7-20-26

A Raw Good new, Bad news, Update: 

Ranting, Praying, and Trying to Breathe

    The cold vinyl of the kitchen chair felt completely freezing against my sore, aching body yesterday. That is where I was sitting when the mail arrived, clutching a plain white envelope with shaky hands. My bald head was itchy under my soft cotton beanie, my peach fuzz barely starting to poke through after months of poison pumping through my veins in the infusion room. Stage 2b High-Grade Serous Carcinoma turned my entire life upside down back in late November 2025, and ever since then, it has been one massive, exhausting sh*t show. But yesterday, I held that envelope and thought, *this is it. The moment we can finally stop drowning.*

    Except, if you have been on this crazy cancer roller coaster with me for any length of time, you already know that nothing in this life is ever that simple. Not even close. So grab yourself a giant cup of coffee, sit back, and let me lay out this unfiltered truth. This is my official Good new, Bad news, Update, and while I am ranting at the top of my lungs right now, I am also trying my absolute hardest to stay deeply thankful. (I know it really does not sound like it right now, but stick with me here.)

    To really understand how we got into this terrifying mess, you have to look back at the sheer ridiculousness of our bureaucratic system. Back in 2012, after years of trying, I was finally deemed 100% disabled by the government. BUT—and this is a huge, painful *but*—because I was a stay-at-home mom from 1990 all the way to 2012, I did not have enough recent work credits accumulated. I had only worked a simple tax-collecting job from age 18 to 20. That was it. So because I had been home raising babies and taking care of a house, I only qualified for SSI (Supplemental Security Income) instead of SSD (Social Security Disability). It was not a lot of money, but it kept my head barely above water.

    Then came 2023. I did something wonderful. I got married to the sweetest man alive. My Hubby is also disabled, living on a very tiny fixed income himself. And guess what the government did to reward us for finding love late in life? They punished us. The second we got hitched, my SSI was dropped completely. Poof. Gone. Just like that.

    Social Security told me that if I wanted to qualify for actual SSD, I needed to get back out there and earn work credits. So for two and a half years, despite my ongoing physical limitations and my crazy ADHD butt trying to stay focused, I worked a work-from-home data entry job. No human contact, just typing away at my keyboard for a mere $500 a month. It was not much, but it was *mine*. It gave us a tiny cushion. It gave me a little pride.

    And then came late November 2025. Cancer hit us like a freight train going a hundred miles an hour. BOOM. Surgery. Recovery. Chemo brain so heavy I could barely remember my own name, let alone process data entries accurately. Suddenly, my quality of life was stolen, my body was wrecked, and that tiny $500 monthly income vanished overnight.

    For six agonizing months, my Hubby and I have been living in pure, raw survival skin. We had to rely entirely on my Hubby's disability check. Want to hear something downright comical? His check is under $2,000 a month, which puts us exactly TWENTY DOLLARS over the maximum income limit to receive any kind of state or government assistance. Twenty bucks! For heaven sakes! So because of twenty stupid dollars, we could not get food stamps, energy assistance, or a single extra dime of help.

    Meanwhile, gas prices skyrocketed. Grocery costs went completely through the roof. Everyone knows you cannot survive off what used to be a $2 pack of hotdogs—which is now pushing nearly $8!—plus a cheap loaf of bread and a gallon of milk for an entire month. My Hubby still had to pay his Medicare premiums ($400 a month right out of his check), our car insurance, electric, heating, and basic household bills. By the time all of that was paid, if we were lucky, we had maybe a few bucks left over to feed two adults.

    We had to beg. We had to borrow. We had to plead. We had to humbly accept donations from kind souls just to make sure we did not starve. Rinse, rest, and repeat, day after grueling day, living in absolute, agonizing financial panic.

    Then, a few days ago, the mail came. I opened the letter from Social Security. My disability case was officially accepted!

    I literally cheered for joy. I cried happy tears. I thanked the good Lord for watching our backs and answering our desperate prayers. I thought, *Finally. Well-needed money is on its way. We can finally breathe.*

    Wellll... NOT QUITE.

    Cue the dramatic record scratch.

    When I read the fine print, my heart sank right into my stomach. Because my lifetime earnings were so ridiculously low—remember, I was a stay-at-home mom for decades and only worked that $500-a-month job recently—the actual monthly disability amount I qualify for is tiny. It is roughly three-quarters of what I was making at my little data entry job before cancer stole everything.

    And now, I am sitting here waiting for the absolute last giant ball to drop.

    When cancer first knocked me down, I was able to get put back on Medicaid because my income was zero and my diagnosis opened a door. Medicaid has covered my treatments, my surgeries, and my endless follow-ups. BUT now that my SSD has been approved, the system is going to try to force me off Medicaid and onto Medicare.

    Here is the catch that is keeping me awake at 3:00 AM in a cold sweat: unlike Medicaid, Medicare has a monthly premium that the patient has to pay out of pocket. For me, that premium is going to be around $300 to $400 every single month.

    Do the math on that for a second. If my brand-new disability check is barely a few hundred bucks, paying a $200 or $400 Medicare premium will wipe out EVERY SINGLE PENNY of my disability money. In fact, I might actually end up having to write THEM a check every month just to keep the health insurance I desperately need to stay alive! That puts my Hubby and me in a WORSE position than we were before disability was approved!

    How is this real life? How is this system so thoroughly broken?

    This is not going to be sustainable. If this happens, we will starve. Or we will lose our one and only vehicle because we will have to choose between buying food or paying car insurance and gas. And if we lose our car, how on earth am I supposed to get to my cancer checkups?

    We live in a tiny, rural town. We do not have a city bus service. We do not have Ubers rolling around. A taxi service to drive me to my oncologist—who is 120 miles away, making it a 240-mile round trip—would cost vastly more than keeping our car running. We do not have local oncologists here. I cannot just switch to a doctor down the street. It is literally impossible.

    The worries and the scanxiety and the financial terror just keep swirling inside my brain like a relentless tornado. *What will we do?* I truly thought getting approved would put us in a better place, not drag us deeper into the mud.

    I will definitely be speaking to a certified Medicare Advocate before I sign anything or make any final decisions. I am praying with everything in me that I am understanding the rules wrong. Please, if anyone reading this knows something I do not know, leave a comment or send a message. Am I misinformed? Is there a program I am missing?

    At this point, all I can do is pray. I have to trust that God continues to have my back, and that all of this Bull Sh*t will somehow work out the way He plans for it to.

    Despite the ranting, despite the sheer frustration leaking out of every sentence, I am genuinely thankful. I am thankful to have learned so much about my own strength on this wild journey. I am thankful to experience what life has to offer—both the good and the terribly ugly. I am thankful that God has kept me alive through Stage 2b carcinoma, and that He clearly has plans for my future.

    I am just really, really distraught over what the next few months might look like while we figure this out. Healing takes time, and my healing pace is already slow enough without the weight of the world on my chest. But we keep going. One day at a time. One prayer at a time. Rinse, rest, and repeat.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay blessed my friends.

Rachel