They want to redo our kitchenette. I'm fine with this. They want to "fix" our bathroom. I'm not okay with this and said so. The head of maintenance said four times "we'll be in touch" and wouldn't listen as I talked. He kept saying "I know" when I talked about how I crawl around the place. He doesn't know. My husband told me later he felt the guy was very dismissive of my concerns... I felt the same.
They want to make our apartment more ADA compliant, but the ADA doesn't cover cripples like me in every instance. I transfer from the floor and most things are set up for wheelchair transfers in the ADA guidelines. They make one wrong move and we're homeless. And we got the brush-off.
I called my mom after they went on to the next apartment and broke down. I sobbed and screamed that we should have let the cancer kill me. If I weren't disabled, we could move anywhere. That I'm so f*cking tired of fighting for every basic thing in my life most people never have to give a thought. I looked into my husband's tearing-up eyes as he cupped my red cheeks and told him he'd be better off if I would have died.
I'm so tired of fighting.
But, I will.
Tuesday, I'm going to request a meeting with whoever had the idea to renovate and whoever is planning the renovations. When we do meet, I will have them go through every single change and give my input. I hope they listen. If not, I have to go higher in their chain until someone does. I can't lose the home we've made here for the last decade.
My husband talks about winning the lottery so we can have our own house and not worry about a landlord "knowing it will be better for me" and changing what works. The lottery being the only way we'd ever afford something like that because I'm a government leech.
Who knows? The changes could be amazing. But, I'm not holding my breath. The carpet they are replacing our current one with hurts to crawl on (it's the same one in our building's hallway). And the bars they wanted in my bathroom when I first moved in wouldn't have worked if they followed the ADA guidelines (they thankfully didn't). They claim they have to do this. So, I doubt I'll luck out this time.
Even if I do get lucky and they listen, it's still going to be months of worry and arguing and renovating. It's going to cost mega amounts of energy I don't have to spare. It means more days in bed asleep, the one day a week I get out of the apartment being used to check on things. Possibly a hospitalization because stress strangles what little bit of immune system I have. I'll be cancelling some of the few social engagements I manage. My writing and submitting will suffer like last year and I'll feel like a failure because I'm "doing nothing with my life".
Last year was cancer treatment, the cancer that hasn't been declared gone completely by a doctor. This year is the possibility of homelessness. And I'll fight because the alternative is no alternative.
Maybe we'll spend money we shouldn't and buy a lotto ticket for Saturday. At least I'll have hope for a better future than the one I'm staring into.
