Current mood:

sad

I though I had it bad...
until I read this guy's blog. At least here in Washington state, Medicaid comes with the puny $339 they give you to live on on GAX while you apply for SSDI. It concerns me that he hasn't posted since May. He seemed so ill, I'm wondering if the government succeeded in killing him off before his claim came to the ALJ.
I am in Round Three of applying for SSDI. I have been denied twice, and now I have a lawyer. My caseworker says it would take a "very accomodating employer" for me to work. What sort of accomodations?
1. I would have to be able to bring my service dog to work. That shouldn't be a problem, since I have no intentions of working in a kitchen.
2. I would have to have very flexible start/stop times, as I often have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, whether from the depression, the arthritis, the fibromyalgia, or some combination thereof.
3. I don't work well with people right now. If somebody looks at me crosswise, I go into tears. If I am in pain, I tend to not be polite. All my background is in people-oriented occupations.
4. I can't sit or stand for very long without doing the opposite. If I am sitting, I need to stand up at least every half hour, so my knees don't lock. I can only stand about 10-15 minutes. I can only walk about three blocks total before I am in lots of pain. Even the sedentary jobs I have had required more sitting, standing, and walking than this.
5. I would be taking plenty of pain meds to cope with the above.
I have tried to work over the last five years with little success. I had to quit one job before I was formally diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea because I was falling asleep driving to work, not to mention at work. I got fired the first week from one job for being "too depressed." I got fired from one job for always being late. I couldn't cope with a 07:30 start time. I got fired from the last job I had for telling my boss that if she wanted my staff to do "extra" things, she needed to provide me with a real staff. I think that was a day it had taken a couple Percocet to get to work. Standing for twenty minutes out in the cold waiting for a bus doesn't do much for arthritic knees.
Compared to the guy in the above blog, however, I feel like a malingerer. I keep hoping that now that Reagan's dead, our country can lose his mean-spirited fiscal policies. How much does it cost our government to consistently send 60% of SSDI claimants to an ALJ hearing? Most of them have lawyers, who take 25% of any back award. In my case, I also have to pay back the state for the GAX monies I have been living on. I figure I will get to keep 1/3 to 1/2 of any back settlement I get. Meanwhile, I have no money for haircuts, new shoes, I have the cheapest internet access, no cable TV, no dinners out (unless the Boyo is buying), and worst of all, no Starbucks!!!!
It could be worse, however. Two years ago I was homeless, now I have my own apartment in public housing. I am lucky, because I applied when I thought I would go back to work eventually and never need it. My place on the waiting list came up with a vacancy right before all the HUD funding cuts. I am not living in a cardboard shack, I have food stamps and Medicaid. I get a stipend to feed my service dog. *sigh* But I wish my sisters would send me a Starbuck's card.