Retirement Plan Gone Awry

Before I retired I was planning for my retirement. It seemed like the thing to do. It seemed the smartest thing to do.

I told my daughter on a Saturday that I planned to work another year or two and then retire from my part-time job. So that meant I would have worked for my current employer for about two years. For the most part, I really enjoyed my job. It was flexible, and the work was work I’d been doing for over 20 years, so it was not difficult or stressful. My retirement plan seemed like a good plan for both my husband and me.

The first surprise

My retirement plans took a significant change, only two days after I talked to my daughter. For the first time in my life, I was permanently laid off. My position was eliminated. They wouldn’t be hiring me back. I thought that meant I would finish things up in the next week or two. But, unfortunately, I was wrong since my replacement was starting in a few days. My replacement would be doing a different job, but using my desk, so I had to be gone.

I stayed at work for several hours until I could finish the things that had to be done that day. Then I went home and cried because I had no advance notice, and at 63 years old, I couldn’t imagine finding another job.

Looking for a new job

At age 63, I felt I needed to find a job quickly. So I began looking for a job. I sent in resumes and went to interviews. I made it through two interviews for a position that I thought I would like. But then my life took another turn. This turn was something I could never have imagined and started innocently with the loss of some of the hearing in my left ear.

We discovered the hearing loss while in the car headed for a weekend away. I held my phone up to my left ear and talked to my sister as my husband drove the car. I kept talking louder, which is what people sometimes do when they can barely hear the person on the phone. It didn’t help. I tried to increase the volume. Once again, that was useless. After I ended the call, my husband asked what was wrong with me because he could hear my sister. So why couldn’t I?

Doctor appointments

Soon after, I took a hearing test for free on the phone, and it recommended I have my hearing checked in my left ear. I asked my primary care doctor for an appointment with an audiologist. She told me I had to call myself. The audiology department told me I had to contact my primary care for a referral, as I had expected. I contacted my primary care doctor, and she once again insisted that I contact them myself. This took weeks of making phone calls and emailing, and waiting.

Almost a month later, I switched primary care doctors. My new doctor had me into an audiologist quickly since someone had canceled their appointment later that afternoon. The audiologist showed me how bad my hearing was by way of a graph showing my hearing a few years ago and now. He said I could be a candidate for a hearing aid, but they like to find out why my hearing has changed so much. I had walked in there thinking I would be receiving a hearing aid, but I was wrong. An MRI was ordered for my head. The next day I had my first MRI. It showed an abnormality. An MRI with contrast was ordered. While waiting for the results, we went on a previously planned trip to Virginia to visit our daughter and her family.

What is happening?

Two days later, while in the same room with my daughter, I received a phone call from my primary care doctor. I wasn’t expecting to hear what my doctor told me, so I had a hard time understanding what she said. There was a mass (tumor) causing impingement (pinching) of my nerve for hearing. I was being referred to a neurosurgeon. I thought she meant I was going to be evaluated for surgery. But, no, she meant I was going to have surgery to remove the tumor.

I wanted to be in a different room, by myself to think about this change in plans. But my daughter knew I was waiting for the next step in my hearing problem. I had to tell her about the phone call since she had heard my side of the conversation. I didn’t get to think about anything by myself to adjust to this new turn in my life. At the end of the week, we returned home and I waited for my appointment with the neurosurgeon about 100 miles away.

Final interview

And what was I supposed to do about the job interviews? I had told my contact person that I was going to have an MRI of my brain. She encouraged me to continue in the process. It wasn’t for me to decide if I should think they would be unwilling to let me have six weeks off for surgery. I agreed and accepted the 3rd and final interview.

At the interview, I answered all the questions, and things were going smoothly. I really felt I had a chance at the job. However, I am a sincere person. I told the panel of interviewers that I wanted to be honest and tell them what could be happening to me because I felt it was their right to know. Legally I could have withheld the information. It was possible I would have surgery, and I would probably be off 6 weeks of work. They appreciated my honesty, and I knew I would not get the job. But I was ok with that. They would take a chance to hire me. And honestly, I didn’t know with certainty what really lay ahead.

Preparing for surgery

Surgery was scheduled for about three months after I had lost my job. I was told recovery could be four to six weeks. My mother had had a different type of brain tumor about 30 years prior. Her tumor affected her sight. However, she did not lose her sight. I felt confident about my surgery. My neurosurgeons were confident they could save my hearing.

My surgery went well. My surgeons told my husband they were confident they had saved my hearing. I was in the hospital for four days. The recovery was harder than I expected. I felt like I had no hearing in my left ear. Two months after surgery, I had an appointment with my audiologist, and it was confirmed I had no hearing in my left ear.

Covid pushes back

My neurosurgeon gave me the solution to my lack of hearing. He recommended that I go with the latest Bone Attached Hearing Aid (BAHA). It would be coming out in March. However, by March, all non-emergency surgeries were put off because of the large amount of Covid-19 patients in the hospital. So I waited and waited. Finally, after waiting, I was scheduled to have my surgery in June. During the process, I didn’t forget about the best-case scenario being 6 weeks off work. I remained on disability until mid-July. I had been on disability for over nine months.

Time to Retire?

I was now 64 and we were in a Pandemic. I toyed with looking for a job, but several things stopped me.

The first was my age and my intended time of retiring. I was almost there. In about seven months I would be 65.

My second reason was my inability to work. Even though I was released to work, I didn’t feel that I had the confidence to work. My brain wasn’t functioning as it used to be. No one could tell that I had had a brain tumor, but I knew it. Plus, I was not confident in my balance ability. A few months after I went off disability, I ended up taking a fall that required stitches and nearly broke my arm. Since then, I have fallen several other times. It always seems to happen on cement. And there is always blood involved. The falls have reaffirmed that I should not be working.

Retirement

So I decided to retire early. There was no fanfare. There were no treats brought in to celebrate. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to my co-workers. It was somewhat of a letdown. However, I am happy to have survived two surgeries.

Even though I had planned for my retirement, God had a different plan. His plan worked out well, but nothing like I had planned. How did it work out well? The tumor that had been growing in my brain for many years is mostly gone. A small part remains, but it is slow-growing and likely will not require surgery again in my lifetime. The tumor had been there before I had made my retirement plans. My husband and I have made it through what we hope is the worst time of our lives. It brought us closer and more grateful for each other. Our faith in God has grown.

I hope that your retirement plans go smoothly, but I wanted to warn you that they don’t always work as planned. So please continue with your plan, and I hope that all goes as planned and you have a nice retirement party with your co-workers.

When do you plan to retire? If you retired, did everything go as planned? Was there a cake or lunch or something as a final goodbye? Retiring is a big step in anyone’s life. It is the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Mine was that, too, but it was much different than I planned it. Please comment below with your thoughts on your retirement.