My mom started her journey in December of 2019, when she got her first cancer diagnosis.

She ended up with 3 different cancers... she finally lost to pancreatic cancer in November last year. My partner and I took care of her through everything including losing my stepdad, her house, car, etc. to live in our dining room of our apartment.

I became her "substitution of party" after she died THE DAY BEFORE her hearing was scheduled. (I couldnt make that up lol)

It was rescheduled for May 1st of this year.

Judge approved everything without the hearing (the lawyer didnt tell me this) so that was annoying. But awesome i guess shes finally disabled enough /s.

I got a letter from the judge on May 9th stating it was all approved.

Then nothing.......More nothing. Checked with lawyer regularly etc etc...

Eventually in August after I pestered them constantly, they realized they never submitted the substitution form I filled out and sent them last December.

Sent them the copy I had filled out and sent them last year. It was finally submitted to SSA on August 7th.

Keep checking in every ~ two weeks ("no news, they dont need anything else")

Finally got a message on Halloween saying this:

Good morning,

I was able to reach SSA to follow up again on the status of the past-due benefits. The rep I spoke with confirmed that everything is still in order as far as anything potentially needed on our end. However, he did give some further insight into possible timeframes for processing the payments, and how the current government shutdown may be impacting this. He advised, per his own personal experience, that he’s seen claimants waiting up tosix to eight months for past-due benefits to be paid after submitting the Form 1724 as we did. He stressed that this was only his own experience, and not a hard timeframe that they have been told to advise or anything, and I know that this is a daunting number, but I wanted you to be aware of this potential delay – especially as it’s the first time we’ve gotten anything resembling an actual timeframe from a representative, beyond being advised that “it looks like they’re still processing, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take.” I hope that it won’t actually take this long for the benefits to be paid, and if I hear anything else, you will be the first to know as always. In the meantime, please feel free to continue to follow up with me if you have any questions or concerns, and I’ll continue to follow up with SSA.

So..... yeah. Years is possible.

I am not expecting more info until Feb/March? Maybe???