Reply #32: Man, it's stories like this that make me glad I'm a nurse

[tavalon]

I got out of my state school 18 years ago with no debt and have had a steady ability to work and a rising salary (especially since I moved to a unionized area - yay! unions, even weak union help) I'm also lucky because I have loved working with patients and now my little patients and their parents for these 18 years. I don't think my job will be going away anytime soon and I can even emigrate to Canada if necessary.

But I have to say, living in the Seattle area with my life partner making half of what he did in Austin and as of January getting the shittiest "health insurance" I have ever seen outside of medicaid, we are struggling to keep up. My son is autistic and his medicines cost about $600.00 a month and we've had to halt the other medical treatments for him and also his dad for now. I'm going to likely marry dad(something that is stupid in my book, but again, I'm lucky because I have that option) at the end of the year, so that I can insure them both and he can get his sleep apnea treatments and kiddo can get back to his treatments as well.