Freelancing Through a Medical Emergency

You hit pause.

I have achieved Peak Millennial Experience: I transformed into a Tweet.

I’m almost getting to a point where I’m tired of talking about my health catastrophes of last month, which means: Healing! It’s a-happening! In some ways! I’ve only managed to express the psychological earthquake it entailed through terrible jokes or amateurish poems. Whatever profound insights I have on existence are still crawling their way through in abstract language, so you’re going to have to sit tight if you were expecting coherent personal essays on the subject. What I can offer, however, is a rundown of how I balanced my freelance work with two emergency hospitalizations.

The short answer is I didn’t. I chose my health.

The longer answer is that I spent one of those hellish weeks under the delusion that I could make progress from the comfort of my hospital bed. During the time I was waiting for my pancreatitis to resolve so I could get gallbladder surgery, there wasn’t that much to do in the hospital anyway. Antibiotics and pain meds had tempered any pain and I was itching to do something normal. My body did need more rest than usual, though, so I picked away at projects for about twenty minutes before giving up.

Days before, while waiting for a diagnosis in a chaotic and loud Brooklyn emergency room, I had sent frantic texts to clients who were expecting work from me that very week. They knew I needed a few extra days. All other clients, though? No reason to alarm them. Everyone I knew who had undergone gallbladder surgery had given the procedure a resounding 5 stars on Yelp. I heard stories of friends going on weekend trips the following day, of eating cheeseburgers as soon as they left the hospital, of returning to the office with a skip in their step the next days. Since doctors released me from the hospital on the same day of my operation, I figured that would be the case for me. After all, I’ve always been one of those annoyingly healthy people, the kid that was immune to whatever cootie had decimated the nursery school class. Residents marveled at my pain tolerance. “With your stats, we can’t believe you’re sitting up and chatting,” one said.

Therefore, I was convinced–CONVINCED–I could knock out a whole brand guide and a Q&A the week after my surgery. Never mind that my sore throat turned into an unforgivable ache that radiated all the way up to my ear and lozenges did nothing. Or that any movement required hours of sleep in the middle of the day. Or that I spent the night spitting an overflow of drool into Kleenexes. Or that I could barely swallow food.

When I stopped being able to pass water, I went back to the ER and that’s where the real fun began! It’s one thing to sit for hours in an ER and then wait for hours to get a bed because you know the lack of urgency means you’ll be ok. It’s another when doctors rush you within the hour into the ICU and tell you you’re lucky, you came in right in the knick of time, that it doesn’t seem this way but you have no idea how fortunate you are.

That’s when you know you were probably one “I’ll push through this”away from kicking the bucket.

As the CEO of Ines Bellina Entrepresises, I made the executive decision to stop trying. I was going to have to focus on healing and nothing else. Yes, this also meant still asking a friend to bring me my laptop so I could tell all my clients and editors I was on medical leave for at least a week. Even in the ICU, there is still a lot of downtime. Once I hit “send” though, I ignored everything work-related. I didn’t even stress about the potential consequences. Consequences meant I was still alive and, at that moment, continuing to live was all that mattered.

I only lost one project that had a particularly tight deadline. Overall, people understood. Whether it was out of compassion or a realization that legally they could not force me to work since I was not an employee, that was between them and their God. I like to believe it’s the former though. Most folks do not want to be the kind of folks that cajole an ICU patient into producing. Most projects, also, are simply not that urgent. The world keeps going around even when you haven’t finished social media posts for clients.

You know what else I did, though, while I was in the hospital? I explicitly asked my mom to fly to New York to be with me, even though several other family dramas were occurring simultaneously. I asked my roommate and friends to bring me things to the hospital, hoping my comprehensive lists would at least make the task less annoying and frequent. I told everyone about it, blasted it on Instagram. My feed soon flooded with health influencers, LMAO. I’m sure it was TMI, I’m sure I sounded chaotic, I’m sure some people follow me ONLY to grab popcorn and tune into the Ines Bellina Reality TV hour. (I salute you.) But more often than not, people wanted to help, in a small way. And there is no way to bootstrap your way out of the ICU. You need the rest. You need the help. You need to hit pause.

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Homework

According to my insurance, I’m responsible for roughly $8,000 in medical bills. How I’ll deal is for Future Ines to figure out and probably the subject of several upcoming newsletters. However, if I had not had this crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel insurance, this little dance with death would cost close to the 100K mark.

This month, do something to improve your health insurance coverage. Schedule a doctor’s appointment. Ask someone to explain what an HSA is. Research candidates pushing for Medicare for all. Anything, really. It’s a travesty we don’t get free healthcare in the world’s richest country.

And if you’re a freelancer, get insurance. I’m still surprised by how many people think you CANNOT get health insurance unless it’s through a job or partner. You can! Thanks, Obama! (Literally.) In every state in the nation. It might not be good! It’s going to be expensive as hell! I have no tips for choosing one because they make the system purposefully complicated! But if the reason you don’t have it is because you think they won’t sell it to you, I’m here to tell you they will.

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State of My Wallet

April Invoiced: $3,5919

April Received: $4,022.40

I pushed back most of my April work to early May, but I’m still impressed I invoiced anything given last month’s upheaval. In what is an ongoing theme, I had to chase down a few payments due to old or new billing systems. In general, though, the year has been pretty slow—a sentiment I hear across the board. My May is pretty busy and I hope that trend continues for the rest of the year.

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Progress Report

Grant/Fellowship/Residency applications: 2

Pitches: 1

LOIs/Job Applications: 1

Given my woes, I’m proud of finishing ANY application. I won’t hear back from the fellowship and residency until late May, no response on my one pitch, and I’m sending good vibes to the one job application I sent.

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Shameless Self-Promotion

• After many lackluster professional months, I finally have a new byline! A great one! I interviewed Dr. Lisa Larkin, of The Menopause Society, about a question that had been nagging me all year: Should I still take birth control during perimenopause? One of my favorite newsletters, Gloria, published it. It’s received an overwhelmingly positive response—turns out many of us had the same question! Why don’t we get this vital information at, you know, our gyno’s office? I’ll send my original pitch and rate info to paid subscribers next week.

• Hit me with your June-August assignments! I’m still looking for more work in these areas:

  • Overseeing Spanish-language recording sessions.

  • Editorial/long-form work.

  • Journalistic and other media translation

  • Interview-based pieces. Think About Me sections, profiles, internal reports, etc.

• Half-hour, virtual Tarot readings are back on! The suggested donation is $40. Books yours here.

• Take a look at my Poshmark closet or, if you’re in the NYC area, email me if you’re interested in any of these items and want more info:

  • IKEA nightstand lamp

  • Crate and Barrel wooden nightstand

  • Office chair

  • Yellow locker from Mustard

  • Espresso machine

  • Bianchi bike

  • IKEA mirror

• Thanks to all my new minty-fresh subscribers! Your support means a lot. I hope to see you soon in my weekly virtual write-ins. Interested in joining? Upgrade for the invite and access other benefits like samples of my pitches, freelance templates, and perks like city guides.