In the Queue of my life, no 44 – (Part 3 of 7)

…article continues…

 

Invest in my health

The health bureaucracy system has grown into a monster that seemingly no one is able to really control. The health care costs money, we all know that. But now I have cost the society more money in welfare benefits than a surgery on both ears costs, and I still have to wait another year. I lack words in an attempt to describe how pointless and Kafkaesque I think this whole situation is, he says resigned,

He observed the budget cuts at Rikshospitalet last spring with disbelief. Cutbacks on bed-days and OR time has direct effect on the capacity for CI-operations.
– My point in this mess is about the dividend between what we as a nation invest in health and what is being used for welfare benefits. In my case the state bleeds money totally unnecessary. To illustrate the pointlessness of it: this money could have been spent on further increase in CI-surgical capacity, improving after-surgery-support capacity or more cancer treatments at the hospital! It is a vicious circle: the more you save on health, the more money leaks into the welfare and the less BNP we are able to produce. My opinion about this is that it is an example of irresponsible management of the taxpayers money, Ulf says.

Ulf challenges the authorities to think of everybody who waits in health-queues as valuable customers to the hospitals and for the society.
– If our hospitals don’t have capacity to operate, it is about time we allow immediate treatment in other countries. The capacity is there. Economically we save money, no matter what.

In the Queue of my life, no 44 – (Part 2 of 7)

article continues…

Psychological burden

Ulf is a part time dad for an 8 year old boy.
– It is demanding for me as near deaf to be single dad for an active toddler which is very communicative. For me it developed in an unhealthy direction where I problematized the whole situation and got psychological problems. I “buried” myself in problems and developed insomnia-issues.
– Sleeping disorders are often closely related to one’s general well being, he says. He his grateful for the existence of “Center for hearing and psychological health” at Gaustad in Oslo. This center saved me, he says.

Has a dream

The big dream is to get CI on both ears.
– Next step is that I hope to be able to realize a career and get up someplace where I can make a difference.

I feel I have so much inside me and that I have a good grasp of the world around me. I believe I could make an impact someplace. In order to accomplish such a dream, I am totally dependant of the tool an advanced CI-implant represents, he says.
– In regards to my relationship to my 8 year old son, it is a dream that I have more surplus in order to stimulate him further in the direction of knowledge and activities. I simply hope I can become a better father, he says.

He fears that the dream of simultaneous bilateral CI remains just that; a dream. Today there is only children that automatically has a right to get bilateral CI. For economic reasons most adults only receive unilateral CI and the burden of proof is on him, in order to prove that he will benefit better from two rather than one CI. This provokes the 36-year old.
– If you develop bad eyesight on both eyes, would you be happy to have to document that you need glasses on both eyes? – It’s just plain outrageous, Ulf states.

In the Queue of my life, no 44 – (1 of 7)

Hard of hearing Ulf N. has been in line for eligibility-examination for CI (Cochlea Implant) for 18 months. That is very expensive for the state.

The IT-expert burdens the welfare services approximately 30.000 euros per year. In the 18 months he has waited the welfare costs are the equivalent of a simultaneous CI surgery on both ears. Today he is defined as deaf.
– With CI it is a well documented chance of me getting back the ability to understand speech and to be able to get back to a regular job, Ulf says. The waiting is long. It doesn’t only sap the welfare funds of money, but it also takes it toll on him as a human.

Total cost may become 100.000 euros in welfare benefits

Ulf has been waiting since January 2007. When Din Hørsel visit him in his apartment, the calendar shows 26. of august 2008. He still has a long wait ahead of him. He visited Rikshospitalet the day before and got word that he is now number 44 waiting for that all-important operation. He has received a guarantee for treatment which expires January 2010.

– If I get the surgery just as the guarantee deadline is up, I have received welfare benefits equivalent of 4 single-ear CI operations! Add into the calculation the lost tax-income for an IT-expert in productivity, costs for psychologist and other health-services, you don’t need to be a social economist to understand that it is horribly expensive for the Norwegian state  to have people with highly-sought-for skills beneficiaries of welfare.
– as a society it is an economical catastrophe! We are saving ourselves into the poorhouse, so to speak! [my comment: this statement references to the budget cuts in hospitals throughout Norway] It is utter madness that medically disabled are not treated quickly in order to get us back into work. – On a human level it is a constant state of emergency, he states.

