Hi Everyone!
This is my first ever blog.  I want to share my experiences being a poor, homeless, 60 yr old woman who is fighting cancer. 
Being a product of a young teenage marriage (by the time my mom was 23, she had 5 kids!), my childhood was filled with abuse of every imaginable kind.  My mom had severe mental problems and my dad was ambivalent.  My parents divorced (ugly) when I was 12.  My dad eventually got custody of all five kids.  I was the first of my family to graduate high school (and eventually get an AA & BS later in life).  Most of my life has been spent in poverty.  I married at 17 to an abusive boy.  I finally got the strength to leave him 12 years later with two small sons in tow.  I moved from my home town, Miami, FL to North Central Florida where I didn't know a soul.  I married another jerk and gave birth to a beautiful daughter at 23 weeks gestation.  She is a grown woman now and has been my caregiver for the past several years due to crippling arthritis and then breast cancer.  Thank God for Medicaid!  My breasts were removed (along with some lymph nodes under each arm) on September 23, 2010.  I elected not to have painful breast reconstruction and just go breastless.  I feel so much better not having to lug around those 44DDs.  Now I am on a cancer drug program for 5 years - I have just over 3 years to go.  I had both shoulders replaced.  The right shoulder was replaced in July, 2011 and the left was replaced in March, 2012.  My daughter and I have been sharing a 1 bedroom apartment for the past 5 years.  We have been homeless before and were barely getting by keeping up with rent, utilities, food, etc. when our car died.  I haven't been able to work in over 3 years and my daughter has worked fairly steady until last year when she started to experience health problems.  We get food stamps but nothing else.  We don't smoke, drink, do drugs, squander money, or live beyond our means.  The sheriff just came by with an eviction notice because I cannot pay July's rent.  This is the last month of my lease and I informed the landlord we will be moving out this weekend, 7/21 & 22, 2012.  So now my daughter an I are homeless.  I will be staying with a friend and my daughter will be couch surfing with her friend.  I hope this ends soon.  I filed for SSI 2 years ago and the hearing is scheduled for 8/13/2012.   My attorney informs me that there is NOTHING negative or questionable in my file.  
Even the doctor the SS office told me to see, has declared me unequivocally disabled.  This homeless thing is very scary - and embarrassing.  I have to do something to get through this hardship and I thought maybe this will help.  Tomorrow is big moving day & tonight is my last night here.  Stay tuned for my adventures into the unknown!  Thank you for your time and interest.