Atlanta!

There was a day when I was 33 miles from Atlanta. I’m going to skip that. Wasn’t even worth talking about.

I’m here. It’s cold. There is sleet on my windshield. My batteries do not last through the night. I appear to be out of propane. Again. I’m sick. I’m tired. I need to get this thing done and over with. And today, it begins in earnest. 

This was a interesting day, to say the least.  My first call was to the Social Security Hearings Office in Atlanta. A gentleman name Paul answered, after the automated system had kicked me out twice. I assume this was for the affront of attempting to speak to a live human.  But on the third set of 40 rings, I got an answer. Paul tells me the records show that a request for an On The Record decision was denied. He won’t tell me when. Or why. Says he’s not allowed to. All he can tell me is that my case is ‘unassigned’. Meaning: It’s not even on an ALJ’s To-Do list yet. Since June of 2007.  He cannot tell me what has become of the TERI letters sent from my attorney’s office. He cannot tell me what has become of the Letter of Dire Need sent through my senator’s office. he cannot tell me when (or if) my case will be set for a hearing any time during this milennium – or any other. 

So my next call was to my attorneys. That’s ‘attorneys’, plural. Because Social Security is one thing.  ERISA (the phony UNUM policy case) is something else. The attorneys are not in, but I am informed that my Social Security attorney is booked up for the month of December and on vacay for part of it.  Um. Hello? I just spent THREE WEEKS dragging my butt to Atlanta to be denied an audience with my own attorney? I don’t think so!

So I was granted a telephone audience. In a couple of weeks. Obviously, nothing i can say here is going to endear me to my dear attorney. Is it? But I don’t think it really needs to be said. You can pretty much imagine…

My other attorney did not return my call at all. I will update when there’s some information to update with. Earllier events leave me feeling a face to face encounter is…unlikely. At best. 

Is it just me?I Or does this seem strange? Do I have the word’s worst case of cooties ever?  Am I perhaps suspected of knowing a few lawyer jokes? Or have they just been dealing with the Paper Shufflers ThaT Be for so long that the very idea of an actual human attached to all that paper is too foreign to countenance?   

Next call goes out to my Senator – Johnny Isakson. His office has tried to assist in the past. I speak to Michael Gay, who handles constitutent services. I am informed that since my case was denied on reconsideration in June of 2007, his office had no ability to do anything further until I requested it. Of course, I didn’t know this.

So I requested something further, amid warnings that the Senator has no control over hearing outcomes, cannot interfere, the Social Security Hearings Offices in Atlanta are the two most backlogged in the country, etc., etc.  They need a letter from me detailing my circumstances.  Which I can mail or fax. But which I will NOT mail or fax. I will go there in person. Because somebody, somewhere IS going to see me in person. Somebdody is going to verify my existence as a human and not a stack of ‘unassigned’ papers with a number on it.

As it happens, Senator Chambliss has an office just around the corner. That’s good news. If one is good, two is probably better. And who knows? It just might require an Act of Congress to get my humanity verified, at the rate I’m going.  

My last call was to my doctor, who I havent been able to see in over a year now. This was the real shocker. An Actual Human answered the phone and gave me an appointment! This week, even. My jaw dropped. I plotzed. Actual, honest to goodness, human to human contact? At the mere touch of a button? In this day and age? But there it was. A person who was Actually Willing To See Me.  

I am always hesitant to recommend a physician who already runs a super-busy practice. People find out. It’s not like the good ones are hurting for business. But my doc rocks.  Knows a human when she sees 40 of ‘em a day. I place this in stark contrast to the above. And I didn’t even have to give the backstory. Or explain my bleak prospects for the very, very near future. 

Which – I DID do for all the other parties I attempted to speak with today. I DID explain that I was basically living in a series of Walmart parking lots, short on heat, heating fuel, and everything else that makes life livable in Atlanta in the middle of freaking winter, that I am sick. Still sick. Five years into sick now. Five years of hearing that word ‘backlogged’. And that other word, ‘overbooked’. And still, somehow unworthy of a personal audience with them? WTF??

If my strident tones and kickass mode of speech and intents seemed a little over the top before….maybe today’s experiences give a little insight as to where they came from. This ‘bad attitude’ I have wasn’t born in a vacuum. But, as Whoopi said,

“I’m here! Dear God, I’m here!”