Has something to offer in work-life

In 2006 Ulf had to cease practice in his professional life. He was then working for Telenor, the worlds fifth largest telecom-company. He had been there almost two years in a Telenor in-house program for disabled persons – Telenor Open Mind. – I worked as a trainee in the top management of the Norwegian Business division. To me it was fantastic and gave me a much needed confirmation that I have skills to offer in the work-life, Ulf tells us. After a long period of adjustments with fewer meetings and eventually days with home office, he suffered the exhaustion syndrome. He had to take the consequences of it and stop working.
– It wasn’t anything wrong with me mentally, it was my declining hearing that made me exhausted, he says.

 

…to be continued ….

Aftenposten Aften published my article 27.6.08

In Fridays issue ( dated 27.6.08 ) the article I delivered some 3 – 4 weeks back finally got published in the evening issue called Aftenposten Aften! I will post links to the article as soon as it gets published on Aftenposten’s web site.

They publish it on Aftenposten Debate-section on the net with a delay. I will publish it myself maybe even scan the paper-version of it and post it here. Aftenposten is Norway’s largest newspaper. I’m asking a few hard questions in it, and I am hoping for some real answers, but I’m not holding my breath for them exactly…
(I’m away from home, so don’t have the article available, will of course translate to English for you all asap)

Translated letter about my struggle to get CI before I die of age

This posting, originally a Norwegian e-mail, has been edited and shortened in order to adjust it to the blog and remove persons names and roles:

I was at Rikshospitalet in order to “nag one more time” today. Have moved up 10 spots since April, and is now in the 49th place. With the pace of operations since April, It will be my turn sometime autumn 2009…

I’m now in my second year in waiting for my examination for CI-surgery. (have had good opportunities for permanent employment in Telenor just prior to the worsening of my health condition)

The otolaryngology-department (ØNH) tells me that Rikshospitalet recently have established their own coordinator for the “Faster back to work”-fund. (new readers can read this general document about the Norwegian effort for a more inclusive work life)

The ØNH-department are as per today NOT “connected” to this fund.

A few weeks back I made my physician to resend the application according to instructions found on this page:  http://www.nav.no/805343159.cms (the link is named ” Fastlegebrev 15-03-07 (pdf)”.

ØNH received this new application , but tells me in clear text that it won’t do much good as long as it hasn’t been sent to the “Faster back to work” coordinator. I ask if they can send the previous application to said person for me. Answer is: sure, but it won’t do much good. Better if you send a new one from you physician. (???)

ØNH also adds a question mark as to wether there exist enough medical expertise capacity enough to do any operation outside the ordinary queue under the “Faster back to work”-fund (it’s not supposed to suppress the ordinary health-queue) (it is a silent referral to the recent budget cutbacks in here…). They understandably decline to answer my questions plainly. It isn’t their job to say anything about these things anyway….

My physician re-sent the application to given address/person yesterday (this is the 5th application we’ve made in order to get me examined for the CI-operations).

I hope we can work together constructively in order to find a quicker solution for me and a lasting solution for others who most certainly will follow me.

It is a hopeless situation to spend these years in a health-queue. And it’s a waste of welfare money, to say the least! These money could have been invested in my health instead, they would have given a much greater dividend to Norway Inc!

Use my blog for what it’s worth! A lot of information is there going some time back… I also hope to announce news about response from the Norwegian Treasury Department soon. I have received word that it has been worked on a response to my letter to them.

R.I.P Sten Harris

Sten Harris died yesterday, after a long time of illness. Sten worked at Rikshospitalet for many years, operating most of the CI-operations up until now. He was a true CI-pioneer in Norway.

His illness and following death is probably one of the reasons that Rikshospitalet has problems with the capacity of performing CI-operations these days. Add that to the budgetary cuts made recently, and it is not difficult to understand that it will be hard to find a replacement.

