tdiu How Does My Family Surive?

[SABruce1]

I am over all rated at 90% of which 60% for compression fracture of lumbar spine alone and numerous others to include chemical burns at 30%, depression at 30% and 5 minor things at 10% each.

Three years ago I was making 80k with a MA degree in HR and my SPHR certification and then my neck started to hurt one day at work. I ended up having to have a neck fusion. I was out of work for a long time so I was let go when the company was sold. I started out at the bottom in federal civil service as a GS-5 in a developmental position to GS-11 because I wanted the job security for my family. Last year 2006 one of the fusion plates came loose from my first fusion and they had to redo the surgery this time from the back of my neck and placed two rods and a lot of screws and small plates in my neck. It didn't help and I was still in pain. Last year I was away from work for medical reasons for more than 500 hours and because of leave donations from co-workers my family and I barely made it through the year. I had my third fusion in March of 2007 and went back to my surgeon today for my follow-up. The pain has shown no improvement and I am still on 10 mg of methadone every 8 hours and 60 mg of Prozac along with various other medications.

For some reason the VA said my L2 spine compression was not related to anything that could have happened in my cervical so I am appealing my neck to become service connected.

Long story short version is I can’t perform my computer data input on the medications and if I don’t work I and my family of 5 don’t get paid.

If I were to file for TDIU the VA says it would take about 6 months to a year and during that time I could not work. Since there is no workers comp or disability except for $1,000 per month from the federal civil service. How can it be done? If my appeal every gets won I may or may not get to 100% which is important to me mostly because I have three teenagers still living at home and they would then get college assistance because I was at 100% TDIU (or is that only at 100% scheduler?) Which they can get tuution help only if I am at 100% or I can die from a service connected reason.

...................bottom line how can we live with out working money for 6 months to a year?

[timetowinarace]

As far as the College assistance (Chapter 35 beniffits), the 100% can be schedular or IU. The catch is you have to be rated 100% Permanant and Total.

Everyones situation is a little different. My wife and I made it three years with my 20% rating. Only thing that saved us was we had no debt other than the house when I could no longer work. We immediatly turned off cell phones, sat TV, and all other non-essentials, borrowed on one of our two old vehicles, used credit cards we had and got more of them, sold everything we could. Only paid what we could (had to pay). Eventually we had to go bankrupt. a couple weeks before forecloser on our home the VA got it together (with some proding from my Senator).

We are still trying to recover but things are much better now.

Time

[Berta]

Veteran-if your children are close to college age- it is the time to consider all financial aid possible and your state might even have some education awards for children of disabled veterans.

You received some great advise here-we have all had hard times and it pays to be prepared.

I was widowed twice -both disabled veterans and had to even start my own business because I had only 6 hours a day before the school bus returned- to be able to work.

Necessity is truly the Mother of Invention.

And having a plan of action when times get tough.

I think something has helped me a lot-

I have no credit- I dont want it and I dont need it.

Credit costs a lot of money to have.

I want my interest to come from the bank-not charged to me as a debt by a bank.

The best thing anyone can do in my opinion is to either have no credit debt or to pay it all off ASAP and then invest the saved monthly payments into life insurance or investment funds.

Yesterday I went down to the local village and on our village billboard there was a foreclosure notice for a family I know well.

Their home is being auctioned off on the county court house steps in 3 weeks.

Their home has a $8,000 hot tub and a big pool,they have 2 motorcycles, 3 vehicles- new carpeting and they all have cell phones and computers-4 adults and three children.

The problem- not you at all veteran-

is that they are all in denial and had been able to remain in a state close to foreclosure for years while using credit to get things others wished they had

and apparently it is all catching up with them-

I know you are anxious about your situation but you impress me as someone who can see it through-DEFINITELY unlike these people I just mentioned-

and you WILL see it through---

And by all means try to get SSA benefits- that takes time too and depends on medical evidence but SSA can be a life saver.

ALLSUP, Inc has a web site and can assess your potential for SSA right on line.

If they accept your SSA claim, they charge a fee out of the proceeds but they claim a SSA success rate of 97 % !

They might even be faster than the normal SSA route.