It’s been a while…And we’ve been sick. Emphasis on we.
So you’re going to get a bit of a verbal mishmash, and I apologize for that, but it’s necessary to explain the situation.
Both Aunt Annie and I are dealing with persistent health issues which have taken me away from the blog, and kept me away from the blog over the last couple of months.
Those issues have been complicated by the fact that Aunt Annie took a rough fall a couple of weeks ago.
She’s required in-home nursing care to treat her wounds (though I’ve learned my share of wound care over the last three years), and give her some physical therapy, and that’s made things more complicated for me, because I’ve been shepherding her through four or five nursing visits a week.
That’s a lot of time, energy and effort to be dedicating to caregiving, so even if I was healthy enough to blog full-time, right now, I’m kind of stuck doing the caregiving job, and hoping that she doesn’t fall again.
Even though she’s using a walker, and is making sure that I supervise her locomotion right now, she’s been really shaky over the past couple of months, and she’s had a very rough week this week…So we’re just hoping for a full recovery over time.
The “long story long” about me is pretty simple: nobody knows why I’m still physically ill and dealing with low energy levels so regularly. I’ve seen my primary care physician several times about this issue, I’ve seen an ENT/otolaryngologist to address the issue, but we just don’t know why some days, I can get out of bed and work and be a caregiver at the same time…
And other days, I can barely function for more than a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours at night. I’ve tried very hard to pop up on Twitter and do the full “game call” thing over the past couple of months, and that’s been life-giving in terms of interacting with like-minded hockey fans, but just doing a couple hours’ worth of Twitter interaction can exhaust me for a day or more.
Sometimes I have to miss games and watch them later because I’ve been exhausted by typing on my keyboard for a couple of hours, and that’s incredibly frustrating.
I really need to see a specialist or rheumatologist about my energy issues, and it’s very hard to get an appointment with the latter.
It’s just a mystery as to what’s going on with me physically.
Just as importantly, the mental strain on me has yielded some significant depression and anxiety issues.
I’ve been working very hard to address these issues with my therapist and psychiatrist. We’ve increased the dosages of three of the six antidepressants I take every day, in order to fully address what was a severe depressive episode in January and February, due in no small part to being away from the blog. Those two months were pretty dark.
Bottom line, I’m still struggling to sort out my own mysterious, debilitating health issues, and while I’ve come a long way mentally from the darkest depression that I was dealing with in January and February, Aunt Annie’s recent fall has complicated the caregiving workload.
I’ve talked a lot to my therapist about whether I want to come back to the blog at all–the answer is yes, of course–and whether the blog is even relevant any more after such a long absence.
Most certainly, while the Red Wings are battling against both their opponents and themselves in order to push for the playoffs, I really want to be part of the mix, but it’s been hard to bridge the gap between what my body and brain will let me accomplish and what I need to even give you a bare minimum’s worth of blogging effort.
Regardless of whether I’m even relevant in the Red Wings blogosphere any more, I still want to do this blogging thing, I still want there to be a Malik Report community, and I miss all of you tremendously.
As for the rest of this, you know the drill by now.
There is no “sick pay” for bloggers, and we’ve really struggled to get by financially. I’m a State of Michigan-registered Medicaid Waiver Program caregiver for Aunt Annie, and she gets her Social Security, but it’s really hard to make that work. We’ve been able to cut here and cut there, but it’s the end of the month, and I think we’ve got…
Um…$2.58 in my PayPal account right now. Due to a kind reader, we were able to raise enough money to buy some toilet paper today, but aside from food stamps, we are b-r-o-k-e. That’s become the norm over the last couple of months.
That’s the other impetus for writing this, regrettably. It sucks donkey balls to have to ask readers for money, but we’re low-income folks, and…It’s just tough.
It’s tough to have to call utility companies to make payment arrangements, it’s tough to not even have the discretionary funds to have fast food more than once a month, it’s hard to not be able to even get Aunt Annie some Leo’s Chicken Lemon Rice Soup when she’s sick…
And it’s been very hard to figure out what we can do with our unsafe-to-drive car, because there are no automotive charities in Oakland County, and between my tailpipe dragging on the ground and my rusted-out Pacifica’s frame continuing to degrade, it’s just scary to drive the car right now.
I’ve written the county, I’ve written a congressperson and I’ve written a local TV station to ask for help regarding the transportation issue, because even with the State of Michigan’s DHHS offering a $4,000 repayment program for a once-in-a-lifetime car purchase, we’ve got no options in front of us, so even if I could man the blog right now, there’s no way I could make it down to LCA or a Griffins game or even over to Plymouth from South Lyon at this rate. The car’s pretty much limited to Pontiac Trail between 8 and 11 mile right now.
We live from day to day as best we can, we live through our physical ailments, my mental health problems, and the financial uncertainty as to whether we can pay the bills or whether I’m going to get pulled over the next time I try to head to Walgreens to pick up one of Aunt Annie’s 23 prescriptions or the mere 10 that I take.
That’s been our life over the past couple of months, and it’s been hard, but we’ve at least survived. It just sucks that, between my own health issues and now dealing with Aunt Annie’s fall, I couldn’t man the blog even if I had the energy to do so.
If you can lend a hand with our overall expenses, we have an old-fashioned GoFundMe here https://gofund.me/64fd3d8f, you can use PayPal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com. And you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check. I’m also on Cash App under “georgeums.”
That’s where I’m at, and where my small family unit is at right now. Doing our best on our own, with the support of online friends and a couple of kind in-real-life folks who follow the blog.
My aunt’s side of the family is still pissed off at us after we chose to go to training camp despite their disagreement with our decision-making process. Aside from a couple of uncles and aunts, none of our family members seems to give much of a flying fig as to how we’re doing right now, and that’s just the way it is.
So I’ll try to be back as soon as my body gets me to 70% of what it once was. I know that other folks have stepped into the breach while I’ve been absent, and that you’ve probably found other ways to get your Red Wings information…
But this sleeping blog hopes to persist, and return, if only eventually, and if only in a slightly reduced capacity.
I miss you guys and gals and in-betweeners. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope that we can talk again in a hockey capacity soon.
Thanks for your time,
George and Aunt Annie
