After almost two years (March 2009 was when I applied), I am finally going before an administrative judge to plead my case.
If it should get approved, it will be an average of another 6 months before I see any money and even longer than that for any retroactive pay.
If I don’t get approved, then there’ll be another hearing.
Should it happen that I don’t get it at all, well, I’ll be 62 next December and I can draw SS then though there’ll be a penalty of a lot less than if I waited…
If it weren’t for the fact that we need the money, I wouldn’t consider it.
I got lucky. I got a notice that a judge had been assigned in August. I got another notice that the judge had decided in my favor after looking at my evidence in November. (My neighbor told me my lawyer was good.) The notice from the court said that I would get my first check in January. In fact, it just showed up as a direct deposit without notice on my bank statement in December. I still haven’t gotten the back pay yet.
Bewildebeest, are you saying that an in-person hearing wasn’t necessary in your case? The judge just looked at your evidence and decided in your favor without a hearing?
Lasted about 30 minutes, very professional and courteous judge.
My attorney answered all questions except one which the judge asked, which was “Why are you no longer working?”
Here’s a surprise: before we went into the courtroom my attorney asked me about my “degenerative disc disease. How’s the pain with that?”
Huh?
“Yeah, your primary care doc notes here that you have it and it involves C6 and C7.”
Well, I remembered I had an MRI, but at the time I was told I had arthritis in my neck, and that’s the only terminology used at that time. Nothing about my discs or the location of the disease.
So hell, I thought it was just chronic (yeah it feels like a toothache in my neck all the time - worse in cold wet weather) and I’d have to live with it, take Aleve, Allopurinol, etc.
But my lawyer wanted to bring it up during the questioning and I’m glad that he did because I wouldn’t have known to address it otherwise.
Also present was a vocational rehab person whose job was to decide if I were fit to do any other kind of work, but the general concensus seemed to be, that with all my mental probs, that no, I couldn’t. I italicized that word because a final decision as to that has yet to be made and I should know something within 30-60 days.
In the update (upthread) I wrote, “My attorney answered all questions…”.
I should have written “My attorney asked all questions”.:smack:
Sorry.
congodwarf: They call it “Alzheimer’s-related Dementia” or “Young Onset Alzheimer’s”. My chronic depression is also being considered as contributing to the whole mess.
That’s because I can still hang a few words together and (most of the time) make sense.
I can also dress myself and I don’t have to wear a diaper. Yet.
Full-blown AD (for the most part - last time I checked, anyway) cannot be determined until one dies and an autopsy is done to determine how much protein has formed on my frontal lobe.
I wanted to explain this because it is important that y’all know I’m trying my best to stay ahead of the curve and that I, and others like me, shouldn’t be written off. We still have plenty of RAM left - it just takes us a little longer to get it in gear, as it were.
Please don’t pigeonhole (as opposed to cornhole:)) me if you happen to see one of my posts and it makes you go “Huh???”. I know that at times what I write here may not always make sense and if that happens, just ask me to clarify.
I didn’t intend for this post to ramble as it has, but this has been on my mind for quite a while. Because I am well aware of my mental handicap (medical term: “batshit”) I do have a sense of humor about it. I do have some “bad brain” days however and I hope you can overlook those and consider the source.
Again, I appreciate everyone’s support and don’t be afraid to joke with me about it! I love it when y’all do that. It keeps me smiling.
Thanks for the explanation Quasi. I knew it wasn’t full-blown but it just seemed to me that with the type of work you were doing, any level of dementia could be a very bad thing.
No prob. When I first started seeing a doctor for this, I thought “Alzheimer’s”.
Okay, fine, but it became important for me to know that AD is just one type of dementia.
But you’re right, congodwarf. With my short term memory loss I was becoming a danger to my patients and although IANAD, I adhere to the oath which begins with “First do no harm.”
Lord knows I miss my patients, but I would never put them in harm’s way and that’s what I would have been doing had I continued to work.
I hope that came across in the hearing this afternoon.
Granted, SSDI isn’t ideal, but did you miss the part where Quasimodem and other posters alluded to his dementia? Are you seriously suggesting that finding employment is better than trying to qualify for disability?
:eek: