Listings Of Disabilities

The American With Disabilities Act (ADA) & Reasonable Accomodations
By Carolyn Magura

JAN - the Job Accommodation Network is, without doubt, the absolute best resource and link for anyone who is disabled, who is facing becoming disabled, and who is still working! The purposes of this article are:

to describe what this Resource is;

to give you an example of what types of information it can provide for you;

to give you an example (from my own experience) of how you can trigger the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) to continue working as your company provides you with "reasonable accommodations";

and, to give you a link to this very valuable website.

OK, let's say that you have just been told by your Neurologist that the series of conditions that have been making you miserable for over the past 35 years really are the result of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). My first reaction was, OH DARN!!!

At this point in time, I was struggling to keep 2 kids in college, and was working in the best job that I had ever had! I was the Vice President of Human Resources for a Ship Repair Yard. My staff and I provided Human Resorces services to over 2,500 employees in 11 crafts (Unions) running a 24 (hour)/7 (days) week operations. (Note: you can see more about me by going to the "About Us" section of the www.disabilitykey.com website.)

My next reaction, since I am an ingrained "control freak", I decided to become an Expert Patient, even though I would not discover that phrase until over a decade later. If I was to become a Chronic Disease Self-Manager (again, I would not discover that phrase until over a dacade later) I needed to know all about Multiple Sclerosis, its symptoms, and, for whatever symptoms I had, their explicit impact on me. For, you see, my wonderful Doctor and I had been practicing Patient-centered health care (another yet-to-be-discovered concept) for years up to that point.

AND, since I still had bills to pay, two kids to keep in college (and those of you who have experienced this, you KNOW how expensive college is these days) I needed to keep working. But, my job skills were becoming increasingly more impacted by my MS symptoms. I knew that I must research, in addition to the disease, the concept of working while disabled.

Here, in a nutshell, is what I discovered. (By the way - I very much wish that there had been information like this for me to access when I needed it; that's one of the reasons that I am so passionate about providing the information to y'all, so that you can use it in your own unique situations.)