Sunday, June 8, 2008

Is Hitler Ice Skating?

In general I don't like to speculate where someone goes after they die, but I feel that Hitler is a sure bet. To my overwhelming shock/surprise/elation I am finally going to get my day in court to argue whether my disease is disabling or not. I go to court in 9 days, and I am as calm and relaxed as an iron bar. Due to the vast number of people filing for disability, I will be doing my court date via satellite with a judge in CA. I was reading about the average time it takes to get a court date, and I think it was somewhere around 550 days. I am over 800 right now. They said they are trying to get to the requests that have been pending the longest, which should have moved me up a little more, but what do I know? I was also reading about the whole disability process and some one who had worked for the claims department said it was all about, "deny deny and hope they die." While that makes me mad, I think there is a lot of truth to it. I went through the first 2 denials as quickly as possible because I just wanted to get to the point where I could get a lawyer and get this thing moving. I filed for a court hearing in March of '06, and am finally getting my day in court. I have been fighting disability for over 3 and a half years! (!!!!!) If you are not one of the few that has such a mild disease that it hardly, if ever, affects you, I would suggest filing for disability ASAP. It is such a llllllooooooonnnnnngggggg process that you will need to be able to wait and try to find a way to survive. I feel like it is waiting game, they want to see how tenacious you are and see who will give up first. But they are gambling with the wrong crackpot here. I know I have a legitimate claim and I am not going to just gimp away from this. Even the lady in the SSI office told me to not drop the ball on this. She said they would deny me and try to drag it out so that I would let it go, but not to give up because MS is a progressive neurological disease (I already knew this, but she was so kind and the advice was so welcome, especially coming from some one who worked for Social Security, that I thanked her as warmly as I could). So after this long and frustrating wait, it is finally nearing an end, and all I can think of is Hitler trying to find a partner so he can enter the pairs competition.

Side Note: One of the best parts of this whole crappy thing, is the jobs they come back with that you can still do. They told me that I was still able to work in retail. Never mind that my balance is off kilter, or that my right leg is numb and stiff so I limp, or that I can't walk very far without some kind of support, and my vision has "lost acuity," or that no employer would want me because I am a gimping liability, I can still do retail work. Whew! Glad they know more about my physical condition than my neurologist.

1 comment:

BRAINCHEESE said...

Atta Girl! Take 'em down, killer! Or at the very least, get your frickin' disability...

Linda D. in Seattle