2020: Unemployment

 In October 2019, Glenn’s job changed at the county. He became part of a new office with a manager who did not have great people skills, and he was basically required to do the work of three people. (He would have to work 18 hours a day to stay caught up.) In January, he came down with a bad headache that looked like a sinus infection but had some symptoms of migraine.

After three days on antibiotics, he wasn’t feeling any better. He tried some migraine medicine, which didn’t help either. So the doctor sent him in for an MRI. I couldn’t watch, but he said it was claustrophobic and very loud with strange alien noises. The technician could see he had a bad headache and found evidence of a stroke in the past year. Glenn remembered the stroke but didn’t realize what it was at the time. He was at work and started feeling really weird. Since then, his memory has not been great.

He felt a bit better after the MRI and tried going back to work, but they had installed some new fluorescent lights that brought the headache roaring back. He spent the weekend recovering again. When he went back to work, they laid him off. It was ultimately for the best, though.

We spent the next five months job hunting and shopping at the Bishops’ Storehouse. This was when people were causing shortages by panic buying, but there weren’t any shortages at the storehouse. We had food storage and savings, but the ward said it was easiest to help with food right away so we could focus on bills and stuff. We received unemployment and stimulus money and our tax refund, so our account balance was slightly higher in the end.

In July Glenn started a job at the VA by the U of U doing tech support. It’s a contract set to expire at the end of the 2021 fiscal year and is funded by one of the first Covid relief bills.