This week you join a rather relieved, yet strangely apprehensive blogger.
The reason for this lies in a quite imasportant appointment that yours truly attended last Monday. It was one of those. An occasion I’ve been waiting for for some time. An appointment I’ve been building up in my mind as a daunting and somewhat scary experience.
Slightly disappointingly it turned out to be… Not that bad.
ESA Peasy
Yeah, I know. That sounds like a complete contradiction, doesn’t it? It’s true though. When something has been built up to the size of a cow (song stuck in your head now? You’re welcome.) but then turns out to be more of a Yorkshire Terrier in a teacup there is, after the unmistakable euphoria of relief, a subtle sense of anti-climax, of disappointment.
To put a little bit of context on to these bones (and let you know what the hell I’m waffling on about), Monday saw my long awaited interview regarding Employment & Support Allowance.
Since making the momentous decision to give up work (at least for now, see here) following my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis last July. I have been claiming this benefit at the base rate, something made possible by my paying National Insurance for the last twenty three years or so. This has meant that I have moved from earning well over a thousand pounds a month, to claiming seventy three pounds a week. It’s a bit of a drop.
However, there is another part of ESA, one that is designed to help out those whose disabilities and/or illnesses mean that working is impossible. This is called the support group and is what I am hoping to be moved into.
Dirty Work
The first part of the process of applying to be moved was to fill out an extremely comprehensive form that was the approximate size of a small novel, and asked a wide variety of questions designed to work out what the claimant can and can’t do. Everything from mobility to mental issues (hello complete lack of concentration and overwhelming fatigue!) were queried, as well as some more, um, personal questions that teetered on the very brink of TMI. It was a process that required the input and aid of my sainted wife, Tina; an uncomfortable amount of honesty, at least two coffees, and a post questionnaire shower.
As I say though, that was just part one. Part two involved a face to face appointment with a pleasant lady who introduced herself as a health professional (yeah, not sure on the actual job). She asked more questions, some of which seemed to be in order to clarify or expand on the paperwork and some of which were relatively new. Luckily we had thought to take in a letter from the MS specialist that highlighted not just that particular condition but the whole laundry list of of the various maladies that affect me (Spina Bifida, Multiple Sclerosis, Pernicious Anaemia, and a Chiari Malformation are the highlights).
Mixed Feelings
Thus armed and with her fingers tapping away at the keyboard faster than I think I’ve ever seen, she filled in the apparent blanks, confirmed a few facts (how far I can push my wheelchair unaided being one thing we may have been a little, um, enthusiastic about, on the form).
The whole experience was over in perhaps thirty or forty minutes and at no point did she make any moves to examine me in any way. No physical, no eye test, nothing. I was fully expecting at least some of these, so that was a bit of surprise really. I therefore left the small, utilitarian room thinking ‘is that it then?’And it was... Hence that strange sense of disappointment.
At least, that’s it for now, anyway. The supposedly scary part might just be over, and it might have been a little less scary that I first thought. Now, however, comes the waiting. We can expect to hear back from them in two to three weeks, or so I’m told... And this is the reason for the aforementioned apprehension.
Waiting Is
I’ve done my bit. I’ve answered the questions honestly, and as fully as I am able. I have given the relative evidence that backs up those answers. There is now nothing else I can do until the postman calls with that all important letter that will define so much of life for myself and Tina.
Essentially other people, people I will probably never meet, hold my future in their hands. I am left in limbo. Like that elongated pause they have on televised talent competitions when they are declaring who has made it to the next round. The trouble is my waiting is not for those artificially agonising few seconds, but potentially twenty one interminable days. I’ll try to put it out of my mind, try to think of other things, but I know that will be maddeningly, impossibly, difficult.
And the winner is...
Until next time...
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