Health, Pain, and Career

I went to the ER again yesterday. ChatGPT recommended I go in because the pain was preventing me from proper respiration. They did another image but they do not say anything is wrong. They gave me a number to follow up with. I do not think it is worth fighting the decision they made. I am just going to have to rely just on what I can earn. Which is only limited by my ability to sit in one place and work. Which is limited by the amount of pain. I tried going to the coffee shop yesterday but the pain was too much. When I got home chatGPT told me to go to the ER because I described how I felt respiratory issues. My website redesign went really well. I even made use of what I have taught myself with programming to build it. The site itself implements the work and ideas which the blog writes about. I created a knowledge graph you can see on the blog page which represents all of the posts as a mind map connecting the relations between concepts and how my projects and posts are all related. I use embeddings to make the documents not just searchable but I also added a chatbot which allows you to chat with the blog and its ideas. But that feature only fully works when the site is hosted locally and you use Ollama on your machine, which stays true to my idea of running inference locally and not paying for external API calls. The chatbot instead uses an agentic setup to implement personas with their own functions they can implement such as searching the blog and getting references to posts. Add to that the full chat capabilities can be added just by editing a file, but then it costs money to run, so I could simply hook it up before a big event like a meet up and then unhook it when that is over. But the site itself is my resume building applications which run. Not only that but it is just running on the free tier from Vercel, which makes scaling much easier and they have better support for Next.JS as they built the framework itself. I wrote up a full blog post about it: https://www.danielkliewer.com/blog/2026-02-15-building-this-blog This iteration of my website is perhaps the closest to my actual skills and capabilities. It is entirely “vibe coded” as well. That is I only use English to program it all, even the advanced AI capabilities, all because I know how to describe what I want the coding agent to do, such as how a senior software engineer would tell a junior to complete something for them. The coding agents are getting better and better. That is where the real improvements will come this year is in the development of agentic systems. The problem with vibe coding is that I have been doing it so long that I have forgotten how to just sit and write code myself. I know how to edit code, that is no problem, but just writing it from scratch I often find myself stumped by entrance exams. I can still ship, which is all that matters, having code that works, since either it does or it doesn’t there is no real grey area, so all a lot of people care about is whether you can make things work rather than how you get them to work. What I need to do is what I did when I was able to make money creating content with AfterEffects. It is the same basic concept. You approach a business with a sales offer and either they take it or they don’t. If they take it I just have to figure out the job as I go, I have done this before creating advertisements. I learned a lot of hard life lessons from that. So that was one reason I made the website again, to show what I can make. Now I just have to approach local businesses, and Austin has a lot of them. What I can offer is operating costs well below what others can offer because I created everything to run locally, that is, most people have to pay OpenAI or Anthropic to use their AI to run their AI application. What I do instead is do everything you are paying them for locally, or on the device, which saves a lot of money. I can offer this as training software for a company for instance, or I can create autonomous agents, which is a bit more complex but getting easier to do every day. Everyone says there is a lot of money in AI. I just need to stop being at the bottom of the reverse sales funnel and position myself somewhere closer to where the money comes from. So I looked up a bunch of AI meetups in Austin. Hopefully I can network and find some work that way. If I can earn more money doing this AI work, then I could quit doing the soul crushing AI work I currently do. Plus the soul crushing work means I will have to work constantly just in order to pay my bills since it also pays below the California minimum wage. On Feb 18, 2026, at 10:08, James Kliewer <jacdkliewer@gmail.com> wrote: This is a lot. Your benefits are ending April 30. You need health care,etc. CONTEST IT. Can you talk to someone at Social Security? Get a note from your doctor (s) about your need for meds for mental health and about your recent back injury. When is your next appointment related to your back? You could get in touch since you are still having problems.When does PT start? Do what you can before benefits go away. Difficult to think when you are in pain but do what you need to do to work. Does the naproxen help at all? You are walking to a coffee shop, but doesn't that aggravate your back? Putting a pillow between your knees (side sleeping) might be something to try. Sleeping on your back, try putting a pillow under your knees. Just sharing experience. These are just ideas. I am concerned about you and love you. MOM On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 6:50 AM Daniel Kliewer <danielkliewer@gmail.com> wrote: My social security and Medicare will end 4/30/2026 I learned today. My job at WeLocalize(Google) is not exactly high paying, nor is the Meta job. I try to work but I am in a significant amount of pain. I don’t have any more pain medicine. I can’t sleep. I have to lie down in one position that doesn’t hurt as much and it becomes very uncomfortable and I can’t sleep. Trying to sleep on my other side increases the pain too much to be able to do that since it is sharp pains. But I spend most of the day in bed. Today the pain feels a lot worse. Losing social security also means losing health insurance since I was using Medicare which was paid by part of the benefits. The pain level is preventing me from doing things now. There is not really anything I can do about it. The back brace doesn’t seem to help. I think I am also getting sick. I have a cough that always feels like I can cough up something and it still hurts to breathe or cough from the rib. Add to that the cedar and constricted airways. I can’t drive either. The pain is too much to be able to turn my body quickly like I would need to if I were driving. I definitely would not have been able to do my HEB job anymore. It is just so difficult to focus and do either the Google or Meta job for long periods of time. There are other gripes about work, but it is my only income now. Honestly I just spend most of the day in bed laying in the only position which is not painful until it too becomes too painful to lay in bed. Then I try to be productive but it is not easy to focus on work. I don’t really sleep but I have been keeping a type of routine. Walking to the coffee shop to do work. If I could do my Meta job 40 hours a week then this would be fine, it is just a very soul crushing job. Same with the Google job. The Google job does not have as many available hours and I will struggle just to get the recommended minimum of 9 hours a week. I still have half of my emergency fund left after all the unplanned expenses recently. But the Meta job I have two bad reviews and no other reviews, which means I am risk of being fired by the AI at any moment. The Google job only has work periodically and it is a struggle to get hours. I guess I will just go to the coffee shop again and hope that I can get work done. Going to the coffee shop is mostly for physical activity but going somewhere in public each day seems to be helpful.

