Fun with Forms. And applications. And worksheets.

My insurance company called to tell me they received my short-term disability claim. They say they'll need to ponder for 10 days or so, and they'll get back to me. So, for the moment, it's off my desk and on someone else's. Step one: Apply for short-term disability -- check!

Since I had a head of steam up, I downloaded the SSDI Starter Kit from the Social Security website, and started filling out an Adult Disability and Work History Report. I don't intend to apply online, but I have to get the information down somehow, and an online form lets me use voice recognition. The alternative is printing out a PDF, but the whole pencil and paper thing just ain't workin' for me anymore. So I start filling out the online form, but I'm totally put off by the limits they put on the amount of time you can spend on each page. It's plenty of time, really -- it just bugs me. So I started working through the Social Security Disability Benefit Guide from the MS Society instead.

After spending much of the day thinking about all the doctors I've seen, all the medications I take, all the procedures I've had done, all the symptoms I have, and all the reasons they keep me from working, I've got to tell you I'm feeling like one pretty darned pitiful remnant of protoplasm.

It's not that I ever forget I have MS. Since April of 2002, I've been aware of it every second of every day. I just don't think about it that much, if you know what I mean. I'm not your cheerful, optimistic, silver lining-type person, always looking on the bright side of things. Most emphatically not. I'm just usually focused on whatever it is I'm trying to do, rather than all the ridiculous hoops I have to jump through (metaphorically speaking, of course, since my actual hoop-jumping days are long past) to make it happen. So when I have to spend the day itemizing everything that's wrong with me and listing all the things I can't do anymore, it makes for a reasonably crummy day.

My usual response would be to put something like this on my "Put off forever" list, but Scarecrow is, at this very moment, making us an appointment to talk to the nice folks at Social Security. So I will come back and work on this again tomorrow.

But I'd rather stuff earthworms up my nose.