ladysprite: (steampunk)
ladysprite ([personal profile] ladysprite) wrote2013-10-07 07:08 pm

Disability Advice?

So. When I talked to my therapist today about the amount of pain I'm in, and the way it's impacting my ability to eat, sleep, perform everyday functions, and think, she said I needed to get out of work and on disability ASAP.

I had been figuring on going on short-term disability when I had surgery, but apparently I need to move a little faster. I have an appointment with a neurosurgeon near the end of the month, but in the meantime I need to work on getting interim medical insurance (because ANOTHER snafu left us still uninsured, this time until November) and a new PCP and starting disability paperwork right away.

There's just one problem.

I'm self-employed. And I was always told that, because of that, if I ever needed disability I could just count on social security. But apparently, as I just found out tonight, Social Security Disability is only for cases where you're going to be out of work for over a year. They don't provide short-term disability.

So. I'm trying not to view this as another catastrophe, or yet more proof that I'm doomed and that the universe wants to condemn me to a short, miserable life of pain and suffering. And instead I'm asking for advice.

Does anybody out there know anything about short-term disability, especially for self-employed individuals? Especially especially, say, in cases where they're already diagnosed with an injury? I don't yet have any doctors saying I need it (my therapist isn't an MD), but the diagnosis of herniated discs is already out there...

Please, and thank you...

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