You're chromed by the start of the game. Most people have chrome of some form; it's why the Buddhist mission in Watson's north industrial district keeps talking about how insane it is for them monks to have zero chrome since you can't even pay for shit. The overlay in the cyberware screen even from the outset in the xray view shows your body is full of parts. It's how you have a deck, personal link, etc, from the outset. The game gets hand wave-y about what's 'ganic or not throughout the game but you do not start the game fully organic like you are in the new ending. Corpo start has you even losing the company's implants at the end of the prologue.
You're a gimp because you've been in a coma for 2 years and all your chrome was replaced with organic (lab grown tissue) parts. Your chrome situation is worse off than the very start of the game and your entire body has atrophied. You're the equivalent of a geezer in a convalescent home. You cannot be a merc at all with every single part of you unable to be anything more than an organic equivalent. If you have the tech to ask, the doctor and you will talk about nanites and other shit about how "combat implants" in the context they're speaking means anything above a lab grown organic part.
It's not a matter of just you not being a merc anymore. In the Cyberpunk world, there's not many jobs you can do without chrome being heavily encouraged from desk jobs to dock workers. You're basically going to be NC's latest hotdog vendor and pray you don't catch a stray bullet.
tl;dr is you're a fully human bean and can't get a single chrome equivalent.