now) to gather up my strength every day and continue to go to my desk job – because I have to. (How else would I pay my bills?) I am not married and have no children, so there is no one out there who is going to volunteer to pay my rent and buy groceries for me, and the medicines that I am taking pretty much keep the symptoms at bay enough for me to make it thru the day at work.

I can tell that this will come to an end at some point though, as every day I can feel that my energy level is dropping more and more making the simplest of tasks (like grocery shopping or tending to my garden) increasingly difficult, meaning that I will eventually have to stop working. I always thought it would be nice to retire at age 53 – but imagined that it would be to spend my days on a beach in Hawaii, not on my bed at home watching TV with my 2 cats.

So this is the reason that I am now on Steemit. I actually opened the Steemit account about 7 months ago when I first started getting introduced to crypto currencies, but I couldn’t think of what to write about back then. Now, finally, I think I have something to write about. (Remember that old saying? “Be careful what you wish for - you must might get it”).

I think that others who are relatively young to middle aged and not yet thinking about retiring might find it interesting to follow someone in their relatively same situation but who needs to all of a sudden begin to make plans to retire within the next 6-12 months. Could you afford it? Would you have to change to way that you live? Will it be enough? What if it’s not?

All of that is what I plan to explore here. As my medical condition is thankfully stable at the moment, my first order of business (and my next Steemit post) will be to look into the requirements for disability income and gather all of that paperwork together. I understand that applying can be a long daunting process, so I guess the sooner that I get started, the better.

If any of you think that you might one day find yourself in a similar situation, follow along with me.

Together, we are going to figure this thing out and live out our days in peace.