I was now seeing first hand the financial impact that a cancer diagnosis can create. This impact also brings with it a number of unique concerns when the person in question is a young adult. We are a stage in our lives where there is tremendous pressure to become educated and be successful as an undividual. Many of us are in university or just coming out of university. Many of us have thousands of dollars accumulated in student loans, all waiting to be paid. Many of us cannot recieve disability or unemployment because of our university careers. Those of us who did not choose the university route are just beginning our financial lives and have little expendable income. A cancer diagnosis is a HUGE blow to a young person financially.
This was suddenly becoming a dark reality for me. I became overwhelmed with financial stress. My credit cards bills began piling up, rent needed to be paid, RBC was awaiting their money. Every bit of money I earned was immediately being handed over to a bill. I couldn't afford anything extra, which was creating a deep sense of unhappiness for me. I felt as though I couldn't enjoy my life because I didn't have the money to do any of the things I wanted to. It was an extremely stressful time. If it weren't for the help of my parents, my credit would probably be completely ruined by now.
I think that there needs to be more awareness about the financial strain caused to young people who receive a cancer diagnosis or any other life-threatening illness. We are the gray area-- a tiny population of individuals who have a completely unique and unusual set of circumstances. And we are oftentimes overlooked. I hope that in the future I will be able to create a fund to help ease the financial burden of a cancer diagnosis for other young cancer survivors. I know it would have been extremely helpful to me. It is a time when financial support is a necessity, but unfortunately there are very few resources available for unique situations as such.
Friday, January 18, 2008
$$$ Money $$$
In September, Mike and I packed up our things and moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Exciting. I immediately filled out an application for substitute teaching upon arriving and Mike began taking his courses at UNB. I also contacted an old professor of mine, whose music education class I used to tutor, and offered my tutoring services for his classes once again. I hung posters around the city advertising piano lessons. I figured having a few smaller jobs would give me flexibility and diminish stress levels so that I could still heal while also making money.
Subtituting did not provide the cash I planned for. As it turns out, Fredericton has a surplus of subsitute teachers. Even worse, it is a very political city where connections mean everything. Weeks went by at first where I didn't get any phonecalls. Teaching piano, tutoring, and subsititute teaching the odd day here and there were just giving me enough money to scrape by.
And suddenly, one day in mid-September, I receieved a phonecall from RBC with whom I have a student line of credit. There was a one-year grace period following the end of my degree where the loan was interest-free, but I guess that one year period had expired. They were suddenly asking me for a minimum payment of $380 per month, which was due by the end of September. What?!?!?! I just had cancer and haven't worked for an entire year-there has to be some way around this! I made an appointment with bank to discuss my oustanding circumstance. I told them my whole story-- I had just graduated university and decided to move to South Korea to teach English for a year so that I could make enough money to pay at least half of my $50,000 student loan. But, unfortunately, a month after I arrived in South Korea I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This meant that I had not accumulated enough unemployment hours over the year because I had been in school for the past 7 years. I was also working in South Korea upon graduating, so I had no employer to offer me disability leave, which is what would happen with most people. I had to undergo surgery and chemotherapy which prevented me from working. Thus, over the past year I had not earned a penny. I was just getting back into the work force. I was hoping that they could offer me some sort of grace period, even if it were a few months, until I was able to accumulate some income.
Let me tell you-- banks are concerned with nothing but profit. They had no concern for me as an individual. They said there was nothing they could do because I did not have disability insurance. The funny thing is that they previously told me that they don't even offer disability insurance on student loans unless it is asked for. When I was 18, which is when I got this line of credit, the last thing on my mind was being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. After I insisted that there must be something they could do, they called around and gave me one other option. They said: "We can make the credit line interest-only instead of minimum payment until you are able to accumulate some income." This sounded great, until she told me how much the interest was per month-- the interest alone was $250 per month!
This was a blow to my motivation and my confidence. How was I going to get by, considering my health and my bills and everything else going on in my life?
Subtituting did not provide the cash I planned for. As it turns out, Fredericton has a surplus of subsitute teachers. Even worse, it is a very political city where connections mean everything. Weeks went by at first where I didn't get any phonecalls. Teaching piano, tutoring, and subsititute teaching the odd day here and there were just giving me enough money to scrape by.
