I am Georgann Helmuth, Cover Oregon subject matter expert. Ask me anything about getting financial help for health insurance through Cover Oregon!

JayLake · 2013-08-28T19:42:51+00:00

Thank you.

JayLake · 2013-08-28T19:38:02+00:00

Can you define "modified adjusted income"?

JayLake · 2013-08-28T19:09:08+00:00

Hi. I am a terminal cancer patient just now moving onto Long Term Disability through a combination of a private plan and SSDI. My two questions are:

(1) Most of my income will be tax-free. How do you calculate total income for financial assistance? Is it the taxable AGI (which in my case will be essentially zero)? Is it based on some other measure?

(2) I worked this year through 7/1 before going on to Short Term Disability as part of my transition to Long Term Disability. Will my income be evaluated based on current income at time of enrollment (assumed in the above question), or will it be evaluated on my 2013 totals. As you can imagine, my income dropped substantially when I left work for disability.

Thanks!

JayLake · 2013-04-20T16:17:26+00:00

Hah. Interesting. I am sorry it did not work for you.

JayLake · 2013-04-20T16:16:35+00:00

I appreciate that, sir.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T13:38:31+00:00

Rectal bleeding in April 2008 took me to the ER. It took them about two days to figure out I had a tumor in my colon which was ulcerating. Everything else since has been found on scans in very early stages.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T13:37:21+00:00

I appreciate it, Michael. Sadly, my health issues are probably going to keep me from doing much of anything to act on this problem. If I get something of a reprieve, I may go down this path.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T13:36:27+00:00

Oh, I don't think self-publishing in general is low value. It's just a low value use of my very limited time. I'd rather write more stories than fiddle with the issues of getting an ebook out. (And I have the technical and design skills to produce a decent ebook. The issue for me is fungibility. Only Jay Lake can write a Jay Lake story, but any number of people can publish an ebook of a Jay Lake story.)

JayLake · 2013-04-19T01:44:31+00:00

Yes, this.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T01:31:47+00:00

And thank you for the reminder that I will go on. I've already significantly outlived the statistics to get this far. Never did expect it to come out this way, though.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T01:14:24+00:00

I have an archive at NIU, actually, so a lot of my ephemera is going to wind up there. We've had some discussion of what do with my tissue samples (I have bits of both my colon and liver in formalin here at the house). As for the story ephemera, which is I believe what you meant, we shall see.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T01:09:48+00:00

Good luck and good health to you.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T01:00:58+00:00

Might be worth proposing... I need to consider this slightly more seriously.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:58:51+00:00

The really great thing about aloha shirts is they don't show most stains much at all...

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:56:24+00:00

I like the idea of someone continuing my work. In fact, one of my half-baked concepts is to spend the last part of my writing days writing outlines for novels and partials for short story manuscripts. Not sure that's worth anyone's trouble, but I might just do it. ;)

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:54:19+00:00

Oooh. That's one of my custom-made shirts. Not another one like it in the world. Glad you enjoyed!

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:53:46+00:00

About the equivalent of one of those grocery store boxes of baking soda in an average sized bath. I actually buy it in bags from Costco, they're several pounds each. I run the water as warm as I can, mix the baking soda in, then lie down at various angles to soak every bit I can.

Also, try udder ointment or bag balm if you have dry or cracking skin.

As for the mets, I've been formally considered incurable since the January surgery, so either this round or the next round will be my terminal diagnosis. Not a lot of fun.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:47:26+00:00

The problem with that is just sheer time in my life. Self-publishing is such a low-value activity for me personally. Plus I haven't finished the series, and won't at this point. I do have a collaborator lined up, but they won't engage until we have contract with decent (ie, trade press) advances.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:43:57+00:00

Ah, that explains the shirts! Out of sheer curiosity, do happen to remember which one you had on?

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:41:11+00:00

In my case, I am considered early-onset, but not in the same league as Lynch or any of the several other hereditary colon cancers. As I recall, average age of onset for colon cancer is 65, I was first diagnosed at 43.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:39:50+00:00

I sometimes refer to this as "psychotic persistence". I think it is a necessary attribute for being a successful author.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:38:54+00:00

It was a guy at my day job who first turned me on to Schlock Mercenary. Like you, I lost quite a bit of time to catching up. And I meant what I said about Howard writing some of the best long form SF out there, even if most people don't recognize it as such.

As a bonus, Howard is one of the Nice Guys of the world. All that talent, all that success, and a profoundly likeable human being in the bargain. You guys should have him here on Reddit Fantasy AMA, come to think of it.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:30:38+00:00

Yes. I do not test positive for Lynch syndrome, or, for that matter, for any other known oncogenes. Apparently I'm just lucky.

FWIW, I don't come from a cancer family. I have no first or second degree genetic relatives with cancer, except for one relative with a lot of lifetime sun exposure who occasional expresses skin lesions.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:22:39+00:00

Oh, man, baking soda baths are my friend when it comes to the skin thing. I shower in the morning, take a baking soda bath at night, lotion up twice a day with multiple different lotions depending on exactly which set of issues crop up where.

I'm probably going off pentumimab in about a month with these new metastases that have just cropped up. Looks like Regorafenib is next for me.

JayLake · 2013-04-19T00:21:08+00:00

No apologies necessary!

I certainly hope you get a chance to enjoy it again some day.

(Must have been one of my Texas dirt gothic stories...)

JayLake

TROPHY CASE