Hey Bitcoin family, I need some help. I need advice. I need anything that makes sense. My wife has cancer.
My post from this morning blew up and got more engagement than anything I've ever posted. I appreciate the genuine care and support that people have offered. I am falling apart, and I have to make some really hard decisions. If you're a real one, please read through this and offer any advice you have. I'm just a normal guy, and I really want to hear what you have to say.
So my wife and I have known each other since early high school. We were good friends. I left my hometown and did seasonal chef work and traveled for most of my twenties. We got together about six years ago, and my wife was battling with alcohol addiction. I was the main breadwinner-- supported her through her alcoholism, getting a DUI, and being completely dependent on me. After a few years of spiraling alcoholism, COVID hit. We tried to live out of a pop up camper and work on the Oregon coast, but it was too much with a Husky and a Manx Cat.
We moved to the city. I got a corporate job that crushed my soul and paid more than I've ever made. Her drinking got so bad that I was picking her up from bars at 1:30am because she was seizing and someone found me in her phone and called me. It finally got to the point where I had decided to leave. I gave her an ultimatum-- get sober, or you're homeless with no job, no assets, and no property to your name.
And then she did. She did a yoga sobriety program that transformed her life. She has been clean ever since. We took profits at the top of the 2021 market and bought a 1978 Toyota motorhome. I rebuilt it while we lived out of it, and we had many hardships. For a year we drifted up and down the West Coast of the United States, working when we needed to... and floating on when we had the money.
We found ourselves in San Diego and I had a manic episode. It turned into a full blown psychotic episode that landed me in the hospital. It took months if not an entire year for me to get my mind back. We moved home, sold the RV, and started building a life in NC again.
I got back into restaurants. I've been a chef my whole life, grinding hard for meager wages just chasing my passion for food and art. This time was different, I could no longer be a corporate line-dragger. Bitcoin had changed me too much.
I worked for a plant nursery, but the owners and management were incompetent and kept shooting themselves in the feet. I couldn't work for someone that cared less about their business than I did, so I quit. Shortly after, I had another manic episode, and after two nights of not sleeping I admitted myself to the hospital to be medicated. After a week in a psych ward, I was finally released. I have since been on medication that seems to stabilize my brain imbalances, and haven't had these issues.
My wife has Lupus, Sjogren's syndrome, and severe endometriosis. About a year and a half ago she got a surgery to address the endometriosis, and in the process we found out my she had the very early stages of mesothelioma forming on her colon. This is incredibly rare and maybe 1,000 cases at most have been documented. She healed from surgery, her chronic illness persisted, and we pushed forward.
I have wanted to attempt to become an entrepreneur, so my wife agreed to be the main breadwinner for a bit so I could take a step back and try to start building a farm so that we have income separate from the fiat mines. I am worried the stress of going back into kitchens could push me into manic episodes, and the trade I have used to support myself my entire life now seems out of reach.
I have been developing the property that we live on (that her family owns) to create a microfarm with the dream of having our own business.
My wife's health continues to spiral. After a year and a half of waiting for a referral to SOMEONE who can help, her doctor said there are three people in the country qualified to operate on her.
The Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and a private doctor that we absolutely cannot afford.
I just got our garden planted, and I've spent a good bit of money trying to get the farm going. Last week we found out the mesothelioma cells are growing rapidly. She's on Myfembree (a hormone blocker) for the endometriosis and it's forcing her body into menopause at the age of 34 to hopefully slow down the endometriosis scar tissue buildup.
Her first appointment with Mayo clinic is in early August... So we're going to have multiple flights halfway across the country to consult with doctors and hopefully get set up for her surgery. She needs endometriosis removed from her bowel, mesothelial cancer cells removed, and hopefully they won't have to take so much of her bowel that she'll be on a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. They'll also need to perform a partial hysterectomy to force her body into menopause so the Endometriosis will stop growing.
Since I've been focused on building the farm, I only work two days a week. She's our main breadwinner, working full-time and also doing a yoga teacher training to follow her passions. She is pushing herself too hard, but she's not the type of woman I can tell anything. She has to find these things on her own.
The cancer is starting to destroy her energy levels, she can barely eat, and she's unable to keep weight on. She's under 100 pounds at this point, but she's a very petite woman.
I really want to make the farm work, and I also desperately need income. Once she starts taking trips to Mayo Clinic the bills are going to pile up. We live in a very rural area, and there are not many opportunities for jobs that pay anything worth my time.
I have done nothing but grind and sacrifice for the last five years. I've saved up almost half a Bitcoin.
So that's it. Our life savings. Almost half a Bitcoin. I have around $2,500 monthly income, and she makes bank waiting tables at a Relais & Châteaux Hôtel. But I don't know how much longer she can keep pushing herself this hard.
I feel like a piece of shit because she agreed to take on being the main breadwinner so I could try to get us a business built to provide income... but that feels far off and not concrete. We need income NOW.
If I push to get a corporate F&B management job, I might push myself into another manic episode. If I have another break, then I add to the stress instead of alleviate it. I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do.
I feel like the only thing that makes sense is to sell most of our stack, and park it in MSTY. If I can save enough from dividends to cover our capital gains, then everything else can go into paying the bills and keeping us solvent... and anything leftover can go straight back into spot BTC. If we can beat the cancer, then I can sell the MSTY and put it back into spot BTC.
I feel like if I wait until the bills are piling up, we're going to end up being forced to liquidate our BTC and pay for everything, and then I'm back in the fiat mines and our life savings is gone.
If I plug it in MSTY, then at least we have a chance to keep the money flowing and retain some of the equity.
What would you do in my shoes? Any advice is welcomed.
I'm desperate. I've been self-made my entire life and never asked for handouts... But I really don't know what the fuck we're going to do. If this post strikes a chord with anyone and you're loaded and want to help a random pleb that's just trying to keep his wife alive:
BTC: bc1q3l06t26jx7avlcns98vn0p6sj940egkk27h5p6
Lightning: BodhiSATtva@primal.net
Paypal: micahfranz@gmail.com
Venmo: @MicahFranz last four are 7943
