A Post I Really Am Not Enjoying Writing

I just added an Amazon bleg button (Update: There is also a PayPal button now.) to my sidebar. I didn't want to. Things like that are hard on a man's ego. When I started blogging, I did so with no delusions of getting rich from it and no intention to ever use my blog to ask for help. I thought if I could get a few dozen people to read what I posted and maybe change someone's mind now and then that would be more than enough to justify the effort I put into it. Sometimes life forces people to do things they'd rather not.

Those of you who've read my bio, or some of my other posts, may know that I'm too sick to hold down a job, possibly ever again. The condition the VA doctors think I have isn't life-threatening, at least not in the near future, but it is disabling. I can spend several hours a day sitting in front of a computer, but not on any predictable schedule, and any job that requires any significant physical labor or spending a major part of the day standing or talking is out of the question. I'm waiting for the VA and Social Security people to decide whether they're going to help, and in the mean time the only thing keeping me out of a homeless shelter is my younger sister's generosity. I'm writing this sitting in one corner of of the room where I slept from the time I was 7 years old until I left for college.

My sister is currently off work, without pay, waiting for the soreness to go away and the lab results to come back from a lumpectomy/ biopsy performed yesterday morning. All I can do to help is make a feeble attempt at some of the household chores, pray for her, and bleg. It's not supposed to be this way, damn it! I'm supposed to be 13, helping my baby sister learn to walk; I'm supposed to be calling her from Saigon to wish her a happy 10th birthday; I'm supposed to be going to work every day and trying to send some money home now and then. She isn't supposed to be trying to take care of me, I'm supposed to be taking care of her.

I'm not asking for money for luxuries, I'm asking for help keeping food on my sister's table and the lights on. The closest thing to a luxury involved is a rented computer (Gateway is back-ordered on power supplies; I guess they're supposed to outlast the warranty.) and a broad-band internet connection, and those will be the first things to go as things get worse.

Please don't help if you can't afford it, but if you can and want to it will mean a lot.

While I'm on the subject, I'm a reasonably competent non-fiction writer and a fair to middlin' web site designer. There's nothing I'd like better than to find something I can do from home on a by-the-job basis of some sort and remove the bleg button from my site. Any ideas? My email address is just a little way below the bleg button on my sidebar.

Thanks for listening. God bless.

Update: My baby sister does have cancer. Please read A heartfelt public Thank You.