Lack Of Income And Poor Insurance

I had a doctor's appointment today. Got a refill on my spironolactone, and Celexa dose increase to 10mg/day. Didn't get any bad news either, which is always good.

I also stopped by and talked a financial advisor at the social services office. Turns out that as long as I am even eligible for any other insurance that I cannot get onto my state's insurance. This sadly means I am stuck on Medicare, and that I must either pay for another insurance (which I cannot afford to do, as it would be several hundred a month I do not have unless I forgo eating) or must pay for all therapist and endocrinologist appointments, tests, and medications relating to my transsexuality out of pocket. Sadly I cannot pay for that either, so I'm stuck not being able to officially progress in transition on those aspects. (I'm not comfortable enough any more with the idea of ordering the hormones online, and would still have to pay for blood work out of pocket which I cannot do.)

The solution then seems simple. In order to progress with transition, I have to earn extra income. Aside from the current economic turmoil that makes landing a job, especially when I've not had one for years (for those who don't know, I receive SSDI, which is also why I have Medicare), if I earn much more than ~$50 additional a month, my mate and I will have to pay the premiums for Medicare out of pocket, and that was $84/mo/ea last I knew. This quickly shows me that if I (or my mate) were to start bringing in additional income we'd have to make more than ~$168/mo or we completely loose out. If I want to actually start seeing the therapist for transition that's an additional $136 (for self-paying in full on the day of the appointment, as it gets a 20% discount) a visit, minimum once a month. Couples therapy, which we would do a bit as my mate is genderqueer, is $196.60 a visit. (Both therapy fees are from one and a half years ago, and is likely to be higher now.) This quickly raises the monthly amount of additional income I or my mate would need to make to about $400 a month, as in order to make enough to pay for the therapy visits makes it so we also have to pay our Medicare premiums out of pocket as well.

To further complicate matters I still suffer from chronic anxiety, and cannot maintain a 24 hour schedule. Clearly then if one of us was to get a part time job it would have to be my mate, as even though he doesn't wake up until 1:30 pm he at least has a regular schedule, and doesn't suffer from anxiety. Still, there really isn't any job openings in the area, especially not for someone in their mid twenties who hasn't had a job since they were honorably discharged from the military years ago.

This really then leaves only one possibly viable way for us to bring in the additional income we need for us both to continue in transition. (My mate is FtM/genderqueer, and so has his own transition.) We need to find something to make and somewhere to sell it.

One thought that has come to mind, though I have no clue if it'd work, is to make renaissance and medieval dresses and such to sell on them on Etsy, or similar website. Unfortunately I have no idea how many dresses I would be able to sell on average per month, or how much to charge for them, and so have no clue if I'd be able to bring in enough to even cover the Medicare premiums.

One other thing that has been suggested to me is AdSense, and the like, and blogging. To be honest, that's part of why I made this blog. It's much more professional in appearance and capability than my old blog. I'm also trying to see if I can post regularly enough to be able to maintain a readership beyond close friends, and if I can post about only a few topics to keep a readership interested. I have almost no clue how to go about attracting a readership base in the first place, but that would be moot if I couldn't maintain it. I also don't have much for expectations on returns from ads for such, but perhaps that combined with Etsy would be enough. Honestly, I'm not sure if it would, but if I am able to blog regularly and get a readership, then perhaps I would be able to get some good feedback for more possibilities.

Other than that I did manage to get more info about name changes in Minnesota (and now an astute reader will what area of the country I live in). I also have an application for name change sitting on my desk, though I'm not sure when I'll actually get it filled out. The main problem for me isn't the $250 fee, or even filling out the form, but instead wrangling up two witnesses I'd trust enough to testify in favour of my transition. Oh, sure, I know a few people, including what little family still has some contact with me, who would most likely be free and willing to do so, but I know they don't exactly approve of my transition and so would likely hesitate, even if just half a second, when testifying. Any judge worth their gavel would pick up on that and possibly question further. They'd also be more likely to read the application closer, and since I do plan on seeing if I can also get my birth records amended by changing my sex designation from 'male' to 'female' they'd be more likely to really inquire into that, or deny it outright. Even with really supportive witnesses it's only got a chance to get through, since I'm still pre-op (though they might not ask, and I hope they don't), but I don't want want to jeopardise that chance any more than I have to.