What lead me to quit my job?

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. We have all heard this before but I mean to make this my motto. I walked into my job for the past 6 years yesterday and quit. It was liberating and I could feel the stress melt away as I drove out of the parking lot with my few belongings. This certainly is not a decision I made in haste. I have been agonizing about this for several months. If you had asked me a year ago I would have told you I had the best job on earth and that I loved everything about it. That leaves only one question: What the heck happened? To start, Barack Obama was elected president and started working on healthcare reform. I'm not speaking badly about our president, that is not my intention here. My intent is to let you know that although I believe every person in America should have access to health insurance it should not be at the cost of those who are working and earning a living in this particular sector of the American workforce. Healthcare reform is one of the things that lead me to where I am today but not the only factor in my decision to quit my job. In August of 2009 my Aunt became very ill after taking a medicine we later learned she was severly allergic to. She had no health insurance and was very reluctant to go to the doctor or even the hospital. She became so ill we had to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital. This is certainly a reason why every American should have health insurance but again it needs to be done with some kind regard to what is currently working and only fix what isn't working. My Aunt passed on September 24th, 2009 after a 5 week battle for her life. Her death devestated my family and has had many long term effects on each and every one of us. My Aunt was the kind of person who always gave everything she had of herself to others. She was so much more than my Aunt, she was my friend and my second mom.

This event in my life was the beginning of the end of my job. My employer was great during this time allowing me to take an unpaid leave of absence while she was sick which allowed me to be at the hospital with my Uncle, my cousins and my mother. It was a very stressfull and emotional time in my life and nothing I care to ever repeat. I had already been unhappy at my job and this certainly didn't help me. I kept thinking if she had affordable healthcare then none of this would have happened. As soon as she started feeling bad then she would have gone to the doctor. This is a woman had suffered quite a few major illnesses in her short life. She was not a person who normally waited until she just couldn't go on anymore before going to the doctor, but when you factor in the cost of going to the doctor with no health insurance, a person will suffer longer than they should to avoid the cost of a doctors visit. That is exactly what she did. She waited too long however. There were other things that went wrong with her illness but that is another blog topic all together.

So now you have health care reform and the death of a woman who meant so much to me all working against me. Healthcare reform meant major changes for my employer. I worked for one of the largest non-profit health insurance providers in Texas and they were certainly responding to all of the talk about healthcare reform. They had their own opinions about how it should go, of course this option had the least effect on their business but in my opinion did not necessarily help those without current coverage. I do not pretend to have the answers to the problem of health insurance in America, I have my own thoughts and opinions on this topic and believe that those we elect should listen to the voters and what they have to say. However it had such an impact on my job and there were so many changes that I was unable to continue to provide excellent customer service to their members and providers. I felt it was time for me to move on. Not to mention my mental health had been in question since my Aunt's death. I had seriously started a downward spiral and needed to take a serious look at what I was doing everyday.

So after a week of just out and out depression, I, along with my husband decided that it was best for me to quit my job. I know that people who are looking for work would be appalled that I quit a perfectly good paying job with benefits given the state of the economy. However, no job is worth risking my own health no matter how great the pay or benefits are. At 35 years of age, I have decided to move to the other side of healthcare. I started school yesterday. I will be working towards a degree in Surgical Technology at a local community college. Today is my first full day of unemployment and I plan to get started on my studies for Anatomy and Phisiology as well has get some housework done. My house has needed a serious cleaning for some time now and there is no time like the present. I plan on deep cleaning one room everyday. Today is the living room. I will start there and move to a new room everyday. I can't wait to see a beautifully clean room with much more organization than before. I am ready to start this journey and see where my life leads me. I am excited about my future for the very first time in a very long time.
I will keep you posted on how everything goes!!!!