This is the first entry of a long story of what happened.
I was working at a major bank in the IT department (I won't mention them as I was treated badly and nicely). The department I worked in was highly technical and a blessing, as you learned quite a bit. It was a high-pressure workplace and a poorly managed department. Here is an example of what I was subjected to. I was building an operating system, and I needed some information from a different department to create defaults for that online system and include them in the building process. I went to the team leader and asked who I should ask in another department. He gave me the person's name, so I asked him what they wanted as defaults for online systems. The person was evasive about my request. So, I asked him to email me the options he wanted and send me an email.
I had a lot of work to finish, so I returned to my desk and was busy doing my job. About an hour goes by, and the person I had asked for the information comes storming over to my desk and screaming at me. I said I had every right to request the information. I was creating a new release of the operating system and setting up the defaults since his online system will run on it. I needed the nondefaults that he was working with. He started screaming at me even more that I was messing in his sandbox. I calmly said, please lower your voice so we can get through this, and he went off on me again. I didn't pay any attention to him, making him madder. His voice was so loud people stood up to see what was happening. We had walls between the groups about 4 feet high, so his voice reached half the floor. My boss finally showed up and asked the person to leave.
This was just one of the examples that led to my disability. One other person in the group had a stroke, so I was surprised when I had a stroke. A month later. When I left the hospital, I had the usual appointments. But none of them addressed the post-stroke issues I had. I was getting mad because my short-term memory was almost zero. I couldn't remember a sequence of 4 words the doctors asked. I was having difficulties remembering doctors' appointments. I managed to make all of them, but some were by the skin of the teeth. I could drive without issue, so I thought I could do my old job.
I called my boss and asked when I could come back to work. I went back, and every day was more demanding than the day before. My memory was just not up to snuff. I was screwing things up big time. My supervisor was getting mad at me because of my screw-ups. Another item that contributed to my screw-ups was my vision. The stroke gave me double vision; I could not read anything and remember it, which was a major no-no for my job. I distinctly thought that they would fire me. I talked with a long-time friend about the situation, and she told me to see an attorney specializing in cases like mine. I made an appointment with her, and she suggested I see a psychologist and get a test to determine if I could justify my request. At first, I had issues with the insurance company paying for it. I talked with one of the specialists, and she approved the proposal as it was based on the stroke I had. The psychologist was one of the best medical people I had talked with since the stroke. He gave me a complete psych write-up, which indicated I was no longer fit to work.
The long-term disability company tried the usual crap on me, but it shut them up once I mailed a copy of the psych test. One nice thing the company did for me was keep up my medical coverage and accumulate the benefit of years of working. This came in handy when I reached 65 so I could retire and still get credit for the years I was on disability,
Sigh... then I hit 6, and they stopped my medical coverage, saying OK, you have to go on MEDICARE. Once that happened, a few doctors dropped me as they would not see Medicare-covered people. Also, I noticed that (one example) when I had to give a blood sample, I was informed I would get a new be. They tend not to be able to insert needles to give blood without much pain, and the number of attempts jumped from 1 or 2 to 6 or more.
Luckily, through all this, I kept the same doctor (Primary), and he always gave me first-class medical advice and help. He might have dropped me if I had any other doctor.
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