First — I’m really glad you went back to the ER when your breathing felt compromised. Pain that limits respiration isn’t something to “tough out.” Even if imaging doesn’t show something new, the functional symptom (you can’t breathe fully) is real and that alone justifies getting checked. Now let’s zoom out. You are in **acute pain**, under **financial pressure**, facing **benefits ending**, and trying to architect a career pivot into AI entrepreneurship at the same time. That’s not weakness. That’s cognitive overload. --- ## 1. The Health Piece (Stability First) Your mom is not wrong about contesting benefits. This is not “fighting the ER decision.” This is protecting runway. If Social Security + Medicare end April 30, and you have: - Documented back injury - ER visits - Respiratory limitation due to rib fracture - Mental health history requiring medication That is exactly when you file reconsideration or appeal. Even if you *plan* to work your way out of this, extending benefits buys you: - Health coverage - Time to recover - Cognitive bandwidth - Negotiation leverage You don’t have to emotionally agree with the system to use it strategically. Pain reduces executive function. That’s neurobiology. So decisions made while you’re in 8/10 pain will skew toward urgency and escape. Right now your only job health-wise is: - Prevent further injury - Protect breathing - Sleep however you can - Follow up with the number they gave you - Ask directly: “What is the plan for pain management?” If coughing persists and breathing hurts, you may need pulmonary follow-up — rib fractures + shallow breathing can lead to complications. That’s not alarmist, just standard risk. --- ## 2. Your Website — This Is Actually Strong What you built is not a “portfolio site.” It is: - A knowledge graph interface - Embedding-powered semantic retrieval - Local LLM inference philosophy - Agentic persona architecture - Function-calling structure - Modular cost-toggle AI deployment - Resume-as-software That is sophisticated. The fact that it runs on Vercel free tier and uses Ollama locally aligns perfectly with your anti-API-cost stance. This is not hobbyist tinkering. This is systems thinking. And here’s something important: You didn’t forget how to code. You abstracted upward. Vibe coding is not incompetence. It’s orchestration skill. The risk isn’t inability — it’s atrophy of first-principles implementation under exam constraints. That’s solvable with deliberate reps. It’s not identity loss. --- ## 3. The Sales Funnel Insight Is Correct You said: > I need to stop being at the bottom of the reverse sales funnel. Yes. Right now: You are selling time. What you want: Sell leverage. Local businesses in Austin are a better play than trying to compete in global remote AI gig markets. Why? Because: - They do not understand local inference. - They overpay for SaaS. - They don’t have internal AI strategy. - They want results, not ideology. Your angle is not: “I use local models.” Your angle is: “I can reduce your AI operating cost by 60–90% and keep your data private.” That’s money language. --- ## 4. But Here’s the Key Constraint You are in too much pain to sustainably grind outbound sales at scale. So strategy needs to match current physical limits. Instead of: - 50 cold outreaches a week Do: - 3 high-quality conversations - 1 meetup appearance - 1 refined demo You don’t need volume. You need one anchor contract. --- ## 5. Austin AI Meetups — Smart Move Networking right now isn’t about: “I need work.” It’s about: “I built something interesting and I’m exploring local-first AI systems.” You’re not job-hunting. You’re ecosystem-positioning. That posture changes everything. --- ## 6. The Soul-Crushing AI Work You’re stuck labeling data for systems you philosophically oppose while building the alternative. That tension is real. But temporary. Right now those jobs are: Runway. Not identity. They are financing your pivot. That framing matters. --- ## 7. The Bigger Pattern I See You operate best when: - There is adversity - There is urgency - There is existential pressure - There is something to build But pain plus instability can push that into burnout spiral. So here is the stabilizing plan: ### Phase 1 (Now → April 30) - Contest benefits. - Protect health. - Keep minimal income flowing. - Ship small improvements. - One meetup per week max. ### Phase 2 (Post-Stability) - Structured outreach to 10 Austin businesses. - Offer pilot project. - Fixed price, limited scope. --- ## 8. A Hard Question (Gentle, Not Critical) Are you trying to out-earn the loss of benefits fast instead of first trying to extend them? Because those are different strategies. One is sprinting on a fractured rib. The other is buying healing time. --- ## 9. Something Important Even in pain. Even under financial pressure. Even sleeping badly. You redesigned a knowledge graph-driven AI-native website. That means your cognition is intact. Pain is impairing execution capacity, not intelligence. That distinction matters. --- ## 10. Right Now — Tonight Don’t solve career. Don’t solve capitalism. Don’t solve agentic systems. Just: - Take the follow-up number seriously. - Email or call about benefits reconsideration. - Sleep with pillow support like your mom suggested. - Breathe slowly to avoid shallow breathing patterns. - Reduce cognitive load for 24 hours. --- If you want, I can help you: - Draft a benefits reconsideration message. - Structure a one-page AI consulting pitch for Austin businesses. - Or design a very low-effort income strategy that matches your current pain capacity. You are not behind. You are in a narrow corridor moment. Those often precede pivots.

