California Disability Help

Kmeems

I have TNBC, had 2 lumpectomies and a sentinel node taken last week. I see the oncologist tomorrow for my plan and hopefully get my disability papers that have been at her office for a week, filled out.

Can I get disability only when I need it? For example I see the oncologist tomorrow. If she says that we don't start chemo for 4 weeks, we'll then, I can work for four weeks. I just don't want to mess up the disability. How do they know when you are working and don't need to pay out? I see something about being out for 8 days.

Say I start chemo and feel sick for 4 days and then want to return to work for a week and then be out sick again for 4 days, how does that work? Do I need to be out for 8 consecutive days to have disability kick in?

Any advice is appreciated. I feel weird just sitting here waiting.

Moderators

Dear Kmeems,

Welcome to the BCO community. We are sorry about your breast cancer but glad that you reached out to our members. Here is a link to information on our main site about Employment related issues and Cancer Treatment. You may want to post this concern in the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Forum as more people might see it there. Have you determined that you will be unable to work during treatment? Have you had that discussion with your oncologist? Is there a social worker who can sit down with you at the hospital or practice to review your options? Let us know how we can be of help. The Mods

Magari

Kmeems - Does your oncologist have a social worker who helps with SDI paperwork? Mine does, and she has been extremely helpful in answering these sorts of questions.

Once you set up an SDI online account, you can submit your reduced hours forms via the website. It is easier to submit a claim to be off work full-time than for intermittent leave with reduced hours, but it is doable.

Happy to help if I can.

Kmeems

I have only determined that I could not work during the diagnosing and testing phase because there were so many appointments and phone calls and I just could not concentrate on work. Then I had the lumpectomy. Now, the only thing that would be an issue would be my response to chemo.

I had an initial consult with the oncologist several weeks back, then I had surgery and now I have an appointment tomorrow to go over pathology and plan again. I left her the disability docs a week ago and they aren’t done yet.

I took a chemo class at the oncologist office and they do have a case manager so I will reach out to that person as well. Thank you for that suggestion.

There was a lot of confusion with the online disability. I think it is because when you say disability, it seems to assume permanent and then there are all sorts of qualifiers that I don’t meet. I am not sure if filling out all the stuff online is doing what I need. I guess I scan the dr form into the online site