Practical Stuff

Getting organised

June 2023

Finances

As I was now in the hands of the Christie MDT team, I had to wait until they met. This was a difficult time as I wanted to know ASAP, but they have a lot of people to discuss and it takes time. So to take my mind off things, I started going through our finances to make sure they were in some sort of order.

In some respects we were lucky. We had no outstanding mortgage on the house. We also had no other big commitments apart from my car (despite Sky’s efforts to sign me up for increasingly expensive TV packages). We had enough savings to keep us going while we organised ourselves longer term.

I spoke to our solicitor about wills and I signed an updated version of mine.

I also had various pensions from previous employers over a long time, but I decided to leave them as they were for the time being.

Benefits

Apologies for this being UK-specific, but if any of my overseas subscribers have anything they would like to add that may be useful, please add it as a comment.

So as I’d stopped working and as a contractor (as I now was), I had no sick pay, etc. So it was time to see what the dreaded Dept for Work and Pensions (DWP) could do for me.

Thanks to the Tenovus nurses at Ysbyty Gwynedd, I had already started an application for Personal Independence Payment . So I got a letter inviting me to an online meeting with a DWP nurse, who would asses my eligibility. As at this point I hadn’t had any treatment, and the only obvious thing wrong with me was breathlessness and general fatigue, so I didn’t hold out much hope. Anyway, the nurse had me waving my arms about, standing up and sitting down, and answering any questions she had to help with my claim.

It was no great surprise that 2 weeks later I got the “computer says no” letter. From speaking to others who’ve gone through the same process, this is the default DWP response to most claimants. The letter said if my situation changed, or I could supply supporting documentation to appeal the decision, I was welcome to do that.

So having done what I could, it was time to go back to waiting for the phone to ring like a love-sick teenager.