When I was 43, with MS and brutal ulcerative colitis, I had to leave my job teaching college because the stool running down my legs and my foggy brain and fevers made it impossible to stand in front of a group of people. I was lucky to get SSDI on the first go around and when my health got better,two years later, I declined the benefits and went back to work, making less than I did on the benefits (which wasn’t much either). But as you might know, SSDI, for some bizarre reason, is set up so it doesn’t make it easy for a person to try to get back into the workforce.
Last summer I was honored to participate on a panel of experts (my expertise was as patient advocate) advising the social security administration on how to make the benefit application and award process more efficient and FAIR. Woo hoo! Here’s hoping that the new commissioner is as good as he says he is and gets the recommendations into practice.
Now, I’ve been contacted by Bob Guidara, a man with MS, who has developed the Chronic Illness Disability petition to submit to Congress so they will change the funding that is slowly making it almost impossible for people who need them to get benefits. As of today, the petition has 1600 signatures and yours will make it even more!
If you want to read what The New York Times said yesterday about the funding problems, check out this in the Opinion page.
Rosalind
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