The Frailty of Wealth

We’ve all done it.  Looked at someone else and wished silently that we had what they have.  Maybe it’s a house in a prestigious neighborhood.  Perhaps a flashy car.  Maybe a boat or an exciting vacation or a way living only possible with a hefty price tag.  Or maybe it’s beauty, health, or freedom.  Whatever it is that we have each at one time or another quietly wished for, the truth is these things are fleeting. When fate has you in its sights the frailty of wealth becomes quickly apparent.

Humble Beginnings

Unlike many doctors I did not grow up wealthy.  I grew up in the middle of the woods in a broken-down trailer.  Raised by a single mother, at times she struggled to provide us enough food.  For years we lived on the fruits and vegetables we grew in the yard. We filled up bottles and jars from a hose in the parking lot of the closest gas station six miles away for clean water. 

Our trailer had no heat and in the winter my mother, brother, and I slept together on a single mattress huddled next to a single kerosene heater in the living room.   We had no tv and we didn’t have our first computer until I was in seventh grade.  As a pre-teen my mother scraped together enough money to buy a used sewing machine and I learned to make clothes.  It was the only way I could have anything other than thrift store hand-me-downs.  We lived in very real poverty and yet I never felt particularly poor.

As I grew older the difference between my situation and the other kids in school became more apparent.  I was the “poor kid” but very truthfully, I don’t recall this ever bothering me.  I wasn’t ashamed of what I didn’t have.  I learned to make do with very little, live on a shoestring, and still manage to have everything I wanted or needed.  It is a skill that continues to serve me to this very day.

Upwardly Mobile

When I was 14, I got a job and started saving money.  As a teen I found ways to travel across the entire country for practically nothing living and working in youth hostels.  I put myself through college on merit-based scholarships while working at least 20 hours a week.  I paid the bills and still managed to travel the world, over 40 countries in all.  Later I put myself through medical school on loans.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt after medical school, I worked 80 to 105 hours a week, scrimping and saving, paying off loans and eventually buying and paying off a house.  I clawed my way out of poverty one handhold at a time. 

But it was never about the money.  It was about the security and freedom the money provided.  It was only a couple years ago in my late 30s when I found myself financially independent, out of debt, and for the first time with expendable income.  Instead of buying “doctor toys” like boats, cars, or jewelry, I saved for a rainy day, always afraid to end up back where I came from. 

I helped my family and donated money to charities wanting to pay it forward and help other people break out of the bonds I had successfully broken out of myself.  At that time, though, my income was on a stellar trajectory and there was no reason to think things would change.  I was on track to be a very wealthy person and all of those things, the security, the freedom, the cars, the luxury vacations were just about in my reach….until I got cancer at the age of 39.

The Crash

With those words, “the biopsy is positive, you have breast cancer” my upward trajectory was shattered.  There would be no boats or luxury vacations in my future.  No longer a bullet proof superhuman, the medical group I worked for immediately cut my pay in almost half and took me off the profitable rotations.  Due to my health and the COVID pandemic I was unable to recruit a new job and was forced to make-due with what income I was still able to make despite being far under fair market value for my highly specialized medical skillset.  My income has been unpredictable and unreliable ever since. 

Now that self-care is paramount to my very survival, I am no longer able to safely work the 12 to 16 hour pulmonary critical care shifts day after day without food or hydration that is standard for my medical specialty.  For ten years I worked these shifts tirelessly, nights, weekends, holidays in intensive care units very literally saving lives with no thought to my own health or well-being, unknowingly, slowly but surely draining my body’s reserve. 

New Perspectives

My perspective on life and what is important has changed drastically since my diagnosis.  Even if I could physically tolerate the old grueling schedule, I question whether going back to such a physically and emotionally taxing career is the best use of the potentially limited time I have left in this life.

It has been a year since my diagnosis and my income remains probably half of what it used to be.  After my initial income crash, I have managed to stay afloat with a combination of several part time medical contracts.  Physicians are treated as disposable by hospital systems. After being hired for a well paid year long travel contract, I recently once again found myself out of job when the hospital canceled the contract just two weeks before the start date. Once again I found myself scrambling for stability. 

After dedicating a lifetime to taking care of others, it has been very discouraging that the medical system makes it practically impossible for physicians to take care of themselves.    

Pulmonary critical care jobs that allow for self-care are almost non-existent.  When considering a new job I am constantly faced with the difficult decision, do I put my own health and well-being aside for the sake of stability and income?  In the past the answer was always a resounding “Yes!” but now… I didn’t fight so hard to beat cancer only to turn around and put my well-being in jeopardy again.  There’s no boat or car or house that is worth my life.

My current situation has allowed me to continue my much-needed healing and self-care, but it certainly has not and will not provide me an upwardly mobile financial situation.  I am treading water at best.  But this is a choice I have made.  For the first time I am putting myself and my well-being first and my income has greatly suffered for it.

The Frailty of Wealth

I must admit at times I look at my colleagues with large salaries and stable jobs and wish I had what they had.  But when that sadness overtakes me, I am reminded that wealth is fleeting and on loan from the fates.  They have what I used to have now, but wealth is frail and can be gone in an instant, with one simple phone call. 

Now, instead of focusing on what I’ve lost, I choose to focus on what I can gain in this new post-cancer life… perspective, healing, and learning.  For the time being instead of filling my life with hours of work, I am filling my life with love, self-care, appreciation, perspective, and wisdom.  Though my bank account may be much emptier than it used to be, I think, with some surprise, that I’m actually more wealthy now than I have ever been before.