Sten Harris last act as the leading medical surgeon at the Otolaryngology-departement at Rikshospitalet was to object to the severe budget cut by resigning from his position in protest.

He also appears in the news-video where I also appeared (video is posted permanently on the top left side of this blog).

He has also through the years been an advocate for bilateral-CI and other operations that helped many people to a better life. He participated in debates to the last (art.), and was involved in crucial research over the years, thus driving the development and understanding of CI and related subjects forward: “Researchers Ona Boe Wie and Sten Harris from the University of Oslo presented findings on the effect of bilateral cochlear implantation on spoken language skills in children from five months to 18 months old.”.

I did not get to meet him, but from what I’m told, he was a fantastic person. And I googled him and found numerous examples of his dedication to the cause of hearing/deafness.

Sten Harris, you will be remembered by many, many people. This is my post-mortem salute to you.

May you Rest In Peace

My letter to the Norwegian Treasury Department

The text has been translated and changed some, compared to the original letter in Norwegian.

My status and reason for writing this letter:

I have been hard of hearing all my life, and at the same time I have been working like everybody else at 100% in the IT-industry for as long as I could. Never learned sign-language. I am now deaf and I am not able to work. I wait for a bilateral CI-operation.

My general health is very much influenced by tinnitus and hyperacusis. It means I can’t stand certain sounds or loud sound. This phenomenon is examined closer in the article ”Recruitment”.

There are significant mental health aspects to my condition too, and that also affects everybody close to me.

It has been a several year long process to acknowledge the fact that I am now deaf. In this process I have made many experiences with “including work life” (aka link to NAV about IA (norwegian), follow this link for more information in English.), NAV and the healthcare system. Some positive, of course…

Where I am today

Despite a strong inner will, and a desire to be part of the working life I am hindered by the fact that I have to wait for the CI-operations that can give back my ability to function in everyday life again. I have IT-skills that are extremely sought for in the IT-industry today. I would be hired “on-the-spot” by one of the largest telecom-companies in the world; Telenor, to work with projects in the top management group for the Norwegian Business Division. It is a frustrating place to be right now, waiting for those CI’s.

My main point:

We have a serious socioeconomic flaw in our bureaucratic systems in Norway in 2008. Work disabled individuals like me, do not get adequate medical treatment that ensures our society continued productivity from same individual. I use myself as an example:

Minister of Health in Norway guarantees CI-operations for 2008

This is a translated, abridged and reworked version of a Norwegian article found on HLF’s website.

Guarantees CI-operations and screening of infants.

Norwegian Minister of Health, Sylvia Brustad gurantees that screening of hearing on infants and CI-operations will be carried out, regardless of the cutbacks at Rikshopitalet.

In response to MP Berit Brørby (Labour Party) the Minister of Health guarantees that the operations and screening will be carried out according to the assignments the government has given Rikshospitalet. The fate of the Otolaryngology-department at Rikshospitalet has been uncertain for some time now, and the hospital was ready to implement huge and devastating cuts to the said department in February this year. Now, however, the Norwegian Department for Health and Care and Health South-East (Rikshospitalets superior administrative body) agrees in their demands to the Rikshospitalet.

Priority on Hearing-operations

“I can ensure the representative Berit Brørby that the demands set in the assigments for Rikshopitalet stands from my side. There are also no changes in the function Rikshopitalet has in this area nationwide in regards to operating and following up on children. Health South-East has now also reassured the government that the given assignments will be prioritized independent from the demands for meeting the budget for 2008.”

“The Health department has also repeated a precision to Health South-East that the goal for 100 CI-operations for adults is per definition for new patients”, writes the Minister of Health in her response to representative Brørby.

The Minister has since the summer of 2006 said that the total number of nationwide CI-operations on new adult patients shall be escalated up to the medically and statistically founded annual estimate of 200.

The waiting time for CI-operations for adults is now between three to four years.

The Minister also wrote about the all-important screening process of infants in order to start early with children with suspected hearing damage. (not directly related to the CI-issue, but nevertheless good news for the development of creating a good medical service to all things related to hearing).

