Retiring with a chronic illness: How can you prepare for this new chapter?

I'm stressed and scared

I am currently semi -retired. On September 22, 2023, I suffered my fourth seizure and spent the night in the hospital. I also had to endure 6 months of not being able to drive. I was unable to work because I had no way to get there. The company I worked for let me go because I had not worked in a while. I called them to explain the situation but they said that is their policy. It is not easy not working. I was hoping to work till I was 67. I have spent the last year taking care of my mom as she is 90 years old and suffers from dementia. I promised my late father that I would always watch out for her. It hasn't been easy. But I do it because it is the right thing to do. I do the best that I can. If worse comes to worse I will just retire and collect social security. I also take care of myself as I have lived with type 2 diabetes , congestive heart failure, seizure disorder. For the last two years I have worked very hard to watch my portion sizes. I only eat breakfast lunch, and dinner. I also don't eat anything after dinner. Because of my hard work I am off insulin and only take 2 mg of Ozempic once a week. I now weigh 155, which is what I weighed when I was in college. The hard work has paid off because for the last 7 months my A1C has been 6.5. One of doctors asked me if I was trying to put them out of business. He said that it is good for me.

It's hard for me to get around at times. I give out of breath so easily. It's hard to shower in the mornings because I'm so weak and breathless. I live by myself and I'm trying my best not to give up

Have a strong inner drive to want to play everyday in retirement. Focus on physical and mental health as priority one. Everything else can wait. Have a plan to get to retirement and make it happen. Be strong of will and body. Positive affirmations are good: Mind Over Matter; Suck it Up; Be strong; Be Happy; An object in motion will continue in motion until met by an opposite equal force;

Due to having such a challenging life at an early age, I adopted 5 constant feelings as my friends. I grew up around doctors, nurses, and machines. I had very little human contact for my first 4 years. No humans, just machines and myself behind plastic barriers sealed from the outside germs. I literally had no one. I turned my only constant companions into my friends. So my friends are: Coldness, Darkness, Loneliness, Pain, and Struggling. So anytime that I awaken is a cause for celebration.

i applied for disability after my open-heart surgery and pacemaker, also flat lining while I had pneumonia in the hospital in front of my family, besides that having copd, hocm, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, fibromyalgia spinal stenosis and degenerative disc and depression, I was a mess. I felt like a pharmaceutical junkie, I was a slave to medication, it took my sex drive away, at times made me ill. I was on so much prednisone I had a moon face, i woke up in pain and went to bed in pain, at 62 they put me on forced retirement which I don't understand and have reached out with my questions but never got answers, so I decided to get my own answers by researching everything on every level until I was satisfied that I was getting the truth, what has saved me a lot was helping others and showing others how I did the research, how I delt with excabations, how to do purse breathing and other breathing exercises, I even started a music group, because music is my medicine and my escapism from my depression, I then started to use my time continuing my animal rescue, educating people on spay neuter, how to select a breed and not to buy at pet shops, I also stared cooking twice a month for the homeless and stopped feeling sorry for myself because i had a roof over my head and clothing and they did not, those are some of the ways I have learned to deal with and inhale positive energy and exhale negative energy, I hope this helped a bit?

Breathing exercises and prayers. It's really rough and I really think about giving up