opm medical retirement disability package

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirements: Focus away from ‘self’

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement Attorney1 Comment

The heightened problems emanating from a chronic medical condition cannot be quantified; as the medical issues themselves become exacerbated while attempting to work and engage in other “major life activities”, the pain, psychiatric debilitation and interruption of things once taken for granted, become all the more magnified and exponentially exaggerated in significance, relevance and focus of daily contention. Or, to put it in more common parlance, it makes us grouchier as the day goes. Federal Disability Retirement […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The narrative we write

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Each of us carries a narrative within; the David Copperfield segment of our otherwise unrevealed lives. It is who we are; the past that enlivens or diminishes; the memories of yesteryear or just a fortnight ago; and it resides continually until that day of atonement or the diminishment though dementia of fated unkindness. What we say; how it is written; how it is related through the handed-down oral traditions of storytelling and bemused tales of a Dickensian happy endings (excepting Little Nell and other debatable few unnamed); and how it is told, in what manner, with what punctuations and unctuous phraseology applied; these matter, especially when others are listening. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Exchanging pleasantries

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Some possess the greater patience for it, and enthusiastically embrace the inherent gamesmanship and accompanying pleasures derived therefrom; while others merely forego even the most basic of such prefatory considerations and condescending patronization that commonly attaches. Still others mechanically, thoughtlessly and with automated responsiveness, emit the utterances with aplomb and a wave of hands, never pausing to even consider the discourteousness of violating that fragile sheen of neighborly discourse. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The party never thrown

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It is the emptiness and void of what could have been, or even should have been; of regrets untold and remorse unuttered. Whether for a special celebration marking a person’s birthday or an event of magnified relevance; or a turning point in a person’s life – of a 10th anniversary, exceeding expectations of mortality, in waiting, or perhaps a common achievement by others in everyday living but for handicaps and disabilities that make it challenging to meet; whatever the event, the party never thrown for it magnifies a negation of recognition, and like a pinprick into the heart and soul of a person’s life, it deflates the very essence of joy. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The locked certainty

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It must be nice to walk around this world of insecurity with an intractable sense of locked certainty.  There are those some few who possess such a perspective:  everything is without any shades of grey; “rightness” is defined by one’s power, position and capacity to impose, […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Gov. Employment: That sigh of regret

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It is released without consciousness of foresight, or random expectation of hope to come. Often, merely an involuntary deviation from a carefully-guarded appearance, that sigh of regret escapes with a haunting echo of mirthless exhaustion. Is there a time when past regrets catch up to present dismay, obfuscated by the loss of any future hope to reinvigorate? What is regret but a deed left undone, a trepidation leading to inaction when flight of carefree abandonment embraced us for a moment, […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Trepidation

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In this universe where pause reflects cautionary exposure, the Darwinian model of survival of the fittest prevails. Ours is a society that lacks any patience; the youthful generation deems their “place” as a rightful commodity to assert without bashfulness; the old are shoved aside into old folks’ homes and nursing facilities, all the while as we give lip-service to the importance of love, family and care for one another. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Benefitting from doubt

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What does it mean to “give” one the “benefit of doubt”? Is it something that is granted automatically, or must one “earn it” through labor, circumstances or sheer luck? What are the elements that lead to it, and why are some people accorded such grace while others are treated with impunity of disregard?

Take the following hypothetical: You are at a party with friends and acquaintances; you sit with a number of people, and among them are a very close friend and confidante, as well as a mixture of those whom you somewhat dislike and otherwise consider an “undesirable” of sorts. Well, let’s be honest – you despise especially this one person, and hope daily that that individual will die a horrible death […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The end of Act I, Scene I

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement Attorney1 Comment

Whether it is in some obscure off-Broadway play, or in a Shakespearean tragedy presented with lavish costumes and elaborate affectations, the end in Act I, Scene I sets the stage for the narrative following. Yes, yes – one can argue that there are “other” scenes, acts, pivotal moments and significant slices which also formulate the argument for such commanding cohesion in a story; but that misses the point – for, if everything is relevant, then nothing is important; and if nothing is important, then it negates the pointing out of relevance itself. The great Chekhov is the one who pointed out that, if you are going to introduce […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Understanding

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The Master asks one of his two dogs, “Where is ___?” If the second pet wags her tail, looks quizzically at the owner, then proceeds to go to the far end of the next room and locates the wandering misfit and barks to you that she has found him – do we disbelieve? If the same question were to be asked of one’s child in reference to a sibling, and the identical result occurs where the first child goes into another room or runs up into the attic and locates the lost soul, would there be any doubt? […] Read More …