Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I talked to my lawyer this morning, and told him what I'd heard from the social security people. He called them, and then called me back to say that they have approved my application.

Apparently, "non-medical eligibilty" means that they automatically check everyone's eligibility for both SSDI, based on earnings history, and SSI, a significantly smaller benefit for disabled people who didn't work long enough to get SSDI. The lawyer told me that some of his clients get a letter saying they aren't eligible for the smaller amount and panic because they think it means they won't be getting anything.

The lawyer also told me that they sometimes deposit the lump sum retroactive payment amount before sending out the letter telling people that they will be getting benefits, and how much. That's especially true npw, since they were understaffed and overworked even before covid, and it's worse now. So, I will be getting money from them, which is both a relief and a bit of a surprise, but we don't know how much, or how soon.

(It feels a little odd posting this, without anything more concrete from the SSDI office.)

I just got back from the neurologist's office, where the nurse showed me how to use the self-injecting pen with my new medication. It was all easy, but one thing I didn't know ahead of time is that I have to wrap my fingers around the device before using my thumb to push the button.

This is very different than the process with the first MS drug I was on, Avonex (an intramuscular injection, and a very visible needle. This is subcutaneous, and I never even saw the little needle. The nurse said I can inject it anywhere that's convenient. I'm going to either do the injections myself, or get cattitude or adrian_turtle to do them for me, but the nurse said she has a patient who comes in every Wednesday to have her inject the drug.

I then asked when/whether I need to contact the specialty pharmacy for refills; she said yes, and she'd advise doing it when I do the next injection, a week from now. (The first few doses are given close together, then it's monthly.) I also asked her if she'd heard from the disability lawyer about the forms for my appeal. She talked to the lawyer a week ago, but has not yet received the paperwork he said he was going to send. I am still waiting for him to answer my email, and think I will call him tomorrow if I don't hear from him first.

After a couple of days of thinking, and then writing and fiddling with multiple drafts, I just sent an email to the lawyer who is handling my disability benefits appeal. I started by saying I have several questions about the next step in the appeals process, and specifically what sort of "additional evidence" we can submit. I ended the email by saying that my list of questions probably isn't complete, and asking what else I need to do now.

The Social Security disability benefits people have turned me down, and we are filing another appeal, this time asking for a hearing (there is a prescribed sequence of appeals). Because the lawyer got the explanation before I did, we filed the appeal asking for a hearing before I saw their explanation.

According to the letter they sent me, they turned me down because I can still walk, sit, and stand and thus can do light work, such as editing. This means I am going to have to sit down, probably with my lawyer, and with cattitude and adrian_turtle and maybe other people, and figure out how to explain that the problem isn't just, or primarily, my orthopedic issues. It's the neurological problems, and that even with the brain meds [1], I have lost some of of my ability to see patterns, and to identify and solve problems, and those are essential to the work I was doing and know how to do.

I am not looking forward to this: not only is it depressing, I usually try to conceal those problems, and find workarounds in day-to-day life, like taking a familiar route rather than finding a new and better one.

At least the explanation makes enough sense that there's something to refute.

[1] The relevant medication here is the Ritalin, which I have spent a lot of time chasing down in the last few months; the lsat I heard, we'll be lucky if they fix the current world-wide shortage of it and other drugs used for ADHD is fixed this year. I don't know whether we will want to tell them that my workarounds such as they are require a reliable supply of medication, that nobody has a reliable supply of right now.

I just called the lawyer, and he hadn't gotten even the email. He says that we will need to ask for a hearing, but that I don't need to do anything until I get that letter. Given the history on this, I'm putting a reminder in my calendar to follow up if it doesn't turn up by the end of March. (I've already had to get my congresswoman's staff to intercede once in order to get a copy of one of their previous letters.)

Other than that, I'm feeling a little under the weather, but have been for a walk in the sunshine, and am about to have a cup of herb tea.

Yesterday's mail contained two envelopes from the Social Security disability determination office for Massachusetts. One of them asks about any medical care I've received since the last paperwork I filed, and the other looks like a form I sent them at an earlier stage of this. That would make sense given that I asked them to reconsider turning me down. cattitude pointed out that the first thing I should do is call the lawyer who is representing me about this, so I put everything back in the envelope and wrote myself a reminder to call him today.

I called the lawyer this afternoon, and after saying he was glad I had called him right away, he asked me a bunch of questions. It took me a little while to realize that he was filling out the form as we talked, but at the end of the call he said he would fax the form over to them right away.

The lawyer also said that I can wait to update the medical information; I'd thought they might at least want to know about the pulmonologist. I did describe the balance PT, but I don't know if he added it to the "function report"; I didn't give him the therapist's name. There's no point giving them the name of my new neurologist yet, since so far I'm just a name in his appointment book.

I made that appointment with the neurologist at about 10:00 this morning, when the MS clinic at Beth Israel Lahey called me. I will be seeing him on March 21st, and somewhere between now and then I will look up the address ("Shapiro clinic, 8th floor") and the doctor's first name. Jacobson is a moderately common name, but I assume that if there were two doctors Jacobson there the scheduler would have given me his full name.