Not only do i worry about the loss of income, but this loss is coming on top of several thousand bucks in out-of-pocket medical bills.
Pooh.
Most of the places have been good about letting us pay a little at a time, but when you add them all up, its still quite a bit of loot to pay out every month.
Sigh. Wish we could have gotten a single-payer system. (And so does my doctor...)
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
To Disability or not to disability.... that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler -- or something like that. (And obtw, Shakespeare was beyond brilliant.)
So, we are working on the decision about whether I should go on permanent disability.
I worry about two things. One is financial: it will mean a fairly massive cut in income, and thus a pretty substantial change in our lives. Things that we had planned -- or hoped -- to do, especially travel, are going to have to get dropped. And thereare other, smaller lifestyle changes that we will have to accomodate. I find a lot of that scary. For the past few years i have had the luxury of -- for the first time in my adult life -- not having to fret about money. We haven't lived extravagantly, by any means. But neither have we had to worry. Now, i think that worry will come back.
The second thing is whether or not I can develop enough discipline to do some substantive writing. I've never been a good self-starter, and unless (or until) I can find a project that really energizes me, I'm not sure how well I'll do if left to my own devices. I have some writing projects I want to work on, and I really want to continue with the ITM stuff and spend more time with those people (which would be something that would get me out of the house and make sure that I'm taking care of myself and not just sitting at home wanting to drink or something like that).
So, the quandary: do I go on disability, lose my identity as a teacher, and become something else? I've certainly known lots of people who cobble together lives out of this and that, and don't have a career per se, but just do enough to get by.
Part of me likes the thought of that: just doing what we need to do to get by. We don't need to be extravagant; we don't need a housekeeper. I can probably cut wood with a friend and by helping him, get wood for free. If I am home and can keep a fire going in the stove all day, we don't really use much propane or electricity at all for heat. The summer will be interesting because I hate being too hot and sticky. But I can adjust. And hell, I may be in a bad way come summertime -- which means I will like the heat and not want to be cold.
So, lots to think about. Being not poor, but at the same time, being forced to think about consumption a little more than we have in a few years. Reduce our carbon footprint. Live a little more simply. Not buy so many toys. I have lots of toys.
I can also try to pick up a class. I can talk to the disability insurance people about how much I am allowed to earn without losing my benefits. I really don't think I can go back and do my old job well, but that's not to say that I can't do something. The real thing I don't want to do is grade papers.
My doc said that when poeple get this diagnosis, they can often have a choice about whether they want to spend their remaining time doing things they want, or things that they don't want to do.
There's something compassionate about how the SS administration treats people who are going on disability and have a terminal diagnosis: it is almost as though they have decided that they should not force people to continue to do work that they may not like or may not and so they give you a few years of doing what it is that you want -- or not doing what you do not want.
For me, I love to teach. I love to talk about brains and how they work, I love to challenge kids to think about what makes people do what they do and not let the students rely on intuition or "common sense" (which is, it must be said, not all that common). I love to teach about how science works and why we use it as a guide to what works and what doesn't work.
But man, if I could do all of the above and never grade another paper, I would be happy -- as my dad would say -- as a pig in shit. Grading is pure drugery. Working with students to make their writing better, or make their research better, is awesome, and I would love to keep doing that -- unforch, that usually comes along with grading papers. Ack.
I could probably modify my classes so that I don't spend so much time grading and instead conference with students, talk to them about how to make their work better, and let them do the hard work of editing and revising.
I have done a lot of that in the last few years: I leave them alone to work either singly or in small groups, then meet with them and give them verbal feedback about how they're doing and what they've done. They seem to be learning. And I love it when they learn.
That's something that really turns my crank: watching kids get it. There's nothing like seeing a kid in a classroom light up because all of a sudden they understand something they've not gotten, but have been trying to get. And POW, when they get it, it's like the whole world changed. I love that.
The sad part is that in my regular classes, as soon as they get one thing, I give them something new, and it's like the POW but from the other direction.
But by the end of my class, I have a group of the most methodologically sophisticated undergraduates there are. I'm proud of that.
But we need to have something for students who don't want to go to grad school. Right now we do grad-school-prep. We do it exceedingly well. But not all students want to do grad school.
So how do we acommodate both, the grad-school-bound, and those who just happen to like psych? I have considered two tracks, but (without in any way taking anything from our students), I know that almost all would opt for the easier track, and then expect to get into a grad program (because that's what you have to do if you want to use psych, esp as a therapist or counselor -- which pretty much they all do.
(I thought I did, too, but they decided that talking to depressed people only made me depressed, also... So I became an experimental psychologist and started doing research on brains that are not distressed.)