My comment:

In short this means that despite the hard times for Rikshospitalet budget-wise, the CI-operations are now guaranteed. The hospital will have to find other ways to save money than to bleed the Otolaryngology-department to near-death… Good news indeed 🙂

Captioned video of me on national news 27.02.2008

Having trouble embedding Overstream into wordpress…

Pls follow this link:

http://www.overstream.net/swf/player/oplx?oid=toliustbimmh&noplay=1

CI nagging round 3

After new rounds with both Rikshospitalet and Haukeland I have reached a decision. Rikshospitalet asked if I was willing to be operated at Haukeland within 6 – 12 months. For several reasons, I declined to that very tempting offer. Given my situation, I need a solution quick, but Haukeland could not meet my first priority demand. And that is to get the Advanced Bionics Implant (see link in my Blogroll on the right side of this Blog). Apparently Haukeland only offers the Austrian “MedEl” or the Australian “Cochlear”, while Rikshospitalet also has recently started offering Advanced Bionics to their patients.

To me the prospect of (among many other advantages and future possibilities) being able to listen to music with 120 frequency bands as opposed to the “regular” 22 frequency bands the number one reason. Other reasons to decline the offer on going to Haukeland and get the thing done ASAP is the fact that all follow-up afterwards has to happen in Bergen where Haukeland is situated. Being the proud father of  a 7 year old boy, that will present some practical problems during that period of up to one year.

I got in touch with the right people at Rikshospitalet, finally, and I even spoke to them face to face in their office, so now I know who to contact, where to visit them and the communications has been established and a lot of uncertainty has been eliminated.

Now I know a lot more about the future years. I am currently at abouth the 100th person on the list to be operated, and Rikshospitalet operates about 2 patients a week. I will have to be patient (pun intended 🙂  ).

At the time I managed to establish communications witht the right people at Rikshopitalet; I also had found out about a government-funded foundation that has been established to finance people (like myself) who could be working, but needs healthcare-services today rather than later. The Foundation is called “Raskere i jobb” (“Faster back to work”) and hasn’t been fully implementet as of yet. It’s a current ongoing process of setting up rules for the foundation as well as getting the funds released to the various hospitals. I don’t think the money can be used in a foreign country, but maybe??? I will have to investigate more and get back to that.

I asked Rikshospitalet that they considered my name in regards to those extraordinary funds, and that I also be considered for a simultanous bilateral (on both ears at the same time) CI-operation. I will write more about the 1 versus 2 CI-implants at a later time and why I’m willing to do it. They have answered and told me they will get back to me.

I expect to have to fight for getting bilateral CI-implants as the consensus today is to operate only one implant at the time. Bilateral CI-implants has only been given as part of research to understant the difference between unilateral and bilateral CI-implants. I have yet to se any real scientific works about that subject, but as a hearing-aid user, I frequently had to turn off one of mye hearing aids, making me an temporarily unilateral hearing aid user being deaf on the other ear. I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE and I will advocate that difference even through my lawyer at HLF Norway if need be! (she is a lawyer for all hard-of-hearing and near-deaf in Norway)

Pre CI-op. seminar

I spent 3 days last week attending a course about CI and how to deal with the long waiting.

First of all I must say it was a good seminar. Especially since I met a woman who has already been through the ordeals of having the CI-operation on both ears. She also works as a physical therapist specialising in psychometric movements, and knows a lot about the stress the body endures when being deaf or near-deaf. It was great talking to her and getting to know her. Inger Anita Herheim (formerly known as Fjose) is her name, and I guess there are a lot of people in Norway who owes her bigtime. Being a tremendous asset to the CI- and hearing-case in Norway, that’s no wonder.

Inger Anita had a task at the seminar, and that was to teach us techniques for handling stress and tension related to our condition. I have encountered Inger Anita once before, at another seminar at the University of Oslo, where she did the same thing. I had a revelation. As I’m prone to get headaches and suffer from severe fatigue, I’m one of her targets 🙂

I need a few things to start on the exercises she taught us, and as soon as that falls into place, I’ll be happy to report more in detail here later.

