Federal Gov. and USPS Disability Retirement: Pain as a Reminder

Pain is a reminder that the physiological state of one’s body is in need of rest or repair; it is tantamount to an error message on the computer, with the analogy of our brain being the software component.  Chronic pain thus constitutes a system shutdown; continued non-response and delay will either result in systematic error messages or progressive deterioration where the entire system will begin to be impacted with reverberating consequences.

It is well that the largest organ of our body is our skin; for, as a concealing covering, it contains the inner workings — and malfunctions — of our other organs and systems.  But within the constellation of the composite of organs and systems functioning in coordinated fashion to keep us alive, the “software system” allows for error messages to be relayed to important information centers, of warnings meant to be heeded.

Pain is such an error message; chronic pain is the heightened alert system to keep us informed.

For the Federal or Postal worker who experiences such continuous and persistent relays of error messages, the failure to heed merely delays the necessity of responding to the system shutdown.  Federal Disability Retirement is meant to be a compensatory system whereby a restorative period of recuperation is allowed for, with the possibility of engaging in employment in a different capacity without losing one’s base annuity.  It is a long and involved administrative process.  Such preparations must be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS or CSRS; further, if you are a separated Federal or Postal employee, you have only up until one (1) year to file from the date of separation.

Allowing the error message to be sent repetitively and ignored out of hand may constitute malpractice on the part of the recipient — the Federal or Postal Worker who does nothing but continue to be dedicated to one’s job, while ignoring the basic rule of life:  self preservation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Pain, Anxiety & Exacerbation

Medical conditions tend to “feed upon” one another.  Maintaining a balanced perspective on anything is difficult when one is in pain, and the nagging, incessant presence of pain, diffuse and radiating, extending to areas and points of the body where one can no longer specify a particular area because of the widespread extension, makes it impossible to have the requisite focus and concentration necessary to perform one’s job.  Further, the profound fatigue which results from the daily fight against the pain, where one’s energy and reserve of patience for daily social and professional encounters is expended and exhausted such that one must choose between being civil or countering the pain, is something which many cannot understand.

At some point, consideration must be given to preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Whether now, or a few weeks from a stated point, becomes an irrelevancy when one suffers from chronic pain, for the Federal or Postal employee who has endured such medical conditions already knows — whether the doctor concedes it or not — that one cannot continue in this manner.

The physical pain, of course, only serves to exacerbate and feed upon the anxiety — anxiety which projects future events, financial security (or insecurity), and whether and for how long one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service will look the other way as performance deteriorates and the pervasive whispering campaign by coworkers and supervisors begins.  Pain of a chronic nature only invites anxiety; and when the two combine, they serve to exacerbate to an extent where an exponential result is attained, neither explained by the pain alone nor the presence of anxiety, but where the sum of the total exceeds any ability to maintain the balanced perspective needed to continue to perform the essential elements of one’s job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: Writing about Medical Conditions

It is easy to give advice about pain when a person is feeling no pain; it is unwise to act upon it when one is in an extreme state of it.  For, the former will often be disbelieving of the extent and severity of it and will therefore view it as involving a lack of fortitude; the latter will be willing to sell his soul in order to rid himself of it.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the problem of pain is representative of the greater difficulties of writing about a medical condition — of the dichotomy and bifurcation of subject-object; of sympathy – empathy; of persuasion and what constitutes effective writing which compels a person to tears.

Of course, as to the latter — we need not expect an OPM Case Worker to be reading your narrative in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability to suddenly burst out in tears, get up, and scream as he or she is running down the corridors of OPM holding your case file declaring, “This one is approved!  This one is approved!” (although such a scene would indeed be welcome and rather amusing).

The problem nevertheless exists — of how one can write about one’s own medical conditions, with a level of objectivity, a compelling sense of persuasive effect, a standard of maintaining a perspective which declines to cross into maudlin overstatement, and a judicious use of adjectives in conveying a true picture of pain or symptomatologies of medical conditions, which paints the picture as opposed to merely narrating a list of diagnoses which may portray unfeeling information, as opposed to the entirety of information, feeling, sensation and struggle — the aggregate of the human condition as encompassed by one in pain.

The problem has no answer; rather, it is one which must always seek a solution, which is a process in and of itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire