May, 2008
Putting the “Dis” in Disability
Knowing I would be out of work for many months, I applied for social security disability.
(As I read the individual words: “social”, “security”, “ability”, I’m taken aback by the new meanings acquired by putting these words together in phrases or sentences.)
Initially I had difficulty finding the government website due to the huge numbers of offers from law firms and individuals offering to help me fight denials for disability claims. After digging my way through several references, I finally arrived at the online application for United States, genuine, governmental social security disability.
I filled it out, printed it and pressed send. Only later did I find that I could retrieve only a portion of it for my records. Some pieces simply could not be printed.
Per instructions I took seven forms for release of medical information in person to my local social security office where they were nicely received. Then I received a phone call from the local office, saying that I needed to complete my application. I triumphantly returned the call, saying that I’d completed the entire application on line and “thank you very much”. But I received a second and third message that “unfortunately” I needed to do more.
When at last the persistent person at the social security office and I spoke in person, it was indeed true that there was more to do. I was invited to do the remainder on the phone in that moment, an invitation I quickly grasped. At last—done, wrapped, delivered.
Then I received a form in the mail which was an opportunity to further make my case for disability. I laid this new opportunity aside until I received another letter which said that if I failed to fill out the form sent to me, the social security administration would make a determination of my case based only on the information already submitted. I had ten days from the date on the letter.
Immediately I filled out the latest form of perhaps seven or eight pages and dropped it in the mail.
Now some several unknown people will be reading all about my diminished life. Range of questions include what I eat, how I prepare it, how food is bought, what I do from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, who feeds my pet, my abilities to drive or not, my social schedule, my physical activities, and on and on. So, I wrote for the third time about my life now as I made my case that I no longer do much of what has always shaped my days.
Of course, I’m asking for financial assistance until I’m able to return to work. We’re talking money here, federal money. It’s about not lying or obtaining federal monies unfairly.
And it’s about the fraud lurking under every rock that has helped create this labyrinthine experience of form after form to bolster what I am assured will be an initial denial.
I’m reminded of the wisdom of a hospice patient early on in my ministry there. She was young, 45, and dying of metastatic breast cancer. She said, “Being sick is a full time job.” I wish she were here to read these words and know that now I know exactly what she meant from the inside out.
So, it’s about being sick enough, weak enough, incapable, disable, unable enough. Pitiful enough to get help.
And it’s about stepping in and out, in and out, of the physical reality of “dis”ability and the ability to not go away.
The steps begin with “find the website”. And end with tell the truth. The inbetween piece is keeping your soul while telling the story. Recognizing the kindness of a persistent worker in the local office who said, “Wow! Leukemia AND lymphoma.” And balancing both ends like we did as kids, standing on the middle of the teeter-totter. Back and forth, neither end touching the ground, balancing the necessity of money with the power of the human spirit and all that we’ve woven inbetween.
