Re: short term disability

[Guest guest]

Kimber,

I knew you really meant short-term, not temporary. I know what you mean about

your mind not always working so well. That is one of the reasons I had to give

up my job. Both the illness and the medications can wreak havoc on your

cognitive abilities! It is wonderful that some states do have short term

disability programs. I didn't have anything short term with my employer or the

state. I was very fortunate that being a federal government employee, I was

able to borrow a certain amount of sick leave and vacation days. Also, people

were allowed to donate their vacation time to me. I was incredibly blessed with

that. My wonderful brother-in-law donated the maxium amount of vacation time

that he could donate without a written waiver both in 2002 and in 2003. That

was a total of 208 hours! Also, my boss donated 80 hours. Other friends and

co-workers donated another 50 hours or so. I didn't really want to know what my

friends or co-workers donated but I ended up seeing the form my boss filled out

laying on the desk of the person that processed the donations. The amazing

thing was that even though I had been on my job for over 10 years when I got

sick again in Jul 2002, my boss had only become my boss in April 2002. At that

time I was traveling 50% of the time, so she really didn't know me very well

prior to the time that I got sick. I didn't work a full week from the time I

got sick in Jul 2002 until the time my disability retirement went into effect in

March 2003. Yet, she still gave me 80 hours of her hard earned vacation time!

I honestly couldn't believe she was so kind and giving since she really only

knew me as a person that was rarely there! Even with borrowing the maximum

amount of sick and vacation time and having over 300 hours given to me, I still

had many paychecks that were next to nothing from July to March. Short term

disability would have felt heavenly to have a steady paycheck until I could get

my disability retirement (or long term disability) processed. However, I was

and am more fortunate than most who get hit with a chronic illness. Thankfully,

my husband does have both a short term and long term disability insurance

through his employer. He has to pay for them, but I don't think he pays that

much. He was able to use his short term disability when he was out of work for

3 weeks because of knee surgery. I don't think it paid anything until the 7th

day off work or something like that and even then it only paid 50% (I think).

However, we were glad to have even that because we had thought he'd have to be

off totally without pay when he had his knee surgery.

I have a lot to be thankful for as so many people have to fight much harder than

I did to get assistance. I think one of the major problems is that many abuse

the system so it makes harder for everyone.

W

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[Guest guest]

,

same here. My memory loss and concentration loss were two of the major

reasons I had to go on disability too. I think it's horrible that not

all the states have a short-term disability program. At least here in

California, they take it out of your check with your taxes. I also had

some of my coworkers donate sick leave to me. I had a case of

pancreatitis with pnuemonia and I only had two days PTO (paid time off,

fancy name for sick leave and vacation rolled into one) so my coworkers

donated 10 days so that I wouldn't have to take leave without pay.

Luckily, I didn't need more than that since we have that short term

disability. That was nice of your boss to do even though she didn't

know you very well. I know that has happened a lot with people who go

out on sick leave due to cancer at the company I worked at. Some even

had people they didn't even know donate days.

I had to pay for my long-term disability insurance too. I am very

grateful I had this as not all companies out here have them. I have

many times been grateful I got my job at Kaiser as it was the right

company at the right time. Otherwise, I'd have gone out on disability

and only had about a1/3 of what I'm getting now with just SSDI. Yeah,

we had an extended sick leave that came before you went out on

disability and it also didn't kick over till the 7th day. This is what I

used that time I was out with pancreatitis/pneumonia and those extra PTO

days helped get me over till the extended sick leave started. I was out

for a total of a month due to that. I never knew how hard pneumonia was

till I got it. And of course, I had to get a rare strain, gram negative

bacterial pnuemonia. When they told me I had pneumonia, I was surprised

because I had had the shot for viral pneumonia and didn't know there

were bacterial forms of it till someone told me.

Yes, too many people abuse the system, and it makes it harder and harder

for people with legitimate problems to get disability. That's one of

the reasons why some many people are denied initially and in the appeal

process. Usually, people don't get awarded disabiity till they get to

the trial hearing stage. That's what I had to do to get my disability.

Kimber

--

Kimber

Vallejo, CA

hominid2@...

Note: All advice given is personal opinion, not equal to that of a licensed

physician or health care professional.