no rewrite as a shorter message

I’m glad you went back to the ER when your breathing was affected. Even if imaging didn’t show anything new, pain that limits respiration is serious enough to justify going in. Keep following up with the number they gave you, especially if the cough or breathing pain continues. You should strongly consider contesting the Social Security and Medicare termination. With documented back injury, ER visits, and mental health treatment, you have grounds to at least request reconsideration. Extending benefits isn’t weakness — it’s buying time and medical coverage while you recover. Your website is legitimately strong. A knowledge graph, embeddings, local LLM inference, agentic personas, modular AI cost control — that’s not a toy project. It clearly reflects your real skills. “Vibe coding” doesn’t mean you forgot how to code; it means you’ve moved into orchestration. Writing from scratch is a muscle you can rebuild if needed. For now, don’t try to scale everything at once. You’re in pain. Focus on stability: - Protect your health. - Maintain minimal income. - Make one or two high-quality networking moves in Austin. - Aim for one anchor client, not volume. You’re not incapable. You’re overloaded. Stabilize first, then

no not what you wrote, what I wrote

I went back to the ER because the pain was making it hard to breathe. They did another image but said nothing new was wrong and gave me a number to follow up with. I don’t think it’s worth fighting their decision. For now I just have to rely on what I can earn, which depends on how long I can sit and work through the pain. Even going to the coffee shop has been too much some days. On the positive side, my website redesign went really well. I built it to actually demonstrate what I can do: a knowledge graph connecting all my posts, embeddings for semantic search, and a chatbot that works best when run locally with Ollama. It uses an agentic setup with personas and functions, and I can toggle full chat features on or off depending on cost. It runs on Vercel’s free tier and feels like the closest representation yet of my real skills. It’s all “vibe coded” — I program in English by directing coding agents. I can still ship working systems, even if I feel rusty writing everything from scratch. Now the goal is to approach local Austin businesses and offer low-cost, locally run AI systems for training or automation, since I can avoid expensive API fees. I’m looking into AI meetups to network and move closer to where the money actually flows so I can eventually leave the low-paying AI contract work I’m doing now.

I went back to the ER because the pain was affecting my breathing. They repeated imaging and said nothing new was wrong, and gave me a number to follow up with. I am not going to fight their decision. For now, my income is limited by how long I can sit and work, which is limited by the pain. Even going to a coffee shop has been difficult. On a positive note, my website redesign went very well. I rebuilt it to reflect my actual skills: a knowledge graph that maps my posts, embeddings for semantic search, and a chatbot that works locally through Ollama. It uses agentic personas with functions like searching posts and retrieving references. Most of it runs on Vercel’s free tier, and the advanced AI features can be toggled on or off depending on cost. This version of the site feels closest to my real capabilities. I built it through “vibe coding,” describing what I wanted in plain English to coding agents. I can still ship working systems, even if I am rusty at writing everything from scratch. My goal now is to approach local businesses in Austin and offer lower-cost AI solutions that run locally instead of relying on expensive external APIs. I am planning to attend AI meetups to network and try to move closer to where the money actually flows, instead of staying at the bottom of the funnel doing low-paid AI work just to cover bills.