Thank you

I'm not a regular here on the forum, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who had a hand in putting together the claim guides.

I received the letter telling me it was time to migrate from DLA to PIP in May of this year - I've been waiting with something akin to dread for a very long time, given the horror stories I've read and the people I know who would appear to be more severely disabled than me (and with diagnosed conditions to boot). Anyway, after filling in the forms, having read the guide and taken as much of the advice on board as my poor brain could absorb, I waited for the assessment which surprised me by being a home visit and then I sat back and waited. Expecting not to hear anything till the end of next month at the earliest.

To get a phone call a couple of weeks after the assessment from Caerphilly to tell me that on the strength of the decision I would get an extra amount on my ESA each week was surprise enough. But, I have had such phone calls before that tell me one thing, but the letter tells me something different, so I wasn't convinced someone hadn't made a mistake.

However, last week I finally got the letter from PIP (actually 2 days after I got the letters from the jobcentre about the change to my ESA and the council about the changes in my housing benefit and council tax rebate) to tell me that I have been award the enhanced rate of mobility and daily living and that the award is 'ongoing'. The thing that will really change so much for me though is that after 20 years of being told that brain aneurysms don't cause symptoms and that my disabilities have nothing to do with aneurysm or the brain haemorrhage I had 20 years ago, the letter clearly states that my difficulties are entirely consistent with my medical history.

Thank you for your help - without the guides I would probably not have got half the award I have, and I may well never have received the information that tells me that I'm not imagining this, and my problems are not only very real, but have a known cause. This means no more trying to get a doctor; any doctor to tell me why I still have so many problems after being told none of them were related to the bleed in my brain.

So now, not only can I relax for a while, I won't waste anyone else's time, energy or resources trying to get the answers I should have been given 20 years ago - and probably would have been if too many doctors hadn't let their prejudices get in the way of their diagnostic abilities. Oh, and I can get that automatic car which will probably enable me to drive for more than 20 minutes without pain.

Thank you

Thanks - when you consider I was probably picked up for migration because my Work Coach misunderstood something I said during a telephone interview and assumed I could 'spin' for 20 - 30 minutes, as you can imagine my relief is immense.

A classic lesson in never assume you and they are talking about the same thing - 'cos what they hear can be entirely different to what you said dependent on their own experience or knowledge in life.