Okay, I'm going to stop this now because I had to take a pain pill earlier and have no idea if this is making any sense at all. (I have had some pretty bad headaches lately, and that worries me.... Damn cancer. Bastard.)
So, more anon!
I worry about two things. One is financial: it will mean a fairly massive cut in income, and thus a pretty substantial change in our lives. Things that we had planned -- or hoped -- to do, especially travel, are going to have to get dropped. And thereare other, smaller lifestyle changes that we will have to accomodate. I find a lot of that scary. For the past few years i have had the luxury of -- for the first time in my adult life -- not having to fret about money. We haven't lived extravagantly, by any means. But neither have we had to worry. Now, i think that worry will come back.
The second thing is whether or not I can develop enough discipline to do some substantive writing. I've never been a good self-starter, and unless (or until) I can find a project that really energizes me, I'm not sure how well I'll do if left to my own devices. I have some writing projects I want to work on, and I really want to continue with the ITM stuff and spend more time with those people (which would be something that would get me out of the house and make sure that I'm taking care of myself and not just sitting at home wanting to drink or something like that).
So, the quandary: do I go on disability, lose my identity as a teacher, and become something else? I've certainly known lots of people who cobble together lives out of this and that, and don't have a career per se, but just do enough to get by.
Part of me likes the thought of that: just doing what we need to do to get by. We don't need to be extravagant; we don't need a housekeeper. I can probably cut wood with a friend and by helping him, get wood for free. If I am home and can keep a fire going in the stove all day, we don't really use much propane or electricity at all for heat. The summer will be interesting because I hate being too hot and sticky. But I can adjust. And hell, I may be in a bad way come summertime -- which means I will like the heat and not want to be cold.
So, lots to think about. Being not poor, but at the same time, being forced to think about consumption a little more than we have in a few years. Reduce our carbon footprint. Live a little more simply. Not buy so many toys. I have lots of toys.
I can also try to pick up a class. I can talk to the disability insurance people about how much I am allowed to earn without losing my benefits. I really don't think I can go back and do my old job well, but that's not to say that I can't do something. The real thing I don't want to do is grade papers.
My doc said that when poeple get this diagnosis, they can often have a choice about whether they want to spend their remaining time doing things they want, or things that they don't want to do.
There's something compassionate about how the SS administration treats people who are going on disability and have a terminal diagnosis: it is almost as though they have decided that they should not force people to continue to do work that they may not like or may not and so they give you a few years of doing what it is that you want -- or not doing what you do not want.
For me, I love to teach. I love to talk about brains and how they work, I love to challenge kids to think about what makes people do what they do and not let the students rely on intuition or "common sense" (which is, it must be said, not all that common). I love to teach about how science works and why we use it as a guide to what works and what doesn't work.
But man, if I could do all of the above and never grade another paper, I would be happy -- as my dad would say -- as a pig in shit. Grading is pure drugery. Working with students to make their writing better, or make their research better, is awesome, and I would love to keep doing that -- unforch, that usually comes along with grading papers. Ack.
I could probably modify my classes so that I don't spend so much time grading and instead conference with students, talk to them about how to make their work better, and let them do the hard work of editing and revising.
I have done a lot of that in the last few years: I leave them alone to work either singly or in small groups, then meet with them and give them verbal feedback about how they're doing and what they've done. They seem to be learning. And I love it when they learn.
That's something that really turns my crank: watching kids get it. There's nothing like seeing a kid in a classroom light up because all of a sudden they understand something they've not gotten, but have been trying to get. And POW, when they get it, it's like the whole world changed. I love that.
The sad part is that in my regular classes, as soon as they get one thing, I give them something new, and it's like the POW but from the other direction.
But by the end of my class, I have a group of the most methodologically sophisticated undergraduates there are. I'm proud of that.
But we need to have something for students who don't want to go to grad school. Right now we do grad-school-prep. We do it exceedingly well. But not all students want to do grad school.
So how do we acommodate both, the grad-school-bound, and those who just happen to like psych? I have considered two tracks, but (without in any way taking anything from our students), I know that almost all would opt for the easier track, and then expect to get into a grad program (because that's what you have to do if you want to use psych, esp as a therapist or counselor -- which pretty much they all do.
(I thought I did, too, but they decided that talking to depressed people only made me depressed, also... So I became an experimental psychologist and started doing research on brains that are not distressed.)
Okay, I'm going to stop this now because I had to take a pain pill earlier and have no idea if this is making any sense at all. (I have had some pretty bad headaches lately, and that worries me.... Damn cancer. Bastard.)
So, more anon!
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