Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Benefits, or so one hopes

It may seem that this blog has died. But that would be premature. It's just that my mind (and time) have been almost completely taken up with dealing with an appeal with an insurance company...and as that appeal is still in process, I'll leave their name out of this.

I applied for long term disability to get through some healing from the effects of the treatment for this cancer. Specifically, I feel like my mind, and body, are not up to the point where I can count on them to perform reliably in the kind of work I do. And so it seemed right to use the benefit I'd been paying into for years. Silly me. I thought it worked as advertised. But nooooo. It doesn't work that way.

My initial claim was denied on the grounds that I was disease free and not physically impaired. Understandable, really, because my clinical data indicates that the treatment regimen has been successful. And the application forms leave little room for describing anything other than physical attributes. But my work is not physical, but mainly analytical and interactive...so I need my mind and emotions to be really in gear and in sync. And they aren't, just yet.

Being deprived of testosterone has effects on mind and body that include fatigue, muscle loss, emotional swings, and, it turns out, some cognitive functions can be affected. There are several research studies that support my feeling that all is not well yet.  However, recent data indicates that there should be a return to some baseline functional capability several months after treatment ends.  I hope so. 

And so I appealed the denial of benefits on the basis that while my treatment has ended, the effects of that treatment continue to leave me unable to perform my job reliably. It remains to be seen how the appeal will go. Of course I want it to be approved, but if not, what then?I'm not really ready to go back to work effectively and I wouldn't survive long in the current employment climate (or so I think). But if it comes down to that, I will have to try. Thing is, even thinking about trying is hard right now, never mind the real deal. I hate that part. I wasn't that way a year ago. But this is a path I chose, given the situation that presented itself.

I could go on a rant here about what seems to be false advertising by insurance companies what with the way the benefit is worded, but that's no new news. Or I could go on about how foreign it is to argue that one is disabled when I don't want to argue that. Or even feign eloquence I don't feel about how life events - loss, grief, disease, etc - can get you into places and spaces you never dreamed you would be, but to what end?

It would still be the middle of the night, and I would still be on the downstairs couch, listening to the old dog (who could not climb the stairs back to her preferred bed) sleep heavily. And I would still be awake trying not to think too much about the future, unsuccessfully.
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