The Change

Two weeks ago, just a few days after I found out that I was not getting longterm disability (which was denied, surprise, surprise) I went back to see Dr. Mind, who had seen the initial effects first hand as I had gotten the letter, cried all the way to his office and held it together sort of in the waiting room, then fell apart completely when he looked at me and asked if I'd had a bad drive.  Now I am honestly feeling a little better and I know it shows.  Writing is easier because I can usually complete my thought without too much effort.  The 2nd time I saw him that week he noted that I looked "terrified".

I'm not now.  I am deeply concerned about how this will go if I am denied on round 1.  If you are denied on 1 you are nearly certain to be denied on round 2.  Then it takes a year or 2 to get a court date to appeal on round 3.  There is no way to know what will happen; it depends a great deal on the reviewer who currently will have requested my medical records.

Dr. Brain told me that she thinks I have the situation that lends itself to approval.  But the truth is that there is no ideal situation. What I do know is that the more I read I can't find someone specifically say that having a disability for a long time, with many years of documentation of ups and downs and work difficulties is better than being diagnosed with something that might be even more debilitating but there isn't a test of time to show this.  Dr. Brain told me that she has put additional details in my records for years in case this happened, to show how hard I've tried.  Looking back into the blog history I found where she'd told me this years ago as well and I had forgotten.   In addition both Dr. Body and the pulmonologist should have documentation of their recommendations that work was making things worse.  I know that Dr. Mind also had years of proof but his specific notes will not be evaluated since they are psychotherapy.  What will come out of his records will be treatment plans, insurance paperwork, and what he writes on his form explaining why I can't work from his perspective.

I'm reading that a lot of denials happen because the reviewer feels there is some job the person could do.  I hope that I am well covered here.  I told Dr. Mind yesterday that I'd thought about trying to get a few hours of work just to have a tiny bit of money.  But when I thought about it there aren't low-income jobs that I can do because I can't handle noise and around here most jobs that might work with the current cognitive problems and that would have less stress in terms of no decision making involve loud beeping.  And there is certainly proof that I cannot work as an OT.

But even when I'm handling it better, waiting is so hard.  And you probably should expect to hear this frequently for quite some time because it truly is all I can think of sometimes.