If you’re anywhere in the Philadelphia area and would like to experience the best haircut you’ve ever had, allow me to recommend my wife, who’s a master of the craft.
But you’ll have to wait a bit because she won’t be able to work for the next 3-6 weeks. The shooting pain in her wrist turns out to be from a tear, or a series of small tears, in a tendon (or tendons).
On the one hand, that’s good news. This is something that can be fixed, likely without surgery. She’ll have to wear a cast for those 3-6 weeks to immobilize her wrist, but the doctor is pretty confident that should get her back to 100 percent.
There’s other good news as well — the ‘vixen’s pretty solid “silver” insurance plan should cover the medical expenses, just as it has already covered the cost of the cortisone injection that turned out not to help at all. We’re fortunate. “Blessed,” I would say, if I were still allowed to be all evangelical about it.
But this is also scary news here for our two-income household trying to figure out how to manage on a single income for the next couple of months. The math doesn’t add up. (I’ve double-checked it. More than once.) My wife will be getting a limited disability income during her recovery, based on her wages, but not on her tips or sales commissions, and that will be enough to continue paying for the aforementioned silver plan, but that’s about all. So the math is really quite unpleasant.
I am deeply grateful for all the support readers of this blog have provided over the years. Patreon patrons, in particular, have been immeasurably helpful as the Facebook-throttling of blog traffic has reduced the Patheos income here by about 60 percent. Thank you so much to all of you who support that Patreon. If you’ve been considering chipping in through that friendly little platform, this would be a great time to do so.
This would also be a wonderful time to utilize the donation button there in the right column. (Or to send a donation directly via PayPal using the “Send Money to Friends and Family” feature, which allows PayPal to treat a gift as a gift rather than as taxable business income.)
I’m still overwhelmed and more moved than I’m comfortable expressing over the outpouring of generosity we received back in 2013 when we were faced with a sudden medical emergency. If we were standing next to each other I would try to say how much that meant to us. “Thank you so much, it just really …” I’d say, and then I’d start to get flustered and not be able to finish, and we’d both stand there for a minute kind of mutually embarrassed until you said something like, “I know.” And then I would know that you did know. And even though you’re not standing here right now, I hope you do know. Because it just really …
We are in a real bind, but it’s a short-term crisis. And, as I said, we’re truly fortunate in many many ways. We have jobs. We have privileges most people in this world could never imagine, including the opportunity to have our girls learning at two excellent state schools (Temple and West Chester — both of which we hope will prove to be patient and flexible over the next two months). I don’t want to ask for financial help from anyone who hasn’t been as fortunate as we have been. And I know that there are greater needs and nobler causes that need and deserve your support more than we do.
But if you’re willing and able to donate here, it would mean a great deal to me and to my temporarily one-armed wife. We need this now, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking.
Thank you. It just really …
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