Surviving Disability: Here’s What You Need to Know
Disability has no prejudice and no favorites. It can come to us all. No one is immune. Your lifestyle is not protection against the unpredictable. Your financial status or creditworthiness does not protect against physical infirmity. Your social status is no talisman against calamity.
That is the first thing you need to know about disability. It is an equal opportunity destroyer of lives. No one is safe. And there is nothing you can do to protect yourself or the ones you love short of dropping everything and living your life in a bubble. Even that is not a guarantor of safety.
The second thing you need to know is that disability is something of a misnomer. No one alive is fully disabled. Most disabilities are serious nuisances. But they do not make it impossible to live one’s life at a very high-functioning level.
The proof of this is the fact that many people with disabilities live lives that are more complete, financially sound, and socially fulling than others who have no disability. If you find yourself on the receiving end of a disability, your life is far from over. Here are a few other things you need to know:
The Financial Reality of Disabilities
One of the best arguments for having a healthy emergency fund is to be covered at a time when you are not healthy. But even the best emergency fund can only ever be a short-term solution to a longer-problem. The first of the long-term solutions to apply for is Social Security Disability, otherwise known as SSD.
You should be prepared for the fact that you are probably going to need a lawyer for that. Applying is pretty straightforward. But so is denial. It is common to be denied a disability claim the first time around. That is why there are so many attorneys that specialize in helping people win disability claims.
Picking the right attorney for you could be challenging. Start with reviews. One example is Myler Disability reviews. Word of mouth has always been one of the best means of learning about a service provider. Online review sites are just the latest form of word of mouth.
The important thing to know is that the loss of wages from a disability is not the end of the world. You can still work. But while making the adjustment, disability income will see you through the toughest part of the learning curve.
Vocational Rehab
There are few things more frightening and disheartening than losing your sight. There is nothing quite like finding yourself in perpetual darkness. At that point, everything changes. The good news is that you are not the first. And this is a solved problem.
We know how to work with blindness. And there are professionals standing by to help you get through it. You can learn to navigate the world. You can still do everything in the home that you could before. And best of all, you can still work, quite possibly at your same job.
It takes training and readily available equipment. Vocational rehab agencies will even buy the equipment for you most of the time. So after a disability, the first call you should make is to rehab. In most cases, regaining your life starts there.
Life Goes On
It is not the news you want to hear immediately following an accident that leaves you disabled in some way. But the best news of all is that life goes on. And this, too, will pass. You are not alone. Getting in touch with vocational rehab will quickly establish that. And there is one in your area.
Knowing that you are not alone will help you do what others in your situation have done: live. You still have kids to raise, school to attend, a career to manage, vacations to enjoy, and taxes to file. You can and must continue to do all of those things. You just might have to do some of them differently. Thanks to technological advances, disability is less disabling than ever.
It can happen to anyone. SSA provides the financial resources that can get you over the hump. Vocational rehab is there to get you back in the saddle, whatever your saddle happens to be. And life most certainly goes on. These are the things you need to know if you find yourself other enabled.
How are you dealing with your disability? Share your thoughts and comments below.
Cheers!