Getting your life turned on it’s head
I’m going to tell you a secret, ok? The internet has kept me alive and sane for several years now. Wanna know how?
Up until the last year, I spent 10 months out of twelve traveling the globe. I kept a “go bag” at the door loaded with all the gear I would need for a week out in the field, a camera packed and ready and as soon as I got the call that said, “Hey, Daniel – how’d you like to head to….(fill in the blank)”, I was out the door and that made me valuable in the field. I could get the story, I could get the shot and presto! Suddenly I’m a busy commodity.
That get-up-and-go attitude also made me very lonely. When your first concern is work 90% of the time, you don’t get much opportunity to make friends you’ll see regularly much less sustain the friendships of those who you do meet in the field.
Technology to the rescue! With a few clicks, I can check in with friends. A charged up satellite phone can bring you right into that cave in Afghanistan with me. One also saved my life Banda Aceh in 2004 by letting people know I wasn’t among the quarter million dead. You can say I’m all about making friends on the internet. I even found the love of my life on here. Say what you want about the internet and Twitter, the friends I’ve made on here are just as substantial as any flesh-and-blood friends I have in Chicago.
A little bit ago, a friend of mine went missing. I met him on here thru my buddy Nelson, and between the three of us we run our individual websites devoted to bringing online what we think is important. We don’t drink the Gay Inc, Kool-Aide, we write what’s important to us and roll our own way.
I’d love to say that I noticed Lyndon’s absence immediately but that wasn’t the case. Busy this, busy that, blah, blah, blah – I just didn’t catch it until Nelson sent me an email asking if I had a clue what was going on with our mutual friend. It turns out he was in a substantial car accident:
In the wee hours of March 18 I was involved in a car accident here in Danbury. The accident sent me to Danbury Hospital with head lacerations and a dislocated and badly injured right hip. I was tranferred to Yale/New Haven Hospital that morning because of the extent of the hip injury and was released from Yale/New Haven Hospital a week ago today after having a metal plate and almost a dozen pins put into my hip. It is going to be a very long road to recovery for this 57 year old. Consensus was from both the trauma and ortho team I would be unable to return to work for possibly two months which means the beginning of June.
It’s one thing to go through this at any age but my own age will not help matters any in a prolonged and full recovery. To make matters worse while I do have health coverage, the deductible is quite high and I have no short/long term disablility. And only one more paycheck, small that it will be, with just less than 30 hours of pay. To say I have now entered into a financial nightmare is an understatement.
There will be several followup visits the first of which will be April 7. A week after that I will go see the surgeon to have over 70 staples removed from my hip and more followups. Throw into the mix perscriptions, bills which won’t be paid by insurance because of deductible and later this month having to find a way to pay for my continuing coverage so as not to lose it I am at my wits end. Back in 1980 I coordinated a statewide radiothon here in Connecticut to raise money for a child abuse prevention program which was sponsored by the National Exchange Club. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought the day would come that I would need a fund raiser for myself but that is just about what it will take to keep from entering a financial abyss plus losing my health coverage.
That having been said this may be the only posting for sometime. There are several reasons. The first is my PC is now running on wireless and is intolerably slow. Physically it is very uncomfortable to sit here and use the PC and lastly with no income it will probably mean lossing access to my ATT Uverse.
While I have my ups and downs, financial worries aside, each day in regards to discomfort and pain, some days better or worse than others. Today for the first time because of a stupid incident with my folks this morning I said to myself I wish I hadn’t survived the accident.
Imagine in the blink of an eye having the rug ripped out from under you, going from a reasonably sedate and secure existence to “how the hell do I survive this one? It’s not a fate I would wish on anyone. On a total aside, it would make me totally crazy if I had to give up my site while I recuperated. This has been my baby since day one, and other than a few scant days off, keeping my site going is part of my daily routine and existence. What started out as a way to clear the cobwebs out of my head when I left the field has turned into a site with a following that keeps coming back for more.
Check out Lyndon’s site; you’ll spot immediately the care and attention he puts into his content. And while my reason for this post isn’t solely a pass-the-hat motivation, there is a PayPal button on his homepage. Give it a click if you can afford it, ok?
If nothing else, check out his site, leave him a comment, or drop him an email. I can’t think of a better use of the internet right now.
…dm
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