Wednesday, December 22, 2010

I WON!!!!

So a few days ago I was out walking the dog, and grabbed my mail from the box. A typical day, right?? NO! I received a letter from a return address of SSA ODAR. I almost dismissed it as junk mail. Upon further inspection I found several pages of legal jargon of which I understood few words. I thought I understood the following words though..."Fully Favorable". Now, this couldn't mean what I think it means, could it? I mean I ONLY applied 2 years ago and I haven't even had my court date yet. However, I do remember my lawyer saying something in October about asking the judge for a directed decision. Before I start assuming what this means, and jumping up and down, as obvious as the meaning seems, I decide to call my lawyer.
The lawyer's assistant confirms this does indeed mean I won, and without ever stepping inside the courtroom, yay me! Next, I conference called my husband and best friend to tell them. I could barely speak, I was crying so hard! Relief, affirmation, mostly relief.
In reading the judges ruling I kind of felt like the judge was saying "WTF are u wasting the courts time for?" and not to me. He cites my doctor's opinion, of course. And, he also cites the opinion of the medical examiner Social Security sent me to. Their own doctor "indicated that while there were some conflicting examination findings with regard to the claimant's neuropathy, the results of the nerve conduction study were compelling and highly reliable. Because Dr. Freeman reviewed all the available medical evidence of record and provided a detailed explanation with references to the evidence in the record to support his opinion, and he is a medical expert who is familiar with SSA policy and regulations, the undersigned grants significant weight to his opinion".
See, doesn't that reek of "your own freakin doctor said she is impaired, why'd you deny her in the first place???" LOL If that doesn't say it for you maybe this will... "The State agency medical consultant's (the people who read over your paperwork (or more likely DON'T read it) and deny you) physical assessments are given little weight because other medical opinions are more consistent with the record as a whole and evidence received at the hearing level shows that the claimant is more limited than determined by the State agency consultants." :) I love that. Other than the two words "fully favorable" those are my favorite words in the entire ten pages.
Don't you love getting your medical records and learning new things about yourself? For example, one of the specialists I saw said to me "what are they (as in my other regular doctors) doing for your B12 level being so low?". I said "it's low?". end of subject with that doctor. But, I did notice in all this legal mumbo jumbo of paperwork it mentions "the undersigned finds that the claimant's impairments medically equal listing 11.14 and 11.16." Of course I had no idea what this meant so I used my favorite search engine, Google, and, well, Googled it. These are listed in what they call "disability pararegs". 11.14 is for peripheral neuropathies. 11.16 is for Subacute combined cord degeneration (pernicious anemia). So nice for my doctor's to tell me about this, LMAO. I am not worried about it, it doesn't sound like anything big deal, although it is listed in the pararegs as a condition for which you can get disability, so that implies it might be something I want to mention next time I go to my doctor.Right now though, I am just to happy.
I'll have to expound on this more later as my fingers are really starting to not only ache but have bad sharp pains, and my knuckles are really swollen. I am so going to pay for this post, but to tell you I won, it is almost worth the pain.