I still have a copy of my DLA forms from 2011, when MS shot it’s first devastating blast into my life.
I still remember the soul-destroying process of detailing every single thing I couldn’t then do.
I was 37.
I still have the new PIP forms in front of me.
I just can’t do it.
Yet here we go again, despite a ‘lifetime award’ from the DLA. I have to go through the whole soul-destroying process again.
What can you not do?
Six years on, let me see.
First off, MS is still incurable and degenerative. So it’s unlikely to have been cured in the interim.
Yup, I still have MS!
Can I cook? Can I go to the toilet on my own? Do I have accidents?
Intrusive, invasive and completely unnecessary.
I have been fortunate enough to have had Alemtuzumab treatment three times, once more than the usual, given the severity of my MS.
Does this make me really ill? Or really not ill? I didn’t choose to go through an invasive chemotherapy-involved treatment to see how it goes. It was a serious decision. And has it’s fair share of side effects.
So I have nerve pain? Numbness? I trip up when I walk? I have brain-fog?
Serious enough for the DWP?
Probably not.
DWP forms are designed to turn your known world on its head – so you think you have mastered your illness? Hah! Have you incorporated it into your work-life? Oh, really?
PIP forms will depress you. What can you do?
What can you not do?