Moving on….  The seminar dealt mostly with the thoughts that the participants had. We shared experiences and stories in group sessions. Important information came to light:

• Even the most dedicated and engaged spouse or relative could not possibly, REALLY relate to how the condition of near-deafness actually affected the person with impaired hearing. The consensus was that only through group sessions with other relatives, and in dialogue with specialist (such as physical therapists, audiologist, psychologists etc) who could explain various aspects of the condition, more insight could be reached. More information to relatives from both the near-deaf themselves and from various fields of expertise is strongly needed.
• In the light of the previous point; the same applies for work-places, governing bodies of our societies and in media.
• All participants shared the experience that information about CI, about various official and medical services that could help and so-forth, was scarce. The rule is that one has to find out everything for oneself.
• Participants also agreed that in many cases the life-situation of the near-deaf could be so difficult that help would be needed from a third party to get into programs and to get general help. People who should have information and give suggestions (like primary physicians (your medical doctor) and bureaucrats in the well-fare system) more often than not, FAIL to do their job in this aspect.
• Near-deaf people need to REPORT their needs even if it’s not there in the first place, in order to make the needs visible to politicians.

I might add more later if I remember more….

CI-nagging round 2 (actually it’s more like round 5 or 6)

OK, the health care bureaucracy in Norway is fucked up in many ways. I have to live with that, and I have to deal with it.

SO, the premier hospital in Norway, Rikshospitalet, did not reply for my 5 or 6 first e-mails. Now finally I got a name and an e-mail-address that I can “hammer”. Maybe I will get some more info soon. Nevertheless Rikshospitalet have many who needs CI-operations on their waiting list. This results in a long waiting time, up to 3 years. This is a seriously long time for me at the moment. The perspective is unbearable. I don’t even want to start thinking about what I have to fight in order to get the second CI-operation.

Then I talked to a lawyer at HLF who works with these issues in order to put pressure on the funding  governments. She informed me that another hospital in Norway have a waiting time of “only” one year. This is Haukeland in Bergen.

So, I’m thinking, well, I have more than enough time, so why not give it a try, see what comes out of it.

The procedure then is that I have to go back to my personal physician, ask for a new requisition to a specialist at a hospital where I live (AHUS), and then get yet another requisition at AHUS to the CI-operation itself at Haukeland Hospital. Then I have to wait for Haukeland to reply to me and so forth.

Sidenote: All this Kafka-like bureaucratic back and forth drives me nuts! All that wasted manpower, resources and time! Jeez! Rikshospitalet has a HUGE file with my name on since I’ve been a patient there since childhood. They KNOW how bad my hearing is, they KNOW the pretext of my condition. Yet the system needs all this paperwork, these other specialist to say that, yes, your condition qualifies for a CI-operation etc. etc. This is one aspect of what is wrong with the Norwegian health care system. It is way too bureaucratic and complex. It has become a “bureaucracy-for-bureaucracy’s-sake-institution”.

AHUS (Akershus Universitets Sykehus) managed to loose my first requisition to the specialist in order to get the first requisition to Rikshospitalet. After my nagging they “found it at the bottom of the pile of requisition applications”.

AHUS then managed to loose my second requisition to the specialist in order to get a new requisition to Haukeland. I had to get my personal physician to re-send it. (and they always use a messenger who deliver it personally to the staff at the right department at AHUS!!!)

(why do they need to do another examination of me to give me an exact replica of the first requisition only to another hospital???)

Haukeland hospital has answered every one of my e-mails and in that aspect they appeal to me. But for me ultimately the technology and the medical skills is the most important. I don’t want my hearing to be fucked with by a newbie. It’s too important to me to be blatant about who does it and what CI-device I end up with….

I have fears that me playing on two horses; namely Rikshospitalet and Haukeland might give me troubles later on. In Norway we have a right to choose hospital, but I don’t know if they are collaborating the waiting list at the two hospitals….. And what would happen if….. and so on… I can go mad going down that road…..

A long posting… sorry about that, but this one was long overdue, I had a lot of catching up to do concerning this aspect of my life…..

