Last Updated on November 8, 2022
Illness creates the need for time and forces time to stand still for treatment, recuperation, attending, and resting. Time is the commodity we no longer have in modernity, where the busy-ness of life’s travails just to survive forces everyone to walk about in a daze of exhaustion and thoughtless fatigue for fear of failure in this driven society.
The chasm between illness and time is that blur of life that happens so quickly that any notion of enjoying, of pausing, of that proverbial “stopping to smell the roses” is quickly dispensed with, thrown out the window along with the baby and the bathwater. There is no chasm, no space, no time between time, and that chasm between illness and time develops only because we are forced to create it – by waiting for the doctor, waiting for the diagnosis, waiting upon the prognosis, waiting for the treatment to take effect, waiting for the drug or medication to kick in; waiting, and allowing for the development between illness and time.
Time, according to Augustine, is the anticipation between memories held and events thought to occur based upon present circumstances beheld. Physicists and Astronomers would differ, and would instead refer to moving objects and spatial divides that account for past memories, future movements and the sense of eternity in between.
For Federal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates considering filing for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the chasm between illness and time is better marked by anticipating what the Agency or the Postal Service will do (rather predictable, given their negative track record on how they treat employees in general), determining the future of staying put in a job where one is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position; and, based upon the medical condition itself, to weigh that against the lengthy administrative process of getting a Federal Disability Retirement approved at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
There is a chasm between illness and time, but the best time spent is in preparing for the future, and perhaps consulting with an attorney who specializes in practicing Federal Disability Retirement law. Just a thought to pass the time away.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire