For one to appreciate the good news, I must give a bit of background.

Three years ago, I became inexplicably ill. I had to quit work after five hospital stays in a month as my health continued to deteriorate. I applied for disability and my doctor worked diligently to diagnose the problem sending me to specialists in a number of disciplines. They found the problem.

I had a rather nasty, incurable, untreatable auto-immune disease. Complications included chronic kidney disease, heart disease, lung disease, extensive nerve damage, and chronic pain. I was told that my working days were over. But of course, one can't live on sunshine and doctor's orders and so I waited on disability. It's been three years and I'm still waiting. My lawyer tells me that the earliest I can expect a hearing is this September. In the meantime, I've been doing what I can to keep a roof over my head - which, in spite of my doctor's admonitions, means working.

I need to be off the grid to be working because if I am working, regardless of the physical toll it is taking on me, is proof to disability that you can work and so you are denied. I've been taken to the emergency room at least once a month for all manner of consequences from continuing to work up to and including stopping breathing when my pulmonary system shut down.

In return for the work I do I get to sleep in the barn and get a small allowance. The person who I am working for is very difficult to work for; they are demanding, micromanaging, abusive - but it's the only option I've got until disability comes through. I've often been concerned that I'm not going to live long enough to collect. The biggest stressor in my life right now though, is that if things become more difficult than I can take, I have no options. I can't leave because I have no where to go.

I have a couple of acres on the reservation an hour away, but there is nothing there for me to go to. Then I received a royalty check in the mail a few weeks ago for a book I wrote in 2006. Perhaps enough for a months security deposit and a months rent - maybe two months rent if I found a place that was just this side of condemned. It wasn't much but it was nearly a fortune based on what I had. And tonight I found it...

It was ridiculously under priced; it must have been misleading pictures, or something was seriously wrong with it, or something...but I called on it and went to check it out. It took everything I had - but I am now the proud owner of an option. Check it out: