And So "The Mission" Began ...

"How much longer do you think it'll take before my feet and legs are strong again?"


I was sitting on a table while my physical therapist was pummeling my feet with his bear-paw-sized hands, gripping a hand towel and gritting my teeth through the pain.


He paused and looked up. "Well, I'd say you need to come in here for at least three months."


"Huh."


He went back to the torture.


"Well, let me ask you this."


He stopped again and looked up.


"How long do you think it'll take before I'm ready to do something like ... take a part-time job at a place like Starbucks? Just something simple, like serve coffee to people?"


"Well, let's see ... You'd have to stand on your feet for hours at a time. Right now, your legs can't handle that, and we know your feet would break. So why don't you focus on doing the physical therapy, and then think about getting a part-time job, if that's what you want to do?"


"OK."


He smiled and grabbed a calf and proceeded to rub it so hard that I felt like a hot coal was burning into the muscle. I put the hand towel in my mouth and bit down on it to keep from screaming. And then to distract myself from the agony, I started doing some calculations in my head.


If I was getting a certain amount per month for stories -- and going to physical therapy -- and paying out $503 per month for health insurance -- and still couldn't continue to market for new work because the pain was so intense ... I could only do it for so long before I'd run out of money. There just wasn't enough coming in to keep up with the cost of what was going out.


BUT.


I also had heard via friends there were actually companies that included part-time workers in their health insurance plans. If I could find a company like that, I could work on the side, get coverage at a cheaper rate while freelancing and come out ahead financially.


However, there was this little problem with the threat of the bones in my feet breaking.


My Mission was clear, though.


I resolved, right there on that table in the physical therapist's office, that I would overcome this physical limitation. I would do whatever he said, go through whatever pain I had to endure, give my entire focus to getting well again ... so that I could get a part-time job and attain affordable health insurance. I would work myself to death on the Spanish Inquisition Machine, lift weights with my legs, curl my toes into towels to strengthen my feet and silently curse into a towel while my legs and feet were hammered again and again.


If I could get affordable health insurance, it would all be worth it. If I could provide health care for me and my child, all of it was necessary.


I set my face like flint and resolved to achieve the Mission Impossible.