The Social Security Decision

And the results are (finally) in--I've been denied.  The social security hearing seemed to go well, but the judge found me only 'partly' credible.

Part of the problem was that I was unable to get medical care for a few years--living in poverty with no insurance means you only go in if it's a dire emergency.  Respiratory distress (in the literal, medical sense) isn't sufficient.  Another part of the problem is the lack of official diagnosis for the visual memory problem I have.  Being unable to recognize my own family members isn't sufficient for that, either.  I have to be able to prove it, and I can't.

And then there's the opinion about my two sick visits to doctors this last winter.

The first one was for a double sinus infection and a double ear infection.  I had a fever.  The doctor looked in my ears.  She took my word for it about the sinuses after that.

The second one was for the flu.  I had a fever.  My blood pressure (normally normal) was almost 200.  My kid had the flu, too, and we both went to the ER together, driven there by my husband.  And then I spent the next month recuperating--three weeks after the worst part of the flu was over, I was still not breathing well enough to walk anywhere--I had to be dropped off at the door when I visited my mother in the ICU.  I couldn't go shopping.  I probably spent two weeks including the flu just sitting in that damn Chair.

The judge wrote in her decision that I had two sick visits for the 'common cold'.

It makes me sound like a horrible hypochondriac.

But everything is fine, right?