I’ll stop now 🙂

Summertimeout

A timeout for myself. My girlfriend has started her new job at a beautiful place next to the longest fiord in the world; Sognefjorden. The mountains surrounding us on all sides makes this a very special place…

My plan for this timeout is to simply chill. To take a trip within myself. I plan to take some long walks, go on bicycle-trips, see some of the Tour the France, develop some artistic skills in writing and drawing, and of course to help my girl get started at this new place and spend some quiet calm time with her… We need that now…

As for my condition; I still get quickly tired. Today I haven’t used my hearing-aids at all. I just sit here listen to my tinnitus come and go (I have noticed that the tinnitus disappears when I engange my brain into creative activities). The refrigerator here is making a little noise, it wears me out quickly and I don’t even notice it before it’s too late….

Lately I’ve been thinking that maybe I developed some kind of hyper-sensitivity to sounds as well? Is it possible? I mean, I’m loosing my hearing, how can I be hypersensitive for sounds? I read in a newspaper about a guy who had been over-worked, and he told the readers about how he couldn’t stand the sound of newspaper rattling or crumbling. That sort of things…. It makes sense: input overload gives hypersensitivity… It’s a natural reaction to excess input….

I try to listen to music every now and then. To my disappointment, I cannot endure for long. One year ago, I could listen to music for hours. Now I usually have to turn it off after 90 minutes….  And I have started turning the soundlevel down as low as I can. I can’t hear the music as well as with louder sound, but that way I can listen a little longer. Still it’s very limited. It’s just sad. I love music. I always did. Energetic music, moody music, love music, medtitation music and so on. The quieter and slower music doesn’t give me anything anymore. I loose too much of the whole soundpicture for it to be enjoyable. That leaves me with the energetic music with a lot of rythm. The rythm is good. My brain remember many of the songs and certain sounds I cannot hear, I can remember….

Jeez, tired already… I’ll write more in the next few days….. I have more news, but that’ll have to wait 🙂

Tiny update

I’m doing good now. The tinnitus is not troubling me. I have been able to “think” it away. It seems like every time I think: “ah, nice that the tinnitus isn’t bothering me…” it reappears….  That’s something to think about…  It’s all in my head!

Sleep has never been better. Even when changing time I go to bed, falling asleep seems easy these days, and I sleep generally more than I have in many years… Hope this is a sign of healing of some sort…

As for my hearing…. It’s worse than ever, of course….  My awareness is hightened, and I notice more and more arenas where I can tell my hearing is significantly weaker compared to earlier experiences….  I guess it’s both good and bad. Good to be aware, bad that hearing is fading noticeably….  Makes me feel stress about the whole CI-process with the hospital… Still no response to my 3 requests for a response…. Right now ANY response would be appreciated….

So….  My plan for the summer is to take things easy, be with my great girlfriend, my son and my family.

Hope you all will have a great summer… (it’s raining and raining here in Norway, but it doesn’t bothers me, I kinda like it…)

Interest Organization for Hard-of-Hearing in Norway (HLF)

HLF (Hørselshemmedes Landsforbund www.hlf.no) works in many ways. One field they work with is by influencing politicians and legislators or more commonly known as lobbying. One aspect of this political work, is to help the various systems understand and see where the problems are.

They publish a magazine. Work with the membership records to keep the organizational data up-to-date. Organize meetings for volunteering hearing-aids users that want to help other people who are just starting to use hearing aids. (“likemannsarbeid” – “common fellow work”)

HLF also runs a school (Briskeby) and holds several seminars and courses for people with hearing disabilities. They also aim at being Norways center for knowledge about – and to have high competence about – hearing-disabilities.

Tinnitus and Mèniére are also in the HLF’s sphere of interests.

In short: everyone who isn’t part of the deaf community, has a home at HLF.

Link: www.hlf.no

Hard-to-make-conclusion

It has taken me a long time, and a lot of thinking to come to this conclusion: I can no longer work.

The consequence of working for me is that I keep draining myself for the strenght I really need to take care of myself and my beloved son (aged 7). This is the situation right now.

