Your prayers are needed

The disability management company who pays out on Todd's claim is getting ready to do another review. This entails reviewing notes from doctors Todd is seeing, paperwork completed by us, phone conversations I've had with his case manager, his RTW (Return To Work) plans, and any earnings he's made. I'm always nervous, nay, terrified when they do a review, that they are going to suddenly decide that he's fine, and kick us off disability with no warning. Even though his case manager has reassured me that they won't do that. But her job is to look out for the company, not her clients, as much as they both may claim otherwise. Or maybe it's just my inherited paranoia of "the system." IDK.

I believe this will be the one year review, in which they determine whether or not Todd is able to return to his former career path with less than 40% pay loss. Which at this point he is not. What makes me nervous is that he's not regularly seeing a doctor any more, other than the psychiatrist who is managing his psychiatric medications. All the other doctors and therapists have released him, to be contacted again on an "as needed" basis. And thankfully, they haven't really been needed. Except that it's going to look on paper as though he's back to his former self, which, while he continues to make great strides, is not the case.

At this point, what keeps him from working full-time are first, his fatigue, and second, his sensory reception. If he still had his old job to go back to, he could maybe go back if they were very willing to work with him on his schedule and make adaptive changes to his working environment (like allow him to arrive at work at a later time, take a 2-3 hour lunch so he could rest, give him an office, so that ambient noise wouldn't be such a problem, and allow him to gradually build up to being back full time...) but he doesn't have that job, and trying to find a job in this economy is hard enough without going into it with special circumstances like that.

Perhaps what I'll do is have him make some appointments with his doctors, just so that they have up-to-date opinions of his condition and deficits. While it won't be cheap, it's probably a better alternative than leaving it to chance and getting kicked off disability. Cause getting kicked off disability now would not be a good thing. At all. While Todd is working, making minimum wage 16 hrs a week wouldn't pay the bills. And while Oliver will be starting school, I'm still his (much needed) primary care person, and day care for a kid with special needs would probably cost about what I could earn, not to mention that I don't have the earning potential needed to pay our house payment even in the best of circumstances.

The other thing that we need your prayers on, is our insurance situation. We are currently on COBRA, and while the disability plan and the government have combined to make it affordable to us (Can you believe it? I used COBRA and affordable in the same sentence! There's a win for you, Obama), you can only stay on COBRA for so long, and I believe our coverage will end in Jan or Feb. And I don't know what we are going to do then. Because of Todd's and Oliver's preexisting conditions, I don't know if they are insurable through a private policy. And they are the ones who really need it. The cost of Todd's medications alone without insurance would bankrupt us in a matter of weeks. Not to mention that fall and winter are coming, bringing with them the colds and bugs that can cause ER visits for Oliver.

I'm waiting to hear from Oliver's teacher to find out how many hours a day he'll be in school, so that I can look into finding a job that won't take me away from him too much, and will provide insurance. If anyone know of something, please let me know. He'll be in school Mon-Thurs mornings, but that's about all I know.