I don't have that answer for you.
There have been a great many things working against you, and getting in the way of your living the life you chose so long ago! Regulations mostly, but those didn't stop you, you adapted.
A dear friend of mine, now 70, is pushing herself so hard to continue to achieve as much back breaking work as she has been able to do up till now. Now, if she does that much, if she does what she loves to do, she is in agony until bedtime. She is retired from her career though, as a secretary.
There are some similarities between the two of you, but your career is back-breaking, but still you love it and don't really want to stop. Can you afford to retire? You don't talk about that, except to say your kids are grown. Can you cut back, do half as much?
I did not know which community to post this to so I copied where you posted. Was I to copy and paste my post to his page like we do to dailyprompt in freewriters?
The only thing that we have going for us is we have never bought anything on credit, we own our home and our trucks, our only bills are electric, cable and internet, truck ins, property taxes, and we use Tracfone's for our cell service, it costs us 20 dollars each every 3 months, we can get by on our social security which is 1500 a month. I go to a hand surgeon tomorrow and I am hoping he does not say I need surgery, which I doubt because I am sure it is arthritis. My husband is seeing a GI doctor at the end of the month and might need a colonoscopy. These two things worry me because we only have social security and no other health insurance. As long as our health will stay good we can get by.
I really thought I would fish until the end, but it is not looking like I will be able to do this, the last time I went was in November and I came home in tears from the back and hand pain. I was pompano fishing where I used 6 rods and needed to run back and forth around the boat, June 1st trout season starts, and I will use 1 rod but I will need to run crab traps and pigfish traps every day plus fishing, I hope I can still do it.
I hope you hear all good news about things treatable. Such a beautiful story. I love it when one loves what they do and does it well.
Thank you @whitneyalexx from a little girl I knew that I wanted to be a fisherman and marry one.