2015: I'm glad it's over!

The year of 2015 has pretty much sucked from beginning to end. It started out with a new house, which we were so excited about! It was a lot of drama in the beginning. It also was the cause of a lot of conflict between me and Ian and my in laws. Ian and I fought more during this time period than we ever have. People who say the first year of marriage is the hardest must not of made it to the second year!
When all of that was finally starting to level out, and the house was starting to feel more like a home, more awful things happened. We had been trying for over a year to conceive, and it just wasn't happening. First, my OBGYN did an HSG (Hysterosalpingogram) Test. This test is done to find out if the Fallopian tubes are clear so the egg can travel to the uterus. Well, that test was a hot mess. It was extremely painful for me with lots of cramping. No dye got through my tubes. Also, my OBGYN thought my uterus looked like it was the wrong shape. We started seeing a fertility specialist in March. He did a ultra sound and scheduled surgery based on the HSG test. He also scheduled a second ultrasound with shooting water into my uterus and Fallopian tubes.  From that test, he decided to completely change my surgery. He thought the shape of my uterus is fine, but the actual problem is blockage and scarring in my Fallopian Tubes. So, he cancelled the original surgery and scheduled a new more invasive surgery for the week before Showchoir Camp, of course.
I went in for surgery with high hopes. This was supposed to fix me! I woke up to all of my hopes being crushed. The doctor didn't even see me afterward. He told Ian. The tubes are so blocked and scarred, they are not getting blood flow. They are basically scar tissue. That's what I lost my kidney function to that resulted in transplant: Scar Tissue.
Ian and I went in to talk to the specialist, and he said, our only option to having a baby ourselves is In Vitro Fertilization. My insurance and Ian's insurance does not cover in vitro. The cost of the process is $16,000. We would have to take out a loan to do this. I had this whole plan to have a bunch of the money by January 1st, 2016, but it didn't happen.
By August, I couldn't even talk about any of this without crying. I was so depressed. I finally went to my personal doctor and told him how awful life has been, and then, started crying in front of him. He prayed with me. (I didn't really want to, but he's extremely religious. He's also a friend that cares. I've been seeing him since 2006.) Then, he gave me Zoloft. He said to build the dosage up over four weeks.
On top of all of this, the fertility doctor has asked me to stay on birth control until we decide we are ready for in vitro. He said that, if I do get pregnant, it will probably be a tubal pregnancy that isn't viable anyway. So, I've been on these hormones on top of it all.
Shortly after upping the dosage of the Zoloft, I started getting side effects. I was jittery and couldn't sit for very long. My teeth were chattering in my sleep causing me to wake up. It also made my jaw hurt. I wrote an email to my doctor about this, and his nurse practitioner assistant replied and said that he was out of the country for a while. She told me to lower the dosage, but to stay on it.
I've stayed on that lower dosage ever since. I am still having the same side effects, but not as extreme as they were getting. I can't tell if it's helping, but I'm also not crying all the time like I was before.
On top of all of this, my mother is declining in health. She is falling all the time. I'm trying to talk her in to moving into a nursing home down here in Indy. That way she's really close to me and closer to Hope. She now isn't saying no to that request.
I was finally making it and starting to feel a little better and not as depressed. Ian and I had started discussing our options. Whether that's a loan for In Vitro or to adopt a baby, or whether that is fostering to adopt, we've been discussing our options.
We ended up adopting a retired racing greyhound. He's almost 4 years old. He's been mostly fun since we got him! We had to go through the whole process of adoption. We got him through the local chapter of Greyhound Pets of America.
I came home from work on Tuesday the 29th of December. Poor Wade had gotten sick in his crate with Diarrhea twice that day. I blame myself for not coming home at lunch to let him out.
Then, I realized that Kassie Kitty had not moved from her spot on the couch all day long. I brought her some soft food that she ate on the couch. She drank a little water. After that, we started cleaning up the mess from Wade and his crate. Ian gave him a bath and washed the crate from top to bottom. Kassie still wasn't really moving. Then, she went and hid under the bed in the extra room. I don't know how she got there. I picked her up and took her to our bedroom. She couldn't stand up. She kept falling back down. We took her to Noah's Animal Hospital, which is a couple streets over from our house. They took her and did an initial visit. Then, they did blood work. They said she was severely dehydrated and her retinas had detached. She was also depressed! They kept her over night to give her IV fluids. Ian and I went home and went to bed around 2am. The vet called at 4:40am, and I didn't hear the phone. She left a message. Then, she called again at 5:50am. She said, we needed to come in immediately. Kassie wasn't doing any better. In fact, she was worse. Ian and I rushed over. We decided to put her asleep. Kassie Kitty died in my arms at 7am.
Kassie Kitty was my first baby. I got her in 2002. She was 2 or 3 years old when I got her. So, that would have made her at least 17 years old. I know that's really good for a cat.
Every night, she would sleep on my pillow on or above my head. This last week, I wake up and reach for her, and she's not there.
What a way to start 2016!
No child.
Non functioning reproductive parts.
More in debt.
Missing my kitty.
I'm just more depressed.
People ask if I'm ok, but they don't really want to know. They're just asking to make conversation. I just say, "Sure" and move on, because that's just easier at the moment.
I don't mean for this to be the "Woe is me!" post, but this is what is really been going on in my life this year.
I have decided to make some major changes this year.
I have decided to sell Mary Kay Cosmetics to help me make some extra money to go towards the $16,000 for in Vitro.
If you would like to help me out by ordering cosmetics, you can order at www.marykay.com/hpechin-myershttp://www.marykay.com/hpechin-myers.
I will also need people to do facials with me, so I can practice! There is no obligation to buy when you get a facial! Also, my first few will get a free sample product!
I don't want or need sympathy or empathy. I just want people to know what my life has been like for the last year.
Be nice to me this year. Send me positive thoughts, karma, and prayers, whatever you prefer. I can't take another year like the last!
I know I'm still here, and I'm not dying. I have friends out there that are truly sick. I know some of you are going to say, "You choose to be happy! JUST BE HAPPY!" My chemistry doesn't work that way. I wish it did! I'm mostly a happy person with a good disposition!
I'll put my "mask" back on and go out there and do the best I can!

