{"id":2899,"date":"2015-08-11T10:49:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T14:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garycjones.ca\/?p=2899"},"modified":"2020-10-24T11:37:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-24T16:37:13","slug":"life-is-what-happens-while-you-are-making-other-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/?p=2899","title":{"rendered":"Life is what happens while you are making other plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an email I sent to my dear friend, Heather, today – <\/em><\/p>\n

Hope your surgery went well and you are on the mend. Sucks to get old, eh?<\/p>\n

Well, life is getting even more challenging, if that is even possible. I think for the first time in my life I am totally lost as to what to do. The Canadian dollar is absolutely killing me. Yesterday I transferred my last dime and $200 cost me $300. Brutal. This money was to pay my rent on Friday and I\u2019m left with zero to buy food for the rest of the month.<\/p>\n

I knew it was going to be tough to survive here even with the lower cost of living, but since I started researching the move I\u2019ve lost $150 a month because of the dollar and that has left me without enough to pay rent and buy food, with nothing else. I used to drop in to the bake shop for coffee and a brownie, more to meet people and talk up the websites, but it was a nice social thing to do. That\u2019s gone. I had to meet Dutch yesterday, who I owe sixty dollars to and can\u2019t pay him, and I couldn\u2019t even have a coffee. I used to go dancing Saturday night and might have two drinks at $4 apiece, but I can\u2019t do that now and I miss it. People are asking me where I was on a Saturday night and I don\u2019t know what to say. I don\u2019t even have the $2 cover charge for which you get a beer. There\u2019s so much going on around town, tours and hikes that I should be doing for the website, but I just can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Obviously, when I first planned to move I knew it would be tough to survive, not as tough as it\u2019s been, but I also had faith that long before now I would be earning some money from my websites. Before I even left Canada I had met Anna who was going to work for me as soon as I got here. I figured I would be earning a few hundred dollars a month at least by February or so. That obviously didn\u2019t work out and I\u2019ve been struggling to find someone to do sales for me ever since. I was so thrilled when Phoenix was going to work for me, but that didn\u2019t work out either. Even making a couple hundred dollars a month right now would save my ass.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only the eleventh of the month, meaning twenty-one days left until I get my pathetic pensions again. I seem to be going backwards here. It\u2019s also incredibly frustrating that that idiot back in London, who owes me at least three hundred dollars from what he\u2019s sold, won\u2019t answer me about anything. I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s sold for sure or what he has left. My friend Denise said she would go to his work and ask him what the hell he\u2019s doing, plus she offered to take whatever he has left and sell it for me, but she\u2019s been too busy working two jobs and hasn\u2019t had time to get to him. My dealer friend, who Rick works for, got really angry at me asking him to find out what\u2019s going on with Rick. I don\u2019t know what else to do as the guy seems intent on ripping me off.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the mess with my former landlady who hasn\u2019t paid me the two hundred dollars she owes me. She refuses to even answer my messages. I\u2019ve had two friends that know her and I\u2019ve asked for their help, including one of my taxi drivers, who I paid a lot of money to, whose father is a police chief, but I got nowhere. I never had a lease with her or any documentation on the rent she promised to pay me back when she asked me to move out, so I can\u2019t go to the police to go after her. I so want to shame her on Facebook but the laws here are really tough on libel and slander, so without any documentation I would really be taking my chances. She\u2019s very active on Facebook though and I\u2019ve warned her that I will make it public if she doesn\u2019t pay, but that got nowhere either.<\/p>\n

Although I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the right thing to do given my situation with my insulin, I also have the return portion of my airfare. I\u2019ve emailed COPA to see how I get a refund, but the cost of the trip now is a lot higher then back when I came, mostly because of the falling dollar, so if I get a refund to help me survive, then have to return to Canada, it will cost me a lot more.<\/p>\n

