Bye

I was under the, obviously mistaken, impression that when one is ill and dying, one would be lying in bed, resting. Apparently the Bulgarian healtcare system has different ideas on this subject. More along the lines that one should be running around the city like a headless chicken. But let's start from the beginning.

As I've mentioned before, my employer, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, has seen fit to cut the budget for my salary because I've reached retirment age. I am not being fired, I am not being focefully retired - there is just no money to pay my salary and I should do with this whatever I want. However, by law, if I am still working, somebody has to pay me a salary. And since the budget for that is zero, they will have to take the money from somebody else, like my boss. Since I don't want someone else to suffer for my problems, I have to come up with solutions.

The easiest solution is to actually retire - and I've applied for that in December 2025. But since I've worked abroad for 15 years in two different countries, the retirement agency has to contact them and get a confirmation that I have indeed worked there. Given that they have spent 3 months just to send the query, I don't really expect to live long enough to see my first pension payment.

The next solution is to go on a medial leave. Then the employer pays the first 2 days of my salary, after which the retirement insurance pays 70% of it. The trick here is that the money doesn't come from my employer, who has no budget for it any more. That's fine in theory. The devil is in the details.

My doctor can give me 5 days of medical leave - something I exhausted in January. After that, I go to a special medical commission, which can give me up to 180 days of medical leave - but only 30 days at a time, so every month I have to go there and ask again. I am not sure which genius has decided that if I'm too ill to go to work, I am perfectly fit to go every month to the other end of the city for this. In any case, those 180 days ended at the beginning of this month.

The next step is to go to a disability commission. It can give me up to another 180 days of medical leave, 60 days at a time. That commission has 2 different offices, at two opposite ends of the city. I have to visit both. At the first one, I apply for this shit and wait for them to call me. When they call me, I have to go to the other office and bring a heap of documents, proving my health condition. Since this commission serves every disabled person in the city and the nearby province, the waiting time at each office is hours - and the waiting time between applying at the fist office and being called to the second office can take up to 2 months.

Anyway, I got the phone call and was told to be at the second office at 08:30 in the morning. Since it's at the other end of the city from where I live, it takes about an hour to get there by two bus rides (I don't have a car). Which means that I have to wake up at 07:00 in the morning. Normally, I need an alarm clock to wake up at 09:00, so you can imagine how I feel when my day has barely started.

The instructions of where exactly this office is were somewhat vague but I finally managed to find it after asking around. There was a room there, labeled "Meeting room", which us mere mortals were not allowed to enter. Occasionally, a doctor would come out, call the next one in line, take their heap of documents, and disappear back into the room for a considerable amount of time. Thankfully, there is a place where to sit.

In particular, the documents I was told to bring included a characteristic from my employer (does that mean that I'm not allowed a medical leave if I'm a bad boy?), the epicrisis from my last hospitalization (which was when they took the biopsy), the decision of the oncological commission, the results from my last PET scan, the epicrisis from my radiotherapy - and I've probably forgotten some.

Finally, after two hours of waiting, my turn comes. The doctor takes my folder with the documents and disappears. After some considerable time, he comes back. Oh, joy, all the needed documents are there and nothing is missing. Now I just have to provide a stamped envelope, because he has to send them somewhere. WTF, nobody told me that in advance. Well, that would be 2 euros. Oh, well, whatever.

In exchange, he gives me a document, implying that they are granting me 60 days of medical leave. I have to bring this document back to the medical commission, which will actually grant me the medical leave (and give me the relevant document that I have to bring to my employer). Except that the medical commission grants only 30 days of medical leave at a time, so I have to go there twice. And I have to do this just a few days apart, because the first month is nearly over.

The doctor also cheefully informs me that after the 60 days are over, I have to do this procedure all over again (visit the first office, wait for a phone call, visit the second office), the only exception being that I have to bring only any new medical documents that have been issued since the last time - like the results of my next PET scan, which will probably be in August.

Whatever. So, I head to the medical commission, which is at the third end of the city and I need 3 bus rides to get there. The lady there cheerfully informs me that before they can issue me any medical leave, they need a special form from my personal physician, so I should visit him first and then come back. Oh, yes, and the commission is on vacation this week, so I won't get the final document until the next week. Oh, yes, and since the first month is nearly over (they will backdate the medical leave, fortunately), I have to repeat this procedure again in a few days.

I politely inquire how a person who is too sick to go to work is supposed to have the energy to run around the city like this. "Well, you could ask somebody else to do it for you; they just need to bring your ID and the documents," says the lady there. Uh, like who? My 93-year old mother who needs me to hold her with both hands just to walk outside? The lady shrugs. I would shrug too, but I have no enrgey left for it...

Whatever. I take the 2 bus rides back to my personal physician. But since I don't have an appointment (I didn't expect that I'd need to visit him today), I have to wait until his appointment schedule clears. Hours later, he sees me, writes the form needed by the medical commission, and some prescription for a medicine that my mother has run out of.

I visit the pharmacy for the medicine. It is my intention to go back to the medical commission but I discover that I have completely run out of energy, so I decide to postpone it for a couple of days (tomorrow I have to go to the hospital for the pills, so I can't do it then). The commission is on vacation anyway, so there's no rush.

I barely drag myself home, eat some lunch, plop myself on the bed and go to sleep. I slept till the evening, eat some supper, wrote this article, and am going to go to sleep again. Hopefully, I'll have enough energy to go to the hospital for the pills tomorrow.

I'll update this page if there are any important changes and I am still able to do so.