This is a translation for my non-dutch-speaking friends from the post Dat was een klap onder de schedel. Some of the little jokes and nuances are not translatable, I have tried however to be as secure as possible and used google translate (all that went wrong is their fault! :) ).
Well, here we go. The steam is sufficiently pressurized and ready to be blown off. This is my contribution to # stoom-afblazen (steam-blowing).
I have dared to get sick. I even risked becoming so ill that I can no longer make a measurable contribution to society. This is not how I imagined my future of course and in that respect my heart is already quite a bit in pain. I am not the only one who suffers from the loss of that contribution. Society is also bothered by it, because now I cost money.
The disease I have contracted is a difficult illness. The doctors and scientists have not yet reached a consensus on diagnosis and treatment. This has had as a result that getting a diagnosis and treatment took a long time. I have Lyme disease and Bartonella in my body and my brain. It is a disease so colored by controversy that I stopped explaining why and how it is that the diagnosis is really made. After all, someone who wants to believe that my illness is caused by stress and does not want to listen to the doctors, I can not convince either.
My # stoom-afblazen (blowing of steam) is about a small detail of the nightmare I ended up in. We have an institute in the Netherlands called the UWV (an institute that assesses whether you are eligible for a benefit and also has the task to pay it), which I have always thought is there to help if you contract a disease that make you unable to work. I imagined that the professionals who work there, look very carefully at what you can do and can not do. That was pretty naive of me.
The insurance doctor wobbled my leg and I was able to stand on my toes for a second and this made them decide I was able to work. At that moment I was less ill than now but there was already one letter from a doctor that I might never be able to work again and a letter from my physiotherapist. She wrote that although I was very tough and willing, I had a pain level of 8 and that I first had to get better before I could be building up and expanding activity (It was not written exactly in these words, they were difficult words and jargon).
I no longer received a benefit and the time of writing objections arose. Shoulders were shrugged and responsibility was dismissed. Our financial situation became more and more annoying because our savings account was running out and we were very frustrated. it slowly began to dawn on us that if we went ahead with objecting we would end up in court.
It was a difficult choice to take the case to court. The whole situation really caused a lot of stress and we both wanted to give up. The UWV is very good in threatening and undermining language. In the meantime they had been so condescending and mean that I felt more broken down than I had ever done at the art academy (and they are known for breaking down and building up). I felt like a low-life, a parasite and a unworthy criminal. But we got support from family and friends and one day I realized that not everyone has that luck.
So many people have this disease and not everyone has a loving family like me. I also realized that the serious degree to which I have the disease also gives a clear picture of what the disease can do if its not treated. It gave me a chance to be able to contribute to society in this way. Perhaps to make way for the people who come after me so that they have less trouble.
My lawyer was honest, he did not see how we could win this despite me being clearly ill. But I was stubborn on the idea of the social contribution. Maybe if there were enough people who kept on fighting, we could gradually grow understanding. Fortunately, he agreed to represent us. I used my last bit of savings to pay a contribution to him. It took a lot of time to ask for the paperwork from the doctors and in the meantime I was so ill that I could no longer shower myself. It was mainly my spouse who had a new full-time activity and arranged everything.
The lawsuit came and the judge was immediately clear. Three doctors had stated that I have this disease. A highly graduated physiotherapist and an occupational therapist had stated that my ability to work was too low to work without incurring additional damage on my body. Where did that doubt the UWV has about me come from? The lawyer of the UWV could not answer any questions from the judge. Questions that we also had asked, where now asked by the judge and that made me feel really heard by our court system. Our lawyer then said that we should not be mistaken. The judge could now have an opinion but he had to be able to substantiate that opinion with our laws.
After several weeks in which I was convinced that we would lose, we were informed that we had won the case. The judge had told us we were right! The UWV was no longer allowed to deny that I have this illness and all previous decisions were destroyed. The UWV indicated they would not appeal.
Now the part of the story is coming that makes me so angry. Are you ready to be exposed to the risk of becoming deeply disappointed in our system?
The UWV has hardly changed anything in the papers. It says now that I have this disease and in the FML (function-options-list) there is an extra check (which would have no consequences for my functioning at work).
The worst thing to me is that all decisions since the first objection have been made by the same insurance doctor. An institute of our government that works as an executive organ can thus deal with a court decision.
There are a lot of technicalities that I could use to explain everything, but those are details that do not change the story. At the same time, it doesn’t put the UWV in a better light. The infection in my brain causes problems with speaking. Words, idioms and proverbs go wrong.
'That was a blow under the skull', I said when I tried to explain how hard the UWV's remarks had hurt me. Of course, the idiom should be 'a punch under the belt' (a dutch idiom coming from boxing, it tells about an unnecessary mean punch). In my social circle these things are now called Sanneisms. Because they are often correct for the circumstances.