I don’t like it. I’m scared. But I have to face it. I need to gather strenght for the future process of rehabilitating after the CI-operation, and I need to preserve my strenght as I endure the process of slowly loosing what’s left of my hearing.

Today I took the step. I asked my physician to help me apply for a rehabilitation-program in the  NAV-system (Norwegian Wellfare System). This will take me out of the work-training-programme and into a more long-term programme aimed to get me back to work after the CI-operation.

Hopefully my new strategy will pay off in the long term. Gods know that I have really tried hard, and at the best of my abilities to get into/stay in a job-situation.

I’m too tired to write more today…..

A little upset…. (my political manifest?)

My liaison in NAV made a remark in an e-mail today which upset me….

To take first things first:
1. Most things I do that involves verbal communication (which is pretty much everything) takes great effort, and when I get tired I need a lot of time to recuperate.
2. I have been able to make my liaison at NAV SYA (he has a hearing disability himself and seems able to symphatize in my position) understand that I need to start with one day work per week.
3. I have also been able to make my new “employer” HLF understand the same thing.
So far, so good…

This is the remark made by my NAV liaison: About one day per week is too little, and it is difficult to defend such small working percentage “to the system”. He should work 2-3 days per week. Otherwise it will be too expensive…

What the? Too expensive???? Oh, so you rather want me to lie down and do absolutely NO work? Will that be cheaper for society? THINK AGAIN!

Damned system. What does the system know about my physical and psychic condition?

My ramblings aside, I need to express what I deem is the core of the problem/solution in my case:

The politicians in Norway has stated that they are concerned about too many people live on wellfare even though they could do a little work! More people should work a little they say. Well, here I am!

In response to the Minister of labour and social inclusion in Norway; Bjarne Haakon Hansen’s often repeated statements about his concerns about people who could work a little (but who doesn’t):

and in support to Minister of Health and Care Services in Norway; Sylvia Brustad’s recognition that CI-operations are an important and an socio-economically feasible procedure that will save the Norwegian tax-payers a lot of money by getting people like me fast back to working condition.

CI-OPERATIONS is an INVESTMENT in HUMAN CAPITAL! The longer the wait for CI, the bigger the long term cost for society!
The wait for CI-operation cost money in itself. Also; the longer the wait, the longer the rehabilitation period equals even bigger costs.
Some cases take so long time that people give up, they enter a state of hopelessness they never recover from, even if they one day finally receive a CI-operation…

My political manifest:

Norway needs my skills and my work capacity! I have 10 years of IT-experience, and a lot of IT-certificates to show for. Norway SCREAMS for more IT-skilled workers today! My working capability WILL improve. Just give me time and space to adjust and find my foothold and balance in life, will you???

AND GIVE ME MY CI-OPERATION TODAY! That way I can exercise my communications skills without feeling like I commit a slow suicide. That way I can heal, recuperate and get back to normal worklife a lot faster!

Instead of being a liability to my society, I can (and want to) become an asset! But I need help, and I need it faster!!!!!! Not tomorrow! TODAY!

I want to work!
I want to be useful!
I want to remain in the workforce and use my brain.
I want to stay in there and fight for my life!
I want to contribute to the best of my abilities!

I DO NOT want to destroy my remaining health in the process!
I DO NOT want my son to have a father who is too tired to nurture him properly!
(I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to neglect my son! You hear me???) 
I DO NOT want a life where I merely struggle to survive from day to day.
I DO NOT want to be subject to suspicions that I am lazy or exploiting the wellfare system. (I am part of the solution and I’m dedicated to it, are YOU?)

I was hoping to get a good nights sleep, but the de-humanizing system that results in remarks and directions like the one I described at the beginning of this posting made that a long shot… It aggravates the hell out of me, and this posting is the only way I know of to get it off my chest and into the worlds public consciousness…. Where it belongs….

And then maybe I can find sleep and rest, in order to be able to function yet another day…

Brief News

The process with NAV SYA has resulted in an agreement with HLF (Hørselshemmedes Landsforening – Organization for hard of hearing in Norway). I will begin working there shortly.

This is happy news, and I feel that given my condition, I will be able to stand in that jobb, since they better understand what I’m going through…