This link was published in its entirety by the local Chemung Valley Multiple Sclerosis Association October 2005 newsletter.
David Lander was Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley. His battle with MS began like mine, completely undercover. It is very difficult to hide active MS. And people's prejudices against it are a huge surprise:
MS hit me when I'd just begun full-time at the paper. Newbies are the first to go when layoffs come. However, when the Labor Department saw my resume, I was sent on interview after interview, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Leaning on my cane, exhausted, I trudged from place to place. Never to hear from the interviewer again. Must have been quite a vision of decrepitude. If I didn't go, I would lose the unemployment benefits, the woman at the Labor Department pointedly told me.
The punch line? Had to be one, right?
When I returned to work weeks later (Christmas ruined and me feeling sicker than before) my supervisor told me that he chose me for the layoff because he figured I could use a vacation! The others were janitorial or very young workers, all of whom were simply filling out paperwork and picking up their checks!
Good thing I would much rather laugh about it.
pb
Little Pond
No comments:
Post a Comment