August 2012 my mother was operated on for cancer.



February 2013 was my last day of work.

I applied for SSD the next week. I was denied and my first appeal was also denied. This took almost a year. I filed for an Administrative Adjudicators hearing. I spent almost a year after my first appeal waiting for a hearing date.

I received a letter in the spring of 2015 saying I would receive a hearing date during 2015. In the fall of 2015 I received another letter saying my Administrative Adjudicators hearing date was scheduled for February 24 2016 at 11:00 AM. Technically the first letter was correct I did receive a hearing date in 2015 it is just that the date I received was in 2016.

I had no income for almost 2 years preceding this. I budgeted what funds I did have to last me till April 2016 since I had heard the it may take 2 months to get SSD going.

On February 24, 2016 I headed out to the hearing place in St. Louis, MO early in the morning as it is a 50 mile trip my appointment time was 11:00 AM and it was snowing. I was about halfway there when I got a call from my lawyer saying because of the snow the hearing building was closed and my appointment had been cancelled. I was flabbergasted. I had been planning towards this for almost 2 years and now I had nothing. As I was driving home I got another call from my lawyer saying SSD said they would reschedule as soon as possible. I eventually got a letter saying my appointment had been rescheduled for June 3, 2016 1:00 pm which put me well outside my budget planning.

I had my hearing on June 3, 2016 1:00 pm. It lasted almost an hour. At the end of it the Adjudicator found in my favor that I was disabled. He awarded me SSD (amount to be determined) and Medicare. Benefits were to start in 2 months which would be August 2016.This is 4 months past my budgeting. After waiting till the middle of August 2016 and receiving no letters or notices about my case I called SSD benefits and was told they had nothing to process and the case was still being held at the St. Louis location. A week later with no activity that I could see I called the St. Louis office for my case status. I was told my case was awaiting the Adjudicators final sign off. I asked when I could expect that and was told “soon”. I asked “how ‘soon’” and was not given any new information. I then asked if that would be before the end of the year and was told “yes”. Two weeks later I called again and was told “soon”.

February 2016 my mother was placed into Hospice care after several heart stent operations. It was determined that she needed open heart surgery but the doctor was unsure if she would survive and if she did her quality of life would be diminished.

I have 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

It is my belief that by the finding in my favor SSD is admitting that they made an error when they found against me in Feb 2013. The last time I called the Adjudicator’s office I was also told that my particular Adjudicator had a backlog of 9,000 cases. If this is true then I would submit that there are systemic issues with this bureaucracy. It is my contention that SSD has a policy of automatic refusal for initial submissions. If there are indeed 9,000 cases in the backlog then there are issues further back in the process that are making improper determinations.

My son and daughter-in-law with my granddaughter managed to get get to see their Grandma in August 2015 when my granddaughter was a few weeks old, in February 2016 just before their Grandma went into the nursing home and once after that in May 2016 for the last time.

My daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and grandson live about 160 miles away and had no vehicle the last part of 2015 and first part of 2016. I went to their house and spent the first week of March 2016 helping them with the logistics of getting a car. At the end of March 2016 they managed to see Grandma in the nursing home for the last time.

My other daughter, son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter live 80 miles away and don’t have a vehicle that is safe for more than local trips.

My personal vehicle is a commuter car and cannot hold more than 2 people comfortably. Due to no income I am currently living in a sleeping room and have no place for visitors to sleep. I can go see them but have no way to get them down here. I also have now way to get my mother up to them as I am not capable of taking care of her and she was in no condition to travel. The last time this part of my family saw my Mom was June 2014.

My Mother died on June 19 2016 at 4:30 AM

She was memorialized on the following Wednesday and buried on Thursday.

This last part of my family never got to see their Grandma/Great Grandma before she died. This is majorly due to my not having any income to provide means to help them get here.

This was taken from me by the SSD bureaucracy and I can never get it back.

This is the same bureaucracy that admitted in June 2016, when my mother was still alive, that they made a mistake when they originally denied my benefits in 2013.

This is the same bureaucracy that made me wait almost a year to get a hearing date and then over a year to actually have the hearing.

This is the same bureaucracy that cancelled my hearing in February 2016 and made me wait 4 more months for a hearing.

This is the same bureaucracy that said I would get my benefits in August 2016 and now just tells me “soon”.

I am not seeking any revenge, punishment, justice, etc… for this situation. I realize that most of the Civil Servants of this bureaucracy probably never talk to and certainly never meet the clients they are serving. I also understand why they hide behind fake names and voicemail as there are some clients who are impossible to deal with.

Could it be that these Civil Servants are so insulated from their clients that they can no longer empathize with the real and human part of their clients?

Could it be that they don’t realize that they are also affecting the families that are connected to these clients?

I will never know which of the faceless bureaucrats are responsible for the error that was my SSD denial.

I will never know which of the faceless bureaucrats are responsible for pushing the payment of my favorable finding so far out the it seems unattainable.

I will never know why they choose to deny my mother the peace of seeing all of her family in her last days. Yes I know they wouldn’t have know this but maybe that’s part of the problem. Would it be such a burden to call a client every couple of months and inquire “how’s it goin”?

These faceless bureaucrats will probably never see this. I would ask if any readers of this has a friend or family member employed as a Civil Servant they pass this on to them.

This was taken from me and I can never get it back.