Webester's 9th and other tales

I spend all day listening to people telling me how bad their life has become. I am able to forget most of them. Some of them I can't forget even if I choose to forget, but then there are the ones that are able to hit me with something that I never thought I would see or hear in my life. Some people just really don't know what they say. Here are just a few of those times.

I spend close to 8 hours per day in front of a key board. I get a lot of practice typing and have been able to sustain upwards of 120 words per minute. Typing is just one of those things I do. It is something I take for granted. I was taking a disability claim for an individual and as I was transcribing what he was saying into the computer, my fingers were flying over the keyboard. He stopped talking and I was thankful for the break as he was talking fast. He proceeded to ask me, "Are you typing?" I nodded yes as I looked at him. I finished typing and left my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I have had many people say something about my typing and so this was nothing new, but what he asked me next floored me. "Are you typing words?" He actually asked me this. I didn't miss a beat and answered "No, mostly sentences, and some paragraphs." What I really wanted to say was "No shit Sherlock."

I am not a doctor and never will be. I have no drive or desire to pursue this career path. While taking yet another disability claim, the individual in front of me was filing due to some mental problems. This is nothing exciting to write home about but as I was wrapping up the interview, this guy off handedly mentioned that he was taking a medication which treated diabetes. Now this opens up a whole can of worms. I basically had to start all over again with the interview because of this new disability he mentioned. What he said next was something that really floored me. I started to gather the information about his newly revealed condition when he said, "The last time I went to the hospital, the doctors were pretty excited about something else." He paused for a second and then went on, "The doctors said I have something called Ending disease." I had to think for a second and then I heard myself say "End Stage Renal Disease?" He got all excited and started nodding furiously. End Stage Renal Disease is where the kidneys of an individual completely shut down. He went on and asked me "Is that bad." I tried to be as casual as possible when I told him to go directly to the hospital and tell them that you have ESRD.

Darwin had a theory which can be applied to most of the people I talk to on a daily basis. The retirement claims I take are some of the easier claims I take. Most of the time the people are put together pretty well. Well mot of them. I had a nice lady whom was a little over the top but otherwise manageable. I was just using the terms of my job like adjudication, monthly earnings test and windfall elimination provision. She went so far as to compliment me on my use of vocabulary. At the end of the interview when I told her that she was retired, she let out an audible sigh and told me that she was extremely nervous about the entire interview. The she said, "I was so nervous, I bet you could see the perforation on my forehead." She laughed heartily and then said "I bet you didn't know I could use big words as well." I fired back, "No I didn't." Now go and get your 9th edition of Webster's and look up the word. I know what it means and if her head is perforated, then she has more problems then when to start taking her cash benefits.