Ch-ch-ch-changes

At the 2CV meeting on Monday evening I was talking to another member who had been working with a couple of friends with cancer, helping them to apply for various benefits, including Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and she nagged me unmercifully about talking to the Citizens' Advice Bureau... and when I spoke to the Macmillan Nurse on Tuesday she also gave me their advice booklets and a card for the Macmillan Benefits advisor who is based at our local CAB. Duly nagged into submission, I called the DLA "helpline" - this turned out to be more like the "DLA discouragement line". The lady who answered asked if I was calling to request a claim pack - when I said "yes" she then spent the rest of the conversation telling me that I probably didn't qualify at all, which I didn't think was too constructive. I didn't expect her to make me promises, but a blanket "it doesn't matter if you have cancer, you probably don't qualify" at every turn was a bit depressing. Having gone through the criteria it's likely that I don't - I can only see how I can score 12 points rather than the 15 I need, but I did feel that every question was designed to trip me up and allow her to say "no form for you, hah" and then hang up. Anyway in the end she gave in and said she would send the form which would be with me in about 10-14 days - good thing I am not starving then!
I then rang the CAB and made an appointment to see the Macmillan benefits advisor, that will be on Thursday 14th - so I probably won't even have the forms by then. Hey ho.

In the meantime, I did a bit more research and discovered that as I am undergoing chemotherapy I am pretty much automatically assumed to be unfit for work - there are some treatments that are recognised as such, chemo, radiotherapy, dialysis and the like - these means that I should actually be on Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) rather than Jobseekers Allowance (JSA). The benefit is much the same but on ESA I don't have to sign on every fortnight and don't have to prove that I have applied for three jobs every week, which will take off some pressure.
Accordingly I made an appointment to see the GP for this morning - then discovered that I was supposed to be signing on at that time, so it was easier to get my signing-on appointment changed than mess with the rare and precious commodity which is a GP appointment! I went to see the good doctor this morning and he tutted about the fact that I haven't been to see him before, and then signed me off for the next two months. That will take me beyond the surgery and I will see how things are after that, he will sign me off again to cover the radiotherapy period if I ask him to.

I then went to the Jobcentre and signed on, and then signed off JSA after explaining that I had been signed off by the doctor. Then I rushed home to phone the ESA helpline and make a new claim - spoke to a nice lady who eventually came to the end of the somewhat stern script about understanding that false claims could lead to prison and not cooperating could lead to no benefit... at that point she became human, chatted and wished me well in the treatment. it must be hard to sit at a phone reading such a script repeatedly, it was amazing how this lady managed to make it seem a necessary formality when the lady at the DLA "helpline" made it seem like a series of impossible hurdles to overcome.

Changing from one benefit to another won't make me any better off, but it will remove a huge amount of stress that I can live without, performing the job hunt which is largely a pointless exercise, as any employer who offers me a job is likely to run a mile when they discover that I will need time off for surgery and won't be able to be out of reach of Brighton during the radiotherapy period. That might constitute discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act but nevertheless it is still a factor. I will still keep looking, and I will apply for anything that looks like a good fit, but if I have a couple of bad days and don't apply for the relevant quota of jobs I won't have to panic.