And suddenly, one day in mid-September, I receieved a phonecall from RBC with whom I have a student line of credit. There was a one-year grace period following the end of my degree where the loan was interest-free, but I guess that one year period had expired. They were suddenly asking me for a minimum payment of $380 per month, which was due by the end of September. What?!?!?! I just had cancer and haven't worked for an entire year-there has to be some way around this! I made an appointment with bank to discuss my oustanding circumstance. I told them my whole story-- I had just graduated university and decided to move to South Korea to teach English for a year so that I could make enough money to pay at least half of my $50,000 student loan. But, unfortunately, a month after I arrived in South Korea I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This meant that I had not accumulated enough unemployment hours over the year because I had been in school for the past 7 years. I was also working in South Korea upon graduating, so I had no employer to offer me disability leave, which is what would happen with most people. I had to undergo surgery and chemotherapy which prevented me from working. Thus, over the past year I had not earned a penny. I was just getting back into the work force. I was hoping that they could offer me some sort of grace period, even if it were a few months, until I was able to accumulate some income.
Let me tell you-- banks are concerned with nothing but profit. They had no concern for me as an individual. They said there was nothing they could do because I did not have disability insurance. The funny thing is that they previously told me that they don't even offer disability insurance on student loans unless it is asked for. When I was 18, which is when I got this line of credit, the last thing on my mind was being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. After I insisted that there must be something they could do, they called around and gave me one other option. They said: "We can make the credit line interest-only instead of minimum payment until you are able to accumulate some income." This sounded great, until she told me how much the interest was per month-- the interest alone was $250 per month!
This was a blow to my motivation and my confidence. How was I going to get by, considering my health and my bills and everything else going on in my life?
Health Vs. Career, Life Vs. Money
September was approaching and I knew it was time for me to start picking up the pieces and moving on. Although I was still not feeling 100%, money had to be made and my life had to be lived. I decided that the best thing for me to do was to start working little by little, until my energy level was finally restored and I felt physically able to endure the stress of being a full-time teacher. I needed to think of my health first.
This decision to take my health first and to mold the rest of my life according to its shape presented me with some further tough decisions. I was approached by the Cape Breton Victoria Regional School Board, who offered me a full-time position teaching elementary classroom music in the 2007-2008 schoolyear. Wow. What an awesome offer. I am basically being handed a full-time position! But wait ... am I feeling physically capable of doing this? At this point I needed to make a choice between my health and my career. On one hand, I could have an amazing job making lots of money, but I would be jeopradizing my body's ability to heal itself after everything it had just gone through. And on the other hand, I could settle for substitute teaching and making less money for the year, but at the same time I would be giving my body ample time to heal and recover. The biggest thing that concerned me about teaching full-time so soon was the stress of first year teaching. I knew I was still feeling tired and run-down and my body was not fully recovered from chemotherapy. I knew that the stress of teaching would only make this worse.
Ultimately, it came down to what my gutt was telling me, which was: "Your body is not ready for this yet. You want to live!" And, in the end, I turned down the job and settled for substitute teaching.
Mike was later accepted into the Bachelor of Education program at the University of New Brunswick, which we had been hoping for for many months previous. We decided that we would move to Fredericton together for the year. I was extremely excited about this move because it was almost like a first step. It would get me back out of my parents house and away, so I could regain some independence. I also have university friends as well as my brother and his family living in New Brunswick, so I would have a chance to spend some time with them again and rekindle some friendships. I felt confident about taking this first step back into my life.
This decision to take my health first and to mold the rest of my life according to its shape presented me with some further tough decisions. I was approached by the Cape Breton Victoria Regional School Board, who offered me a full-time position teaching elementary classroom music in the 2007-2008 schoolyear. Wow. What an awesome offer. I am basically being handed a full-time position! But wait ... am I feeling physically capable of doing this? At this point I needed to make a choice between my health and my career. On one hand, I could have an amazing job making lots of money, but I would be jeopradizing my body's ability to heal itself after everything it had just gone through. And on the other hand, I could settle for substitute teaching and making less money for the year, but at the same time I would be giving my body ample time to heal and recover. The biggest thing that concerned me about teaching full-time so soon was the stress of first year teaching. I knew I was still feeling tired and run-down and my body was not fully recovered from chemotherapy. I knew that the stress of teaching would only make this worse.
Ultimately, it came down to what my gutt was telling me, which was: "Your body is not ready for this yet. You want to live!" And, in the end, I turned down the job and settled for substitute teaching.
Mike was later accepted into the Bachelor of Education program at the University of New Brunswick, which we had been hoping for for many months previous. We decided that we would move to Fredericton together for the year. I was extremely excited about this move because it was almost like a first step. It would get me back out of my parents house and away, so I could regain some independence. I also have university friends as well as my brother and his family living in New Brunswick, so I would have a chance to spend some time with them again and rekindle some friendships. I felt confident about taking this first step back into my life.
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