Jim- Congratulations!!!!! Finally after all you have been thru, YOU ARE APPROVED!
ENJOY the relief
It's great news for you and Susy.
-Wendy-

Thanks everyone for the replies. Unfortunately this judgement is no cure for the pain Suzy feels but the stress should be less so that should make a difference. fmichael, I'm so used to worrying about one thing or another through the years I still feel like I'm worrying, about what I'm not sure. I'm sure that feeling will subside somewhat.

Congratulations to you both. You both fought a brave battle and I am so happy for you both. God bless you both. Lisa

Jim -

Understand what you mean about default mode hyper-vigilance. This too shall pass. Right now the only thing you have to worry about is what level of tax withholding to elect on the back-pay award - someone from the SSA will be in touch with you - and whether Suzy wants to purchase private supplemental insurance on top of the basic Medicare coverage. At least according to what I heard from my agent, it's one area where they don't discriminate on account of pre-existing conditions and some of the coverage is quite good. Don't know about long-term care coverage, but it would be worth checking out.

"Problems" like this have to be welcome. N'est pas?

Mike

Mike, I've been looking only slightly at what kind of supplemental insurance to pick up for her because we are still dumbstruck, I think. Suzy has not received any paperwork etc. yet. I do want her completely covered with the least amount of surprises coming down the pike. Off hand can you recommend a site that spells out all this extra coverage in simple, down the earth terms. Greatly appreciated. As far as her backpay, most of it is gone because of our debt. Taxes are going to be a trick for sure. My understanding about medicare is it is also retroactive. It will (I've heard) pay back out of pocket medical expences at least a year. That amount will run at least $15,000.

jim

Dear Jim and Suzy;

I have been thinking of you both and diligently praying for you. I was concerned when I noticed you haven't posted much. But on that note I am so glad for both of you this will be a huge relief, medically and financially and the mental pain and worry will slowly wither away.

When you work your whole life and are use to providing for yourself you just don't think about the inevitable. We cannot plan for such things to happen, such as an illness or any traumatic event to come into our lives and turn our world upside down. But this is truly a celebration and a heavy sigh of relief to know that justice was long overdue for you. God Bless

Jeanie

Thanks Jeanie! The relief is dawning on us both slowly but surely. It's been such a long road. I have not been around much because my employer works closely with a major political party and with this election season we've been very busy. Our Congressman's staff was very exited about the outcome and are still working with our mortgage bank to prevent them from taking our our home of many years. We are two months behind, they are quite aware of our 35 years of good credit and Suzy's illness. They treated us badly and were very very rude, akin to thuggery. For the second time, this time under our congressman's staff's eye, they are working out a loan modification in which I will most likely turn down because our circumstances have changed. The first time this bank pretended to modify our loan they where going to take the house from us with out any court involved, using a virginia law called acccelerated foreclosesure, another words take the house while we are still in it while waiting for a loan modification. Not going to happen now thank God!!!
Suzy and I hope you are feeling well Jeanie and will never leave this site.