Dear Cols:

Happy 4th of July. Hope you are having a great holiday. Sorry for being out of touch for so long. I have been waiting to be able to convey good news and it looks like that wait was a mistake.

Bad news first.

I have come to the decision that I cannot continue to fight the insurance company. In looking through old notes from 2012, I find notes from my lawyer after she spoke with the insurer. They told her my claim would be refused on submission, would loose on appeal, and would likely also loose if it went forward to a tribunal. When she told me this in 2012 it didn’t register, or I didn’t pay full attention, and I went ahead and completed the submission. This submission was very difficult to write but I am glad that I wrote it as it was the first step in regenerating some skills.

So the first negative issue is the insurer stating that it would refuse the claim. It made this statement to my lawyer before any medical evidence was submitted.

The second issue is testing. This  is expensive and it is not covered by health insurance. A set of tests costs $2,000. I did an on-line version a while back and scored 5. The “normal” range is between 7 and 100 for a person of my age. Recently, I went back and did the same test again and scored 13. This is statistically “normal” for someone of my age.

If I spend money on testing, the insurance company can simply turn around and say, sorry, you are just old, live with it. This completely disregards the fact I was performing to a much higher level prior to the accident. I have found some of my performance appraisals from HP.  I typically scored 100% on evaluations and was one of the top performers in the work group. Having an excellent memory was key to this performance.

My present plan is to try and obtain some job, any job. I am not sure what I can do but I am quite willing to wash dishes, or clean offices, at whatever the minimum wage rate might be. I do not know the availability of such work but I have begun sending out applications so wish me luck.

I want to apologize to you as well. I am very, very, grateful for the money you sent. It was extremely helpful at that time and I was not expecting it at all. One of the reasons for getting a settlement from the insurer was to obtain the funds to pay you back that loan. I do not know how I will do this on minimum wage as I owe lots of money for property taxes and whatnot. The condo, which was almost paid off, is now being used as a source of funds but that cannot go on forever.

Is there any good news?

Yes.

My Doctor suggested that I maintain a blog. Between that, and writing submissions to the insurance company, I appear to have improved my writing skills to a level better than they were before the accident. I still have problems with time, with forgetting, and have a very difficult time learning. Before the accident I could do something once and then “know” it forever after. I have been trying to brush up my tech skills using on-line learning resources and nothing “takes.” This is very frustrating.

So in some respects I am better than I was. In others I am still far from my capabilities at the time of the accident. We’ll see how it goes.

Sorry to have been so out of touch. Time gallops by and then I realize that things I think happened last week did not occur last week, they took place months ago.

Thing of you often.

Lots of love,

Dad