An update from my Cardiologist

I received the notes from the Cardiologist from my 8/8/08 visit.  Here is what he said:
"This patient is disabled and been unable to perform any work in the past three years.  He suffers from chest pains, peripheral numbness, severe insomnia.  He has visual, hearing, and balance problems and he has difficulty concentrating.  Studies at Vanderbilt demonstrated hypovolemia.  He has severe limitations in his ability to sit, stand, walk, lift, bend over, and drive.  Evaluation in our office demonstrated resting supline heart rate was 104, standing for one minute 160 associated with marked breathlessness.  He is unable to complete any kind of work activity for even a short duration.  The patient will be monitored on a regular basis."

"The patient's review of symptoms is positive for blurry vision, shortness of breath, sinus problems, cold interolance, depression, numbness, lightheadedness, poor appetite, irregular bowel movements, indigestion, difficulty sleeping, excessive daytime fatigue."

"The patient is severely disabled from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome."

Here is the problem though.  This was dictated and computer-transcribed.  It didn't do too well.  For example, the sentence that says "He has severe limitations in his ability to sit, stand, walk, lift, bend over, and drive" in the actual text says "He had severe limitations in his ability to sit, stand, walk, lives, bent over, and dry." ROFL  I was concerned about the past-tense of the verb...especially in light of the fact that the stuff in the entire first paragraph that I quote above is under a heading of "History".  It concerned me how this is going to be interpreted by people looking for a reason to think I have no present problems.

A second problem is a line under "Social History" that says "Nonsmoker two children does not drink alcohol favored activity is working at computer online."  Even though it is only listed as a "favored activity", I am worried that the disability claims administrator viewing my appeal is going to latch on to the "working at computer" as something that I am fully capable of for a 40-hour week.

The final problem is that under physical exam, he lists all kinds of findings.  And while he noted that I "entered in a wheelchair and is in moderate distress", under the "Musculoskeletal" section he states "The patient walked without difficulty".  This is a huge concern.  I stood with help for the weigh-in and for BP tests (almost falling once and the nurse pushed me against the table), but I did no walking of any kind while I was there.  I didn't even bring in my cane.  I used the cane to get to the van from the apartment, but was in the wheelchair the whole time I was there.

After contacting his office about the problems with his dictated notes, he just added the following to my notes:
"The following addendum to the record of August 8, 2008.  The record should read that the patient has severe limitations in his ability to sit stand walk bend over and drive.  The patient cannot do any sustained activity including sitting at a computer.  The patient states he is unable to work in a sitting position for more than a very short time without exhaustion.  The patient is unable to walk because of the severe tachycardia hypotension and weakness associated with his disorder.  Previous note was incorrect that the patient could walk."

Now all I have to do is wait for Kaiser to send me a similar letter.  I'm expecting it in the next 48 hours.  It's basically going to say the same thing.  With that, I'll have notes from 5 different doctors documenting some or all of my limitations.  I'll be sending them off to both my senators asking for help with SSDI, sending them to the company helping with my SSDI appeal, taking them to the SSDI office personally and requesting an immediate review, and using these as the primary focus of my appeal for my disability insurance.

This is a tremendous mental and physical strain on me.  It is one of the reasons why my involvement here has slacked off a bit.  Please keep me in you prayers as I try to get all this stuff together and appeal the decision to cancel my disability insurance and medical insurance.
Daniel