However she ultimately arrives at her decision, the woman handling my SSDI reconsideration is at least pretending to give it more thought than the first guy. Not long after Crankenstein submitted her questionnaire about my symptoms and our life together, I received an email from my lawyer: “You’ve been scheduled for consultative exams. It’s important you attend these, I can use the records at the hearing stage. All you need to do is show up and answer every question honestly.”
Attached were PDFs showing the details of the appointments, which were ordered by the adjudicator, and consent forms for me to sign. This morning I returned them and noted the date and times in my planner. In late September I’ll meet first with an internist and then with whoever performs mental status exams; the form didn’t specify their credentials.* The length and thoroughness of these appointments is highly variable, and sometimes things even get contentious — usually because claimants feel stressed and judged.
Contrary to popular belief, these examiners have no financial stake in whether we’re approved; they don’t work directly for the government and are paid the same rate regardless of their findings. Their job is not to diagnose us, it’s to gather additional information about our limitations. If you say “I can’t lift boxes because I lost my arms,” they’ll take a gander and document that both of your arms are indeed missing, which prevents you from lifting boxes. Most Parkinson’s patients I know who’ve been through these exams were in and out within just a few minutes. The few who felt mistreated were in their forties.
As I previously wrote, I hate everything about the disability application process. At the same time, you almost have to laugh at its absurdity. If I meet a stranger in a rented room at a medical office — that’s what they do, they rent offices for the day, and if Google is correct I’ll be seen at a vasectomy clinic — and after 10 minutes in my presence they write “Oh please, this clown can still work,” how much weight will it carry? How much should it carry when I’m unlikely to be seen by a neurologist, much less a movement disorder specialist, and when the very nature of my illness and its medication means that I’m ‘on’ and ‘off’ throughout the day?
Certainly I understand the necessity of vetting claims. It’s also entirely possible that by the time all of this is over I’ll have penned countless angry screeds or manifestos about the system. But at this stage of the game, I’ll allow myself a chuckle at how it’s played out so far. As I joked to Crankenstein, “The government could listen to my doctor, a Parkinson’s subspecialist at one of the best movement disorder clinics in the country. Or they could send me for a 10-minute exam by Drs. Nick Riviera and Leo Spaceman in a shady subleased storage unit.” They went with the funnier option. On a purely comedic level, I can’t really fault them for that.
* Mental status exams often consist of little more than a few simple questions (“Who’s the president?”) and tasks (remembering a few words, counting backwards by seven, etc.). Without a nuanced approach it will be useless for evaluating someone with YOPD. We’re prone to concentration difficulties but that’s worlds away from thinking Warren G. Harding’s currently fondling Nan Britton in a White House closet.