The situation with my insulin is really unclear right now. A guy in Hamilton volunteered to bring my insulin down, but then he checked with CATSA and they told him you can\u2019t carry medications other than your own. I told him that when I brought my carry-on cooler bag with my six month\u2019s supply of insulin packed in ice no one even asked me to open the bag. I had all my documentation from my doctor and the pharmacist but no one ever asked to see it. I told him Denise would unpack the vials from the boxes with my name on them and put it in a plastic container marked \u201cinsulin\u201d. He could then pack it in his check-in luggage and if anybody asked he could say it was his and that he unpacked the boxes to save space. He wouldn\u2019t budge, even when I said I was getting the insulin for free so even if he had to dump it I wasn\u2019t any worse off, although, of course, I would be. Other people, mostly from the States, have offered to bring my insulin back with them, but I would have to courier the insulin to them in the States, which costs money I don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

The other major issue with getting my insulin is that my pharmacist friend at Shoppers said he can\u2019t renew my prescription because he now knows I am out of the country. I guess he must have gotten into some trouble when he supplied my dry meds because he clearly knew I was out of the country then as well. The doctor who prescribed my medications refused to renew my prescription for insulin unless she saw me, which is absurd, so I have to go back to my family doctor to see if she will do the prescription even though she has never done it before. Even if she does agree to give me the prescription it has to be given to my old pharmacy, Rexall and I have to pray that Denise can pick it up for me without any hassle. I\u2019m going to tell her to tell them I am sick but need my insulin. It\u2019s all so complicated and frustrating. I am this close to just giving up and going back to Canada, horrible as that will be.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been able to get in touch with Kathy, the girl who\u2019s been doing my residency application. I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s paid the $350 I gave her to pay the government fee. Immigration has my passport which means I can\u2019t go anywhere, not even back to Canada without my passport. Two weeks ago she said she was going to pay the fee and courier my passport to me, but she picks now to not even respond to my emails. Of course, given that it\u2019s Ecuador, I\u2019m panicking that she\u2019s done something with my money and not paid the government. Even if she has paid the fee that means I have to fly to Guayaquil to pick up my cedula and I don\u2019t have a dime to do that. I need my cedula to register for the national health care plan so that I can at least get my meds in three to four months, assuming I find a way to stay alive until then.<\/p>\n

Even with all these troubles I just can\u2019t stand the thought of being forced to give up and go back to Canada. Yes, I get my meds again and the GIS pension, but where the heck do I live and how do I survive? I have nothing but a few clothes and it would be brutal to try to start over again with nothing. I don\u2019t know how I would even afford rent anywhere, let alone anything else, plus I\u2019ve lost my dream of living out my life here in Ecuador, which I honestly don\u2019t know if I can handle. I\u2019ll never be able to afford to come back. I\u2019ll have lost the months of very long days working on my websites because there\u2019s no way I can do it from Canada. It\u2019s so pathetic that the latest stats on my one website show that I am getting eight thousand visits a day and that the site is valued at over five grand. Talk about timing. I\u2019ll have nothing but regrets and nothing to live for. I\u2019ll go crazy with nothing to do. I don\u2019t even have all my winter coats and boots that I gave away to survive if I\u2019m homeless.<\/p>\n

I feel that I am in a no win situation. The thoughts of starving are pretty bad. I\u2019m diabetic and not eating will kill me, which, right now, in my lousy mental state, maybe isn\u2019t all that bad. I just feel so beat down by everything that\u2019s happening. I\u2019ve lost control over my life and I have no clue what to do to get it back. Trying to survive when I can\u2019t afford a coffee makes my life here just terrible. The smallest things, like getting my washing done for only a few dollars every week, is out of reach. I\u2019ve looked at the food I have and know that it will not be enough to keep me going until the end of the month. I volunteer every Friday at the soup kitchen and realize I may soon need to eat there myself, not that one meal a week will keep me alive.<\/p>\n

I know you must be sick of hearing my troubles and I\u2019m sorry to burden you with them. I just feel so lost with no one to talk to and more lonely than I\u2019ve ever felt in my entire life. All my dreams and efforts to make a better life for myself seem to be getting more and more impossible to achieve. Something has to change or I\u2019ll lose it soon. My options seem to be dwindling fast.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve read all this, thank you, my dear friend. It helps to at least be able to vent about things and not keep them all trapped inside. I hope you know that.<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an email I sent to my dear friend, Heather, today –  Hope your surgery went well and you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[96,97,101],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my_life","tag-rants-and-raves","tag-my-life","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/other-plans.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5369,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/5369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}