Thursday, January 12, 2006
Insult added to injury, er, illness.....
When I was told I would have a consultative exam for Social Security, I requested that a copy of the report be sent to my rheumatologist since I knew they wouldn't send one directly to me. Then I asked the rheumatologist to pass along a copy to me. That copy arrived in the mail today.
One thing that was amusing was the reference in the report, not once, but three times, to what a pleasant person I am. And since the doc spent an hour mainly chit-chatting with me during the exam, she said she found me extremely articulate and educated.
The important things that were noted were my slowness of movement, the appearance of severe pain, no color in my hands, feet or face, weakness in hands, arms and legs and speech problems. Based upon these, she issued this statement: " This claimant has a very complex multisystem illness. .... A lot of her problems point towards central nervous system illness. .... in this condition, the claimant is not able to perform in any type of regular work."
This should be great news, right? I should be overjoyed that a doc paid by Social Security found me to be disabled.
But.
Why the HELL, then, did Social Security deny my claim? They review reports from 11 of my regular doctors plus one I'd never met before, and they all say I can't work. And Social Security ignors them. Bastards.
Now, I know this sounds incredibly arrogant, but, based upon my denial letter, I am concluding that I am being punished for being intelligent and relatively young. The only two sentences in the whole denial letter that refer to why they think I can work both mention age and education.
This is such bullshit. I don't play dumb. If I had, I would never have been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome in the first place. I would still suffering under the medical world's assumption that I "only" had fibromyalgia and would be fine if I would just take some anti-depressants and get off my fat ass and exercise. Instead, I educated myself, even when I didn't completely understand the technical stuff. I learned enough to realize that I had an autoimmune disease (turns out more than one), and I was articulate enough to convince my ENT to do the lip biopsy to confirm this. I HAD to educate some of my doctors just to ensure I got proper treatments.
Yet it is the people with high school educations who are the most likely to be granted disability. Because no one wants to waste their time training them, I guess. Yes, I can remember with great detail things that happened toward the beginning of my illness or further back when I was healthy. But as of the past year, I can't remember new software training for much more than 24 hours after receiving the information. So what difference does my college education make in the long run? Who is gonna hire someone with an IQ of "high average" when they can't find their car in the parking lot, or who gets lost driving to places she has been many times before? Or who doesn't recognize their own doctor? That happened to me just last week, when I went to get the injections in my back. I didn't recognize the doc, even though I had had an exam with him and had talked with him at length about the procedure just two weeks prior. And I didn't recognize the endocrinologist at my last appointment, even though I'd been to see her probably five times.
Contradiction in terms? Hell, yeah. Even I don't understand it. I know I'm a smart person. But this damned illness interferes with that intelligence, to the point that I don't think I could be a trustworthy employee. Anywhere.
I really need to stop ranting here. I see the lawyer in the morning, and I need to get things ready. I want to write up a list of questions for him (because I know I'll forget to ask them otherwise), to track down key medical records I think Social Security overlooked, and to show him stuff I forgot to give Social Security. I have 60 days to appeal, but I have to figure out what new evidence I'm gonna give them and have it ready to go within that 60 days.
I promise that after I get these pressing matters taken care of, I'll get back to what I'd rather be blogging about: last night's "Lost", a new meme, some inspirational links, what I've been reading, the "Narnia" movie, and what I've been downloading on iTunes. You know, the REAL news in my life.
Social Security can bite me.
One thing that was amusing was the reference in the report, not once, but three times, to what a pleasant person I am. And since the doc spent an hour mainly chit-chatting with me during the exam, she said she found me extremely articulate and educated.
The important things that were noted were my slowness of movement, the appearance of severe pain, no color in my hands, feet or face, weakness in hands, arms and legs and speech problems. Based upon these, she issued this statement: " This claimant has a very complex multisystem illness. .... A lot of her problems point towards central nervous system illness. .... in this condition, the claimant is not able to perform in any type of regular work."
This should be great news, right? I should be overjoyed that a doc paid by Social Security found me to be disabled.
But.
Why the HELL, then, did Social Security deny my claim? They review reports from 11 of my regular doctors plus one I'd never met before, and they all say I can't work. And Social Security ignors them. Bastards.
Now, I know this sounds incredibly arrogant, but, based upon my denial letter, I am concluding that I am being punished for being intelligent and relatively young. The only two sentences in the whole denial letter that refer to why they think I can work both mention age and education.
This is such bullshit. I don't play dumb. If I had, I would never have been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome in the first place. I would still suffering under the medical world's assumption that I "only" had fibromyalgia and would be fine if I would just take some anti-depressants and get off my fat ass and exercise. Instead, I educated myself, even when I didn't completely understand the technical stuff. I learned enough to realize that I had an autoimmune disease (turns out more than one), and I was articulate enough to convince my ENT to do the lip biopsy to confirm this. I HAD to educate some of my doctors just to ensure I got proper treatments.
Yet it is the people with high school educations who are the most likely to be granted disability. Because no one wants to waste their time training them, I guess. Yes, I can remember with great detail things that happened toward the beginning of my illness or further back when I was healthy. But as of the past year, I can't remember new software training for much more than 24 hours after receiving the information. So what difference does my college education make in the long run? Who is gonna hire someone with an IQ of "high average" when they can't find their car in the parking lot, or who gets lost driving to places she has been many times before? Or who doesn't recognize their own doctor? That happened to me just last week, when I went to get the injections in my back. I didn't recognize the doc, even though I had had an exam with him and had talked with him at length about the procedure just two weeks prior. And I didn't recognize the endocrinologist at my last appointment, even though I'd been to see her probably five times.
Contradiction in terms? Hell, yeah. Even I don't understand it. I know I'm a smart person. But this damned illness interferes with that intelligence, to the point that I don't think I could be a trustworthy employee. Anywhere.
I really need to stop ranting here. I see the lawyer in the morning, and I need to get things ready. I want to write up a list of questions for him (because I know I'll forget to ask them otherwise), to track down key medical records I think Social Security overlooked, and to show him stuff I forgot to give Social Security. I have 60 days to appeal, but I have to figure out what new evidence I'm gonna give them and have it ready to go within that 60 days.
I promise that after I get these pressing matters taken care of, I'll get back to what I'd rather be blogging about: last night's "Lost", a new meme, some inspirational links, what I've been reading, the "Narnia" movie, and what I've been downloading on iTunes. You know, the REAL news in my life.
Social Security can bite me.
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