OPM Medical Retirement: The Paradigm of Disarray

One can go through life with the belief that the wider geopolitical universe as reflected through countless media outlets represents the true state of everyday existence; as wars, earthquakes, floods and famine destroy families, communities and conduits of chaos, so such a paradigm of disarray can color the subjective perspective which we carry about in the monotony of routine existence.

The extreme rejection of such a model viewpoint is to be a hermit; or, the balanced approach is to “keep things in perspective”, as the general advice goes, but what does it exactly mean to keep something in proper perspective?

On the one hand, if you carry forth the aggregate of transatlantic turmoil as representing what occurs or can potentially occur in the parameters of one’s locality, then that would certainly provide an imbalanced perspective.  On the other hand, ignoring and rejecting all events and occurrences outside of the artificial confines of one’s back yard would negate the reality of the intersection between information, knowledge and wisdom; for, as ignorance constitutes bliss, so deliberately ignoring events outside of one’s living room may represent the pinnacle of ecstatic living.  Then, when one throws a medical condition into the mix, the attempt to maintain a balance of perspective becomes exponentially difficult to maintain.

Medical conditions have a tendency to exacerbate the paradigm of disarray.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the necessity to maintain a proper perspective and balance of one’s life, accomplishments and future potential can become so skewed as to face fears of cognitive mountains insurmountable.  It is hard enough to maintain a balanced perspective in this world where media rules and interjects every aspect of life; where computers feed messages and track buying habits in order to invade your conscious existence; and where the 24-hour news feed is the norm.

Whether from chronic pain which tips the capacity to process information overload adequately, or psychiatric conditions which by their very nature create an imbalance of certitude; the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition will feel that the world once balanced within a universe of rationality, is now turned topsy-turvy through an inverted prism.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a benefit offered to all Federal and Postal employees who seek to escape from an exacerbated imbalance of perspective resulting from an on (or off) duty injury, physical illness or a mental condition which impacts the ability to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.  It is an avenue to make upright that which produced the paradigm of disarray through the intersecting forces of physical or mental debilitation — that medical condition which one never asked for; which one barely supposed; and of which the greater geopolitical world is unaware.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Of Capillary Constancy

Capillaries represent the smallest of the body’s blood vessels, which cumulatively account for the greater part of the microcirculatory means of reaching extremities and body under-surfaces beyond the reach of major veins.  Bursting or damaging a few here and there have little effect; cutting a capillary or bruising resulting from a blow to a branch of them, will have residual reverberations of unnoticed proportions.

But then, that is how most lives are considered, and treated; not as major arterial avenues of pumping stations, but way stations and secluded outposts visited only when mandated by necessity, and even then sporadically and with grumbling trepidation. But it is the very constancy of the work of capillaries which uphold the arterial integrity of the major vessels of society; and while most Federal and Postal workers go about their business in a daily routine within the quietude of unnoticed efficiency, it is when an interruption of a major event interposed upon a singular individual, that one must take pause and notice the otherwise uneventful event in a life of a capillary-like existence.

Chronic injuries and disabling conditions tend to do that to us.  For the individual who suffers from a medical condition, the traumatic life-event become a major obstacle; for the rest of society, it is the mere interruption and inconvenience of a capillary’s constancy being cut off.  The major vessels of life continue to pound away, pumping with rhythmic efficiency and barely taking notice of the lack of lifeline to the outreaches of peripheral concerns; but for the individual capillary, the crushing of life represented by a medical condition is a major event of exponentially significant proportions. Federal and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and whose medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, need the respite of recuperative time; but like capillaries damaged or otherwise severed, they are often forgotten immediately following the event.

Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset, Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, may be eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; but one must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, the nexus between the medical condition and the positional requirements of one’s Federal or Postal job. It is, in the end, the relevance of the whole organism and the efficiency of the body entirety, that matters; and to that extent, of the capillary constancy that results when significance is discovered for each outpost in the life of a human being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire