Running into a former co-worker this week made me remember a rather unfortunate anniversary that has come and gone... the six month anniversary of me leaving my previous full time programming job due to my hand issues.

Last week when seeing HD4 the PA had asked if I had any kind of assistance coming in and I said no and went through the list of things that a person in my position might qualify for and why in my case I do not and ended with SSDI and said:

... and then there's Social Security Disability Insurance which requires one to be disabled and out of work because of it for a year or be expected to be for a year... I've got half of that under my belt already which means I've got another six months to wait at least unless one of my doctors were to write a note for me saying that they still have no idea what's wrong with me and that given previous experience see no reason to believe that I'll be fixed and able to work again for at least the next six

To which he replied:

Yea I don't think we are going to be able to do that

Not really a surprise.

It's both interesting and horrifying to realize just how long of a time that's been since I last held down a full time job.

It's interesting to consider just how many nights I was able to stay up until the wee hours... and how many mornings I could sleep in without worry of alarms, schedules or having to be anywhere while it's horrifying to consider just how much that time has cost me in terms of food, gas, insurance, housing, etc... money that I don't have and will be paying for for likely years to come.

It's also quite disconcerting to realize that it's now been nearly 6 months since I went under the knife to try to fix my issue and in the end I seem to be far worse off today than I was prior to that.

Read the complete post at http://ihatelinux.blogspot.com/2007/08/six-months.html