Living in Poverty

When I was nine years old, my mom and my dad both got laid off from their jobs.  The company my mom worked for, now known as Phillips Magnavox, decided to move all production to Mexico.  The company my dad worked for, was loosing money and laying people off.
By the time I was eleven, our trailer had been repossessed, and my parents had filed bankruptcy.  We went from a two income household to a zero income household.  I didn't understand what was going on, besides the fact that we didn't have any money.  Nobody ever tried to explain to me what was going on.  Not one person sat me down and tried to explain what it means to be poor, or even the opposite, what it means to create a budget and save money.
Both of my parents searched and searched for jobs, but both of them being in their 50's, could not find anything permanent that made close to the amount of money they were making previously.  My mother's previous employer paid for her to attend college, since she didn't have any higher education.  She got an associates degree in business.  My parents both spent time as substitute teachers.
My dad had jobs off and on.  He got a job as a property manager at a storage unit facility.  He lost that after 2 or three months.
We moved across town into a low income housing edition.  My parents looked for jobs.  My dad started working at Carrie Home For Boys on the night shift.  After sixth grade, we moved again, into a house that we started renting.  We lived all the way through my high school years.
This post is just a short history of being poor.  Where am I going with this?
My parents NEVER talked money with me or my siblings.  We always found out about things on the downward end.  The loan that defaulted on my sister's car that she didn't even know about.  The credit card my parents were helping me pay for in college, until one day, they just stopped paying the bill, without telling me.  The loan my dad took out on my car without telling me, to fix it's transmission.  The endless trips to Walmart, K-Mart, and Meijers that we really didn't have money for, but my parents went anyway.
I'm not trying to rat out my parents, but they didn't teach me anything about money.  How to save it.  How to spend it.  How to not go in debt.  I'm not trying to blame them either.  I just had to learn for myself how to do these things.
This creates the Cycle of Poverty. My parents never gave me the education I needed to learn about money.  Maybe it's the generation they grew up in.  They are older, the age of most of my friends grandparents.  Did anyone else in my age group grow up with this problem?  Or did your parents educate you about the proper ways to earn, save, and spend money? 
My sister and I had a talk one day about the ways are parents hid whole money issues from us.  The secret loans. The trips to the stores.  When they had money, they spent it!
I remember, when my uncle died, he gave my mom a sum of money.  They bought a used car, which was needed.  Then, they proceeded to drive it across the United States. That trip was to see family, but a lot of money was spent to do it.  Maybe the rest of that money is how we were able to afford to move that year.
Now that my parents are older, they don't have the money to live off of.  I feel horrible because I can't afford to support them and get them the assistance that's needed for this time in their life.
I had a small trust fund to pay for medicine after my transplant.  I was told that to keep my insurance, I had to get rid of it.  I bought a used car.  This was to be safer driving to and from the hospital, which was a little over an hour drive each way.  When it came down to it, my social worker asked where that money was.  I explained to her that my parents told me to buy a car with it.  She shook her head at me in disapproval.  I obeyed what my parents had told me to do.
Now, I'm finally paying off the card I had charged most of my medicine on in college.
The current job I have is actually still paying me and keeping me at poverty level.  I keep working at my job, because I enjoy it most of the time, and it provides me with insurance.  I stated this before in previous blogs: Because I went to college, I have a lot of debt.
This post isn't to tear down my parents.  I apologize if it looks like I'm trying to.  I'm just trying to organize the thoughts in my head about my history with money.  I want to break away from the poverty cycle that has been created in my family.  According to other sources, it can take up to six generations to break that cycle.  I don't want to be in that situation.  I am only the second generation.  I don't want my children to live through some of the experiences I have.
So, I will keep chipping away at my debt.  I will get educated about money.  I will learn how to teach my children about money.

