Side-effect of days of trains and buses and awful squishy hotel beds is that my back and left leg are worst they've been in ages. Ironically, I woke up to a letter (sent almost 2 weeks ago, 2nd class) from the DWP telling me I was rejected from my Personal Independence Payment claim - like so very many people - thanks to ATOS Healthcare's botched "assessment" of me really not reflecting reality. The report enclosed proudly claimed that as I could walk 200m unaided, I did not warrant support - anyone who's ever met me for more than 30s knows that this is utter nonsense. I somehow scored very highly on the "Care" component but almost nothing in "Mobility" when the bulk of my disability is a mobility impairment. I've been in the system since August 2013 for this - it's now 8 months later and I've been told "reconsideration" will take another 2 months and if I'm still rejected, appealing could take it over the 12 month mark - but I'm going to keep pushing because I want to be considered properly from a proper report backed up by medical evidence - none of my supporting referees (my physiotherapist, my GP, my rheumatologist, my pain consultant, my neurophysiologist, my GI specialist, my cardiologist, my maxillo-facial surgeon...and so on) were contacted - not one (I've phoned them all and checked) - the whole decision was made based on non-medical judgements done by someone who seemed extremely ill-informed regarding my condition and who wasn't writing down half of what I was telling them. Even things I said "you must put this down, it's important" before saying were not included in the final report. Good thing I have an audio recording of the whole thing really... I was very open on Twitter minutes after the "assessment" in January that it was a farce, rushed, shallow and generally nonsensical and that it ignored the bulk of my mobility issues so that kind of correlates with the report they made to the DWP. Apparently I did show poor balance in a "balance assessment" - my balance wasn't assessed at any stage - I wasn't made to do more than stand up from a chair and hold my arms in front of me whilst seated, which the average 5 year old will tell you does not show balance.
In other news, I've decided that Pizza Hut and Dominos are now having a "The Aristocrats"-style war as to who can come up with the dirtiest pizza in the UK - we've had cheese-in-crust, mini-hotdogs in crust, giant hotdog through whole crust, mini-burgers in crust and now mini-bacon-topped-cheeseburgers in crust! I rarely have take-out pizza but as I got home so late last night with the trains being a mess still and had no bloody food in the house, I went with a pizza that I made last two days to make the price justifiable - £20 for one meal is just insane, otherwise. Was it nice? Vegetable supreme pizza with mini cheeseburgers - yes, filthy. It was just that - carbs, fat, MSG, little flavour. I needed it.
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