Lost The Will

Im sure im endlessly repeating myself , going in circles , living some bizarre nightmare . 

We finally got some of the PIP money , not much but enough to pay the more urgent outstanding bills the ones we have a court date for  , we treated ourselves to a Chinese Takeaway and then sat and looked at each other . The award at the tribunal was for 3 years , but because it was a lose for them they may well want to reassess after 6 months a particularly vile practice that happens often . But it gives 6 months of half the minimum amount that the government says a couple need to survive without a disability 

Does it never end , we are still fighting the ESA battle. We have now been awaiting processing for so long that we must reapply from scratch . The year long old claim has been sent to a "decision maker"  So we have reapplied with the exact same information we sent them a year ago , if they insist on another medical we could be looking at 9 months waiting again .

My application for carers allowance has been rejected because Mr Bah Humbug isnt in receipt of any qualifying benefits ???? Oh yes he is , you cant phone them you must submit a mandatory reconsideration form , just filled that in ...........

So thats how things stand we have another week of heavy duty hospital appointments this week all over the place but at least we have the fuel money for a change , but we darent spend anything in case we never get the other outstanding matters sorted .

Ho hum , no wonder im going quietly mad 

PIP ESA DWP Make an Anagram?

Well what to say , we had the caseworker round yesterday she rang the DWP about the PIP decision and they said... what decision?  We had left it the required 9 working days and they did eventually find it . They pointed out that it would be be a while to examine it and make a decision waffled a bit more sucked there teeth and said it could take 8 weeks to process ..Ho hum
Then we rang the DWP about the year of  waiting for ESA to be sorted , this was a tad more interesting , we appeared to get someone a wee bit further up the food chain rather than the usual pondlife reading it off a screen .
  Oh you havent filled out form ????  it was sent on the 2nd January

 we havent had a form in fact weve had nothing since his medical back in November !! and the pink form that nobody had heard of back at the beginning of December !!

Ah ...well we have 14 weeks to process the claim

It was submitted back in January 2017!!

14 weeks to process the claim from his medical that is , we will send you a copy of the form we require

So under hardship rules , how do you explain leaving a disabled person with no income at all since June 2017 ?

Ermmm, we will backdate the payments till June 2017 ? Once we get the required forms back

AAARRRGGGGHHH

Then I went online to the government website to apply for Carers Allowance , a simple 11 page form that will doubtless generate another paper encyclopedia form , this takes around 12 weeks to process ...lol

You couldnt make it up

HEADLINE NEWS

Just had a phonecall from the DWP , they will pay his PIP money into his bank account , they are not appealing . Mr BHs first thought , can I have some more special shoes as I might be able to go out now ... Me , we can have a whole bag of oranges !!

Also more forms in the post for ESA that we have now filled in 4 times AARRGGHHH

Light Relief

So what does a bored carer do with her time ?   Thats right you wander down the endless bookmarked  list of stuff  that you thought you might find useful  in the Event  , ive always been a bit of a survivalist nutcase , I blame my Nuclear Granny , she was always off on a protest or ranting about the Russians coming ..lol ...Or it could have been my dad , hed done some seriously strange stuff during the war and was a scarily good forager and poacher who thought it might be useful for an eight year old to know what was edible and what wasnt . He also some what worryingly taught me about poison plants and how to wipe people out with mushrooms, plus how to stab to kill  ..Bless him he was a very strange bloke .
But saying that I can rustle up a salad and green veg all year round so long as nobody questions whats in it ..lol .  Make roadkill oven ready, etc etc..so ive decided to start teaching the munchkin once the weather improves and i can amputate his fingers from his tablet . As a child you see no use in any of the stuff your taught , but some of it sinks in and remains useful .

  http://www.eattheweeds.com/ 

 http://hungerandthirstforlife.blogspot.co.uk/ 

 http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/

Being as im not allowed to ebay due to the powers that be stating that i must do nothing to help myself and the current situation , merely sit here with my hand out going woe is me .
Ive figured out they cant stop the garden working for me , theres plenty of room for my strange growing hobbies alongside my usual veg patch and i have an endless interest in the uses of native and other plants , not so much in there medicinal uses but there uses for other things. daft stuff like nettle fibre for weaving etc etc .
This weeks interesting fact , all the ranting about them prescribing Metformin to those who "might get type 2 diabetes "  back in the 16th century older people used to drink Lilac tea daily , thats right Metformin is Lilac tea in a pill , im stating this as a generality ive no interest in making my own, but an interesting fact .
So from time to time you may get a light relief post , just a break from DWP wars , even more crafty strangeness once the swollen thumbs go down , a weird after effect from the snot and sore throat bug doing the rounds. I'm afraid being a full time carer isnt very mentally stimulating , much as I love my other half , theres only so much crap TV i can watch with him , plus being unable to go out until we sort something out with the DWP is soul destroying . I managed a jumble sale yesterday funded by my son and  I came back with 3 books and a nightie ..lol

PIP Ahoy

Well thats another step in this wretched journey over with , we attended court yesterday for our emergency PIP Tribunal , a performance getting Mr BH there and sorted , but we made it .
The DWP didnt even bother to show up , theyve made just 2 appearances in the time the tribunal has been sitting .
The panel were lovely , a retired GP , judge and a gentleman in an electric wheelchair , they were very kind to him and coached him through lots of questions about what had happened on the day of his assessment , they were very interested in why we were an emergency tribunal and asked our caseworker lots of questions regarding why we are receiving nothing in other benefits . She explained that after 12 months we are still in the assessment phase for ESA that is only supposed to be 12 weeks max and that they are still doing bog all with his case except ask for more forms and information whenever we question them . And that we are amassing rent arrears into their thousands because they will not process housing benefit until he is in receipt of benefits .
The judge seemed to be bemused that the main reason he failed his assessment  was ownership of a white van , this he said is a total irrelevance .  The doctor more concerned with the fact that his mix of medication in June was a little ill advised as he put it . the lovely disabled gentleman talked him through his day and the silly petty soul destroying problems he faces . The disabled gentleman explained that the descriptors have changed from his original award and that the crawl 20m rule with aids  meant that he two had lost the higher rate of mobility 
They then asked me if hed missed anything and i detailed the level of toileting problems he faces at which point he burst into tears .  They then sent us out and debated for ages , the result was he scored 11 for care and 10 for mobility , that gives him easily enough for both the lower rates and its not a huge amount but its enough for us to live on in our normal frugal way and its a start .  The caseworker is however going to regroup and see .
The bad news is that the DWP may decide to appeal the tribunal decision in which case it could be years till we receive anything , they have 12 weeks to object, nothing will be paid till then if at all.