To Go To College or Not To Go To College

When you were in high school, did you feel like you had options when you graduated?  I didn't.  I was expected to go to college.  That's just what everyone did after high school.  If you didn't, you were a failure.
Nobody explained to me at any point, as a teenager, how expensive it is to go to college. No one explained to me that "Financial Aid" really meant LOANS that will take the rest of my life to pay off!
I was at most a mediocre high school student.  I'm shocked that I graduated.  I passed most of my classes in high school, but that's about it.  I got A's in all of my music classes and drama classes, and that's probably what kept me afloat as a student.  It's probably the only reason I stayed in school, to participate in those activities. 
Even though there are hundreds upon hundreds of colleges, I only applied to one.  My drama teacher had graduated from Indiana State University.  He had taken his students there every year for their Theater and Drama Day.  That was my exposure to the school.  As soon as I found out that they had a music degree, I knew that's where I was going.  No one encouraged me to check anything else out.  Luckily, I got into the school and into the music department.  Maybe they took everyone with a pulse at that time.  All I knew I wanted to do was sing!
After my first two years of college, I realized how much debt I was getting into, but as a Dialysis patient on the transplant waiting list, I had to keep going to school.  That way, I could stay on my mom's insurance.  By the time I was in my third year of college, I figured out, I have a passion for doing hair.  I could have gone to a two year or less trade school and been licensed to do hair!
With all of my health issues, and again, the fact that I'm a mediocre student at best, it took me six and a half years to finish my course work.  With my internship, that turned it into seven years.  I got loans every single year to survive.
Right now, my college loan debt is around $48,000.  That does not include the credit cards that I charged my college books and groceries to. I am slowly working to pay off all of that debt.  In 2004, my father's reaction to my debt was, "Declare Bankruptcy!  It's the only way you are going to survive!" Well, I didn't do that.  I'm slowly working my way out of debt.  It's going to take some time, but it's happening.  
I almost feel duped as a teenager, being told, the only way to make it in life is to go to college! No one once ever said to me, "Hey, did you know there are trade schools with two year degrees?" or "Maybe you shouldn't get yourself in that much debt.  College is really expensive!"    
Would I have listened to any of these comments at the time?
These days, are teenagers told how much it costs to go to college?  Is "Financial Aid" really explained to them in a manor that says, this is more debt?