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Finding work

Tue, 07/07/2009 - 07:47

My first seizure happened when I was a sophmore in high school , I simply stared for a minute or so. People told me I replied and functioned normally but I couldn't remember anything that happened and what was simply staring stretched on forever in my mind.

However, I was misdiagnosed with psycho-analytical seizures and told that expensive therapy would help me eventually get over it. This continued for a year and the seizures got worse in frequency and the things that happened during one (I went from staring to drooling, screaming, convulsions and loss of bladder control). I got a job right away after I turned 16, but I was let go for perfectly understandable reasons. After seeking a second opinion I was finally diagnosesed with epilepsy.

I'm 20 now and with the number of seizures I have during the month, effects of medication, my own job experience and not being able to drive limiting my job options, is there any recommened places I can apply to? I want to help my parents, who have been nothing but supportive, with the costs of hospital stays, medication and now college loans.

I've heard of online jobs, but it's hard to find one that isn't just a scams. Is there some kind of referal site I could go to? Would an epilepsy support group be able to help me with employment?

Comments

Re: Finding work

Submitted by Frank Lee on Sat, 2013-08-03 - 00:30

Thanks for the input. If I was born 2 years prior, I would also be a Baby-Boomer. My thought was to approach hospitals with board members of Epilepsy Foundation on their staff. 

Who else would understand better? Possible jobs as transcribers, medical records, etc. If you have any suggestions on how to approach a hospital with specific job requests, please let me know. Two part-time jobs would be better than no job. I still don't have enough put away to retire on; will possibly be working to my mid-70's. 

Thanks for the input. If I was born 2 years prior, I would also be a Baby-Boomer. My thought was to approach hospitals with board members of Epilepsy Foundation on their staff. 

Who else would understand better? Possible jobs as transcribers, medical records, etc. If you have any suggestions on how to approach a hospital with specific job requests, please let me know. Two part-time jobs would be better than no job. I still don't have enough put away to retire on; will possibly be working to my mid-70's. 

Re: Finding work

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Tue, 2009-07-07 - 21:19
Hi Ametz, A complex partial seizure in my sophmore year in high school gave me unwanted notoriety with school officials when a teacher I had already complained of raping me attacked me in class during the seizure. My classmates told me I went stupid looking and started crunching up individual pages in my notebook with one hand, then my teacher flipped my desk over and dragged me out into hallway by my legs. When they followed us out into the hallway, he had my pants down and when he looked up at them, he took off running down the hallway. I got up and took off running in the opposite direction. I was isolated to library for the rest of the school year, and in the middle of my junior year, my schooling was discontinued. The files involving this event were also used against me by the U.S. Department of the Treasury when I filed an employment discrimination complaint against the IRS twenty years later with the Merit Systems Protection Board. I had a few low paying legitimate jobs after leaving high school, but problems with partial seizures brought each one to a short life. The best paying and longest lasting job was at a truck-to-railcar reload facility managed by a guy who had just left the priesthood, but in about a year and half, we had a major falling-out over the magazines left behind by the truckers. When he started making threats and acting violently, I left and hit the streets on the West coast. When I was lucky enough to have enough money to go to university, I used my parents' address, and graduated magna cum laude a few years later. When I tried to get a job relevant to my degree (I got told repeatedly that my degree disqualified me for lesser jobs!!!), aspects of my epilepsy were used to refuse me the jobs. After talking my problems over with my former professors, I started filing discrimination complaints against the federal agencies that used verifiable testing techniques. My lawyer told me I would have to provide current medical verification of my epilepsy, but the county offices refused medical services until I exhausted all of my rights with the Social Security Administration and the State Rehabilitation Department. Social Security told me I didn't work enough for Social Security myself, but that I worked too much to be eligible under my parents' Social Security (since I was otherwise eligible with epilepsy through-out my adulthood, because I had epilepsy while dependent on them before I worked too much). So my previous working disqualified me for Medicare and Social Security Disability. Using services of Medicaid and MediCruz, the State Rehabilitation Department decided that my epilepsy was too severe for rehabilitation to result in any likelihood of the possibilty of the ability to engage in any gainfull activity (i.e., getting and holding a job that pays something), and told me to get lost. The Federal Courts refused to recognize State generated medical records, and told me I didn't have any proof I was disabled and protected in any way as disabled under the law. The Federal Court of Appeals for the 9th District told me I presented a very good legal oral argument to them, which they held as evidence that I couldn't possibly be disabled under the Rehabilitation Act (ADA) without acceptable medical evidence, ten legal years later, and threw my claims out. Since my parents worked enough paying into Social Security to be eligible, I was also eligible as their offspring with a disability before and during adulthood (which would have offset many burdens on my parents too), so I lost my Medicare coverage, lost more than $70,000 in Social Security Disability payments, and lost access to decent Rehabilitation Services by trying too hard to engage in gainful activities, which only gave me a lifetime "categorically needy" status from epilepsy subject to endless State Budget Cuts.

Re: Finding work

Submitted by 9livecat on Wed, 2013-07-31 - 18:29

3Hours i hope you pressed criminal charges against that teacher.

have you tried getting work at a different law firm that practices a different type of law, business law for instance, something where it's less hectic? or a disability law firm...hmm. good luck.

as for social security dept. i hear you. i filed for SSI mind you which according to the forms is supposed to allow one to work part time and receive assistance/ they never contacted my eliptologist @ the county to verify my condition and ruled i am not disabled. department of assistive and rehabilitative services was saying they would help me get a job whether or not i got SSI/then declined when SSI said im not disabled.hey i have epilepsy im not crippled! oh and they said if i applied for SSI then they can't help me get work cause its saying im disabled and can't work.

and if you have what they think is too much money of your own they don't want to help you either.

3Hours i hope you pressed criminal charges against that teacher.

have you tried getting work at a different law firm that practices a different type of law, business law for instance, something where it's less hectic? or a disability law firm...hmm. good luck.

as for social security dept. i hear you. i filed for SSI mind you which according to the forms is supposed to allow one to work part time and receive assistance/ they never contacted my eliptologist @ the county to verify my condition and ruled i am not disabled. department of assistive and rehabilitative services was saying they would help me get a job whether or not i got SSI/then declined when SSI said im not disabled.hey i have epilepsy im not crippled! oh and they said if i applied for SSI then they can't help me get work cause its saying im disabled and can't work.

and if you have what they think is too much money of your own they don't want to help you either.

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