CDL to Non CDL issues with pain

Do what you have to do. There's plenty of non-cdl driving jobs around.
Box trucks, sprinter vans, cargo vans, etc.

 

You can absolutely go ahead and take your Social Security Disability Insurance. Depending on your Lifetime earnings history with the highest quarter used to decide the actual benefit check. It will be a range of 600 to about 1950 max per month provided you are awarded that by SS or by SS via a Administrative Judge at a hearing. Based strictly on your lifetime earnings history.

At that point you can work part time as I do, earn a few hundred per month. Or as much as you like, with I think one or two dollars deducted versus one paid in wages or something like that. If you made enough wage for the month your benefit check will be zero for that month (Yay) but it will vary if you did not make little or any the next month.

IF you use this time to nail down the medical problems and fix it, you can either try a nine month once in a life time chance to settle into a new trade, career or job and evaluate it. At the end of that time you will either return to disability or you will come off the rolls and be back at work you can do.

At some point between 62 and 70 you must consider converting to Social Security retirement. If your disability is sufficiently reviewed (AND IT WILL BE VERY CAREFULLY.... several times a decade. You will NOT be permitted to ride the check on no evidence at all medically) you probably will take it all the way to 70 before collecting more than full retirement the rest of your life which would be at that time worth up to 2400 a month.

There is nothing in this situation that says you cannot work. I actually work as a crew boss with 20 people under me when I can. I have not worked for a while having surgeries and such. Which itself is turned over to SSA continuing reviews.

Most people are not told at 21 in trucking school that they will be 55 years old with a degraded body unable to keep on trucking. But for me that was my second lesson in Day one of my school. I made it to the mid 40's before blind at 2009. Surgery fixed that, and most certainly saved my life. As a deaf man to be blind is not worth living. Suicide was a option. The eyes are everything. It was a important year. I understand they are implanting dense sensors to give optical vision these days direct to the brain which is motivating, but I prefer not to deal with it.

I talked alot about disability. That is what SSdI is there for since the mid 60's so that when you work hard all your life and your body fails before retirement then it is absolutely a honorable valid situation until you can be retirement age.

Unfortunately many try to abuse the system causing SSA to take longer to process and find valid claims. You will be denied two or three times. Then go before a Judge to state your case (With medical evidence. Go big or stay home...) If approved, you will be provided your 12 to 15 months back pay (Which is why lawyers try to get you in their disability claim, they stand to make 45% of this one time payout as a fee) Mine was in the range of 15000 dollars when I was finally approved with SSI suspended due to making too much over my lifetime earnings. Theoratically SSI for deafness etc is hundreds of thousands of dollars to me, but is currently 0.00 and probably will remain so until 62.

I will not get into the cultural war between the deaf and hearing over SSI. There are other things that qualify people for it, a very small percentage. Children usually.

Anyway, there is that. Medicare kicks in at 2 years after winning SSdI you pay 125 for A and B hospital, 50 for drug D and a sliding scale for Part C. 20% of all charges belong to you. Annual deducable is a flat 1350. Once you hit that out of billing the remaining year is free to you. I hit it last year and about 60K has been paid already in surgery a few months ago and so on. Out of 92K in total medical billing that is being added to this year upwards of between 150 to 200K I am looking at a few thousand out of my pocket. Small stuff. The main thing is I am fixing physically and medically WHAT CAN BE FIXED. With a goal that I may return to trucking, which is really a good thing.

If I had to do that on my own with no insurance? I'll be dead by now. There is no point. Too expensive. The eyes along were 30,000 and I did one so far. The other will be 16000 give or take. My ex is losing her vision this year and will have surgery at about 40K to get her sight back. My job is to be her eyes until then when the time comes.

You have a life. But only one body. Enjoy your life and keep a good morale. Do not do pity parties or boo hoo. That's BS and a waste of time. Find something you like and get going. Yer late already. =)

 

I split my post into two parts. There is a 10K barrier to length.

Anyway. I held a CDL as a grandfathered in Arkansas most of my life, a few years ago I turned it in for a basic idiot proof car license because penalties for DUI (Medicines I take) would be less severe but not as bad or threatening against a actual CDL. If I am going to be charged with something really bad, do it on the car license. Never that CDL.

My state says I am still grandfathered but due to it being a year or more since I turned mine in, it will be a simple BC Paper for birth, 50 dollar fee and a road test combined with several writtens for the CDL to be reissued to me in a relatively quick time. And it will be under Tier two because currently I do not hold a DOT medical. Under Tier two (A signed affidavit) means you are not required to hold a DOT medical valid card and you will keep your A. So it's a option in the future. I can continue to be a crew boss, but the CDL will be more useful when much older trucks require my expertise and experience to drive. I will have to check with HR to see if I need one or not. If not I'll just go gather up my CDL crew and pick the oldest one to do the older trucks. It will be private property anyhow.

Even if I never did get the CDL back, it really does not change what I am in life. I am a solid American Long Haul Trucker and will be until the day I die. People say they are a secretary, or a manager or maybe a clerk or whatever jobs they do, but that changes with them in life. My view never changes. I was a trucker before I was old enough to do it was a trucker after I got old enough to do it and will continue to be one long after I am gone, scaring newbies trying to run by the Moon in West Virginia. =)