Posts Tagged ‘advocacy’

21
Mar
2020

Never mind, everyone! I have been proven wrong.

categories: personal; word count: 346 words

When this school district got enough pressure put on it by people who kept pointing out that they were flying in the face of CDC recommendations, they made the “difficult decision” to close schools for another week. Yeah, I know. It must have been incredibly difficult to turn away all of the federal funding that you would have gotten from opening schools back up even though it would have come at the cost, and on the backs of, those who are at increased risk from the potential community spread of COVID-19 (you know, coronavirus), those that this could very easily incapacitate if not outright kill. Spare me your melodrama and how this was allegedly actually a “difficult decision” for you. This just lines your pockets a little bit less. You don’t have to deal with the harsh realities that come with the actual panic (not the “alleged panic”) of possibly catching this, getting hospitalized with this, winding up on a ventilator, possibly dying and leaving loved ones behind because someone’s pocket book was more important than keeping fragile members of the community safe. Spare me your manufactured melodrama about how this was actually a “difficult decision” for you. Shut up.

Our county is now at age three on the “action plan”. This means…

· stay home if you are sick
· avoid contact with individuals who are sick
· avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unclean hands
· cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue away
· clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces with a disinfectant
· don’t travel to areas with active community spread
· wash your hands with soap and water regularly
· use hand sanitizers with at least 60% of alcohol content when soap and water are not available

· Actively practice “social distancing”
· whenever possible maintain 6 feet distance from other persons
· avoid physical contact with other persons in social and workplace settings
· postpone or cancel all gatherings of 50 or more people if possible

But most recently…

· the county may issue orders prohibiting and/or restricting mass gatherings and/or movement of people

20
Mar
2020

Don’t imagine it, because it actually happened.

categories: personal; word count: 397 words

But imagine advocating so hard for the local school district to commit to an extended closure of schools, which other school districts in the area have done, that their response to you doing so over the course of several comments left on their social networking pages is to actually block you because they are that desperate to open doors and resume school for access to those federal dollars that they are willing to risk the health and lives of the at-risk students and members of their community as a direct result of this… and that they don’t even care, because the superintendent himself is literally willing to chalk it up as “panic” because he is literally all about that money. But as I’ve mentioned in here, I’ve attended this school district myself. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about this school district at all, and I mean every single word of this sentence. This school district has not improved at all, and their response to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic absolutely shows that in their recent actions. They are willing to endanger their at-risk students, the at-risk parents of those students who may be in attendance, other household members or people that they routinely come in contact with, and other members of the community by being in such a rush to open the doors to these schools back up (so much for “social distancing”, eh?) that they make it blatantly obvious that they continue to be all about that federal funding that it absolutely sickens me. This district is just trash.

At this point, I think that this district will always be trash and that it will never, ever redeem itself. Ever.

If anything changes between now and the time that school doors are supposed to re-open, of course I will make another post in here reflecting that, but this school district has always put money above the health and lives of the populace at large because… let’s face it, when has it not? “Panic” takes on a whole new meaning when you yourself are a member of that at-risk population. When this is something that could incapacitate or kill you, it’s not something that you’re “panicking” over, it’s a real-life scenario that you have to try to avoid. Anyone who claims it’s “panic” who is not in the at-risk group is trying to flex on privilege.

11
Feb
2020

So far, my reasons for disability denials…

categories: personal; word count: 299 words

· you have a STEM degree (an associates’ in Biology obtained before the onset of any disability)
· you’re intelligent, so you can adapt to work (when my disabilities are all physical)
· “your functional limitations line up with your neurologist’s report on you, but we still believe you can work”
· the migraine aborters actually work 100% at taking all migraine pain away, so I “can work”
· “you may have some limitations” (ha), “but you can adapt to work” (and absolutely no work is listed)

I had a friend whose mother had to apply for disability for them four separate times while they were a child, just to get them approved. That was four separate applications that she had to put in. Another case that I heard about was the friend of several friends waiting for a hearing after having been denied twice, just to die in her sleep. And I read about someone who had to advance it to a hearing for leukemia, at which point they were approved, but they died soon after because they could not start therapy for their cancer in time to save their life. This is literally what disabled people in the United States have to deal with. They have to put in application after application, or advance it to a hearing and wait up to two years to get in front of an administrative law judge, hoping that they can hold their heads above water while they do, also hoping that they don’t actually die before disability benefits are granted. Like I’ve mentioned before, 13,000 people die per calendar year here because they actually are disabled and they kept being denied benefits. That is one hell of an “oops”. I’m starting to think that it’s intentional on the part of this country, a feature, not a “bug”.

01
Feb
2020

This is a travesty worth pointing out.

categories: personal; word count: 426 words

13,000.

That is roughly how many people actually die every year in the United States because they apply for disability benefits (SSDI or SSI) and are denied, sometimes continuously. That’s thirteen. Thousand. People.

They die for a number of reasons.

Lack of access to healthcare and medication.

Inability to afford housing.

Not being able to buy themselves food.

The list goes on, but I’m sure I’ve made my point by now.

Roughly two-thirds of applicants are denied when they submit their initial application, and a staggering 80% of applicants are denied if they request that Social Security reconsider their application. For those who choose to advance their application for benefits to a hearing with an administrative law judge after this second denial, the wait to get in front of a judge in some capacity can take up to two years in some states, and between half and 60% of applicants have their benefits approved at that stage… so no matter how you look at it, the odds do not exactly appear to be in your favor (although older individuals seem to have an easier time obtaining and securing disability benefits for themselves, and I’m told that children who “age onto the rolls” as adults seem to have a slightly easier time depending on just what their disabilities are).

And some of them die right after getting approved after having literally fought the system for years.

They die because they weren’t able to access the things that they needed in time because they had to fight to get what they were rightfully owed. They count here. Their stories are still important. Just as important.

This may not surprise very many of you given the… political climate in the United States, at least as far as it relates to healthcare, but it will probably sadden and shock those of you who are not familiar with the number, but that is the number. Because people with legitimate disabilities who are not able to work are being denied for sometimes the most contradictory, superfluous reasons, approximately thirteen thousand people die in the United States every year as a result of that, and to me, that is thirteen thousand people (or however many people actually die in the United States as a result of this) too many. I almost want to laugh — and sometimes I actually do — when people say, “oh, you’re disabled, just apply for disability” as though it were really that simple. I’m not sure if the system is intentionally set up to be like this or what. It may well be.

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