Sabbatical denied, back to the financial drawing board

My original plan for the next year of cancer treatments was to get a sabbatical from my school which would give me some money while I was at home doing research on cancer, increasing my scientific knowledge, and writing a book on my experiences so that I could maintain somewhat of our standard of living while still having work to do and having time to do it. Honestly, it would have allowed us to pay our bills and that is about it. I had planned on applying for a sabbatical at some point in the next few years but the situation I am in prompted me to apply earlier than I had planned. I was denied my sabbatical. So, now I'm back to square one and extremely stressed about this. I am not independently wealthy and although people are raising money in my name, I don't know if it will be enough. I need to make some money next year but due to my treatment plan I am unsure that I will be able to do my job. So, I am applying for social security disability which will most likely be denied because my cancer isn't advanced enough (crazy isn't it). But while I wait on SSDI, I am currently in the market for a part time job in the Schenectady area - I don't want to have to travel far and spend gas money to get to a part time position. I am also very interested in a work from home option. I would prefer not to work in teaching if I was to change jobs for a year because teaching is extremely stressful and developing new curriculum is really difficult - the first year of teaching or the first year of teaching in a new school district is always the hardest for a reason. After the last few weeks of complications and healing, I know I am limited in what I am capable of doing. The sabbatical situation would have been perfect. I could plan to have my treatments every Tuesday and then be able to schedule my scans and my follow-up appointments for the times I needed. Plus, I could have done work, take a nap which would help with healing, and then go for a walk (hopefully short runs, bike, or swim) when I felt up to it. Well, cancer sucks and the stresses associated with it are horrible as well. I am trying to stay positive and continue healing so I need to breath and have hope that all will work out.

Healing!

I have begun getting nervous about appointments again after the last 4 appointments. Today went really well though. I had my bandages taken off, I was told it looks like I am healing well again. There was no talk of more stitches because everything looks like it's healing correctly right now. Honestly, there aren't many more areas that I could have more stitches though. I cannot look at the stitches but I trust my doctor in saying it looks good. I know these stitches will make my scar a little bigger but I don't care. I just want to heal. Who is really going to look at my chest other than me and my husband ever anyway? We re-bandaged so that I could continue to take regular showers and they seem to heal better when they are covered. This also means less maintenance for me. He also said I need to use my arms and maintain my former posture because I haven't been doing that in order to protect my incisions. So, we keep thinking positive thoughts, visualizing my healing and appropriate mitosis, and maintaining my vitamin C and protein intake to keep healing. Because of my lack of healing over the past few weeks, we (both doctors and myself) decided to start chemo next week on Tuesday to give me a little more healing time. My year long countdown starts next Tuesday!