This week has given me several reasons to love what I do which is helping people who are filing for Social Security disability benefits. The one that still makes me smile is a young man who has been battling Crohn’s disease for several years. He ultimately had to have his large colon and rectum removed due to the severity of his condition. So now he wears a colostomy bag.
Unfortunately, he also has a large non-healing wound that persists to this day. It makes it hard to sit and walk. He can’t wear regular clothes because of the location of the colostomy bag. He also has to have help changing the bag because it had to be placed lower on his abdomen than it was supposed to be. It comes off if he has to bend, becomes hot, or for no reason at all. He has accidents at home and when he tries to go out in public.
Because he was no longer able to work, he lost his insurance and could not afford to go to the doctor to have necessary surgery done to help get his wound to heal.
As if that weren’t enough, he believed that his previous attorney had filed his appeal asking for a hearing. However, the attorney had never filed the appeal.
By the time I met with him, the other attorney had withdrawn from the case and the appeal was over three months late. I helped him file his Request for a Hearing and did a letter explaining the situation so that the hearing office would find “good cause” for accepting the appeal late.
We ordered and submitted missing medical records. And waited.
The hearing date arrived and we presented his case to a judge. The judge plans to find him disabled.
After the hearing there were tears of joy since now he and his wife don’t have to rely just on her income. And – best of all – he now has insurance so he can return to doctor and try and get his wound to heal.
Helping people who are in sad and desperate situations. That’s why I went to law school and that’s why I love my job.