So I talked everything over with my shrink and somehow we came back around to me (surprise, surprise). He agrees that I should get my affairs in order legally in the not unlikely event that my health becomes compromised beyond my ability to work or even live in the next few years, even though it will be an uphill battle to really get my family to sit down, accept that they will be my executors, and that this should happen now or as soon as possible. He also agrees I shouldn't quit my job or make any concrete plans to do so without more thought and knowledge of what my health insurance/livelihood options are if I follow through.

Also on the list is to make an appointment to meet with my financial advisor to figure out what my options are for my retirement accounts since if I withdraw early to travel I pay a penalty, if I withdraw for medical bills the penalty is waived, as I understand it, but he should be more knowledgeable than I. Oddly enough, I'm also meeting over the next week with two old college friends who, due to circumstances I had become distanced from over the past ten years, and to have them now pop up in my life again is just strange coincidence.

I would say it's like the universe is trying to tell me something, except that I don't believe in that sort of thing. Yet not until I am at least on the verge of accepting this terminal diagnosis and taking steps to ease the worry about passing are these things happening. It's unsettling but somewhat reassuring.

Today, for the first time, I voiced my possible intention to quit my job. I have to get realistic. I'm probably going to die in the next ten years, so retirement is not an option for me. I do have a solid ten years in at the job which would give me severance and COBRA, so that may be something to look towards, as well as a decent nest egg and retirement savings that, although I would pay a penalty for withdrawing early, I won't get to withdraw at all otherwise.

I have no particular reason to believe things will improve beyond that, and nothing really to fear except the manner of my dying and running out of money before that. Eventually I would probably qualify for disability and Medicaid which, depending on the way laws go, could cover a significant portion of my living expenses, although not in New York, and I would have to let go of everything here.

I haven't made any decisions. But it's time to start thinking about how things will proceed because my situation will never be normal again. Part of that might be doing something other than clinging to what I assumed I would have in that now alternate timeline.

And now I'm sick.  As in so sick I went to urgent care and was immediately taken into the back for a breathing treatment since I sounded like I was in the midst of a severe asthma attack. For the record, I don't have asthma, but it took two full albuterol treatments before I didn't sound like I was dying.

The chest x-ray came back clear though, thank God, and I'm not running a fever, so pneumonia or walking pneumonia aren't the diagnoses. 

Time to try and reset yet again, take better care of myself, get my flu shot. I need to believe I'm worth the effort to get through these days.

Another September 11th that thankfully has passed without another terrorist attack in the United States, although Barcelona was horrible. I am thankful that my friend and my cousins in Florida are safe, and their residences intact although power has to be restored. My ten years at LIB have officially been announced and I have the lucite award to commemorate my tenure.

And yet I still have what's going on in my life taking up priority space in my head and have to face that I haven't worked through what I know to be true. I've been given a death sentence, and the only way to at least give myself more time is to do the opposite of my coping skill and the cause of said death sentence, which is to not drink. It's some sort of weird circular knowledge and resistance to that knowledge playing until I crack and drink. Rinse and repeat.

The only way out that I know is to find something external to break the cycle, which is why I went to a SMART meeting since AA is just not going to happen for me and actually makes it worse. With so much else going on in the world I should be happy I have time left. I should want to make a positive change. I should strive to make things better.

For now all I can do is keep fighting for a small glimmer of hope and that some day soon I'll come to terms with this.

I'm hoping and praying for those in Florida that Irma will pass with a lot of damage but not a lot of lives lost.  In one way they've already gotten lucky that it's down to a Cat 3. In other ways, the West Coast, originally assumed to be the safer side, now is due for a direct hit.

I remember waiting for Sandy, knowing that in all likelihood I would be safe, since Upper Manhattan hasn't ever flooded or really been in danger of flooding, but that Downtown was fairly well screwed. The waiting was nerve-wracking to deal with all of the unknowns.

The aftermath was where nerves were stretched to the breaking point as days of closed transit, no internet, damaged trees and cars, and a completely flooded tip of Manhattan and many outer boroughs shut businesses for most of a year, if they ever came back. I worked the whole week except for half a day, walked to Midtown where my building still had power, and for the most part observed the disruption of life while mine went on with few hitches. And I still found it stressful.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to have the devastation of Barbuda, St. Martin, Cuba, or other areas where there was a direct hit by a storm several magnitudes of Sandy. It will be years until everything is said and done, from a relatively mere 24 hours of active hurricane destruction. So I wish the best for those impacted over the next 3-4 days, that they remember recovery is long and hard, but possible, and that preserving life is the most important consideration. Everything else will follow in it's own time.

Another Labor Day come and gone, the weekend I moved into NYC 12 years ago. It's always bittersweet for me since so much has happened, but for now I'll take this as a relatively positive year. I have my job, a few people who care about me, and my apartment.