A little non-profit news.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and recovering from my mastectomy, I called y-me a few times. I did run into a couple of issues; one, they don't peer match by size (which I doubt I'll be able to change but I can at least make myself available on that category), and they had no disabled breast cancer survivors for me to talk to. So I contacted them to volunteer, both as a hotline volunteer and as a peer match. Their volunteers are all survivors of at least one year. The training is 4 days before the year anniversary of my mastectomy, and then I'll be working with a coach for a few calls. I'm pretty excited; y-me was not the only place I called looking for a match, but they gave me other people to call, even though I never found a match. I still called y-me several times, like when I discovered my "armpit breast," an artifact of being a large woman. I was utterly shocked, especially since it was quite swollen when I first discovered it, and the hotline volunteers talked me down from a panic more than once.

I know I'm not the only woman with a disability to also face breast cancer. Hopefully, once I've trained, the next woman who needs to talk to another disabled woman won't go without that support. They only want 20 hours a month for a hotline volunteer, and it is a job I can do even when I need to lie down. The training is two full days, but they'll accommodate me as best they can so I can train with my limitations. Some extra pain meds for breakthrough pain and some extra time to sleep the next week, and I should be able to manage it.I'm thrilled and excited.

While I'm talking about supporting y-me, my friend will be walking for y-me on Mother's Day in Atlanta, Georgia. For obvious reasons I don't walk much, though I may choose to roll in a later event. However, this year, I'm going to send my friends to support Susan here.

The original disability claim was dated from Aug 31, 2001, which is the last time I worked, at Lucent. At that time, I'd started using a cane, and was working at 20th & Welton. To go to the 16th Street Mall 4 blocks away, I had started to use the bus rather than walking the four blocks, because the walk would overtax me for the afternoon. In my opinion, that was a bit early; I had returned to school for a second career, and gave that up in 2003 when the pain got too bad to be able to even go to school full time. I filed from 2001 on the advice of the attorneys; had I filed by myself, I'd probably have filed for late 2003 when I decided that I wouldn't be able finish school or work (and had one heck of a depressive episode as a result.)

I had a manual wheelchair for long distances in 2004 -- I don't remember the month. In 2006, I attempted to get insurance to pay for a power chair, because my shoulders weren't handling transport in the manual chair well at all -- it's why I didn't crochet for over a year, because my shoulders hurt far too badly. The attorney told me on Monday that I had to establish disability by Dec 31, 2006, because that was the end of my SSDI time limit; if the disability was established for after that, my work history would no longer apply and SSI is far, far less income, especially since I was in a highly skilled and relatively high paying position until mid 2001.

I met my attorney at 12:45 for my 1:15 disability appeal hearing. About the time the hearing was to start, the ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) called my attorney back prior to the hearing. She came back out, and said that the ALJ would be willing to find me disabled if we would amend the filing to a disability beginning in April, 2006. I thought for about 2 seconds, and agreed. -- Disability from April 2006 beats the heck out of no disability, and with my lack of recent work history, I'd be quite screwed. And it means I'd have a far better chance of making ends meet from here forward, which is my biggest concern at any rate. In my opinion, I probably couldn't really work by some time in 2004, but since arguing for the extra year and a half to two years could have lost me any determination of disability at all, I agreed for the sake of disability income in the future.

I won't get the official written decision for a couple of months, but the ALJ did me the great favor of telling me on the record that he did in fact find me disabled as of April 2006, so there is no waiting on tenterhooks for the decision to find out the result, just waiting to see what my benefits (and The Gothling's benefits, as my minor child) will be, and when they will start.

The way SSDI works, there is a waiting period of five months before benefits begin, since everyone of course has a cushion of at least six months salary, especially in the current economy.Ssince my determination begins in April 2006, my benefits will be retroactive from November 2006. Medicare does not start until SSDI benefits have been going on for two years, so I won't be on Medicare until, most likely, November 2008. We had already researched the high-risk insurance pool for Colorado; Hubby's current employer does not provide insurance anyway, so he had been doing insurance research for some time, as we will need insurance by the end of March. The high-risk pool is a sliding scale by income, fortunately, so we won't bankrupt ourselves with the insurance till I get Medicare, and the other two will be much easier to insure.

It's resolved, and I am utterly drained. I think I'll be sleeping a bit extra for a few days.