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A friend of mine with PD is close to retirement but is making life very hard on themself. This person stays late almost every day, brings work home almost every night, all the while watching as their PD advances. I told this friend that there is no reason to work so hard to try and create the illusion that their production level is unchanged since, as the disease advances, more hours will need to be spent to maintain this illusion. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a true blessing for working people with PD. In my early days of diagnosis, I found that my tremor, my mood swings, and the sadness that precludes the acceptance of this disease was DEFINITELTY affecting my days. No one offered, out of the kindness in their heart, to work with me to help me keep working as long as possible. In fact, the PD and the way it affected my work days was looked upon as a way to document shortcomings and create stress for me (those of you dealing with PD need no explanation as to the effects of stress). I got with my Employee Representative and we composed a letter to the Personnel Department where I worked saying the following: Dear _____: I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, which is recognized as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and would like to be accomodated in my working conditions. Yours truly, Working myself to an early grave This letter documents your request to be covered as a disabled employee and your request to be accomodated in your present position as needed. Short and sweet and simple, right? Not for some who don't want people to know about their PD (for whatever reason). What does this letter do? For the kinder employers, it lets them know that life with PD isn't easy and will help them back off in unrealistic expectations of your job performance. For the less sympathetic employers, it makes them define in writing what the"essential duties" of your job are. This means the basic functions without all the added job-duties you may take on from time to time because "you think you have to". If you are meeting these essential duties, you are fine and by putting down your request to be accomodated, you are covered against future harassment or being fired for not doing your job. If you are unable to perform any of these essential duties, don't fear. The employer, by ADA declaration, must accomodate your inability to perform the duty by accomodating you within financial reason (my past employer actuallly put a dollar amount of $25,000 as a rough idea of how far they would go in order to reconstruct work areas or order special equipment to accomodate me though the dollar amount isn't specified in the ADA wording). Why do I go on about this? Because I was a test case for my employer as the ADA came into effect years ago. I was having a difficult time writing, crying for no reason in meetings, being unable to type or hold objetcs steady, etc. My employer was the "bad kind" who was hesitant to provide any accomodations and did so most reluctantly all the while documenting my shortcomings and putting me through the stress of personnel-meetings, severe job-performance evaluations.....they even called another neurologist to give me a "once-over" since my neurologist was not providing the info they neede to somehow get rid of me. As you can imagine, the stress of fighting essentially a one-person battle took it's toll. How did my situation proceed? The employer allowed me to attend a Chronic Illness Support Group once a week (only after my therapist and neurolologist both agreed this would be beneficial for me) using my sick leave to cover the 2 hours lost time. Minimal effort was made in asssigning dexterious chores to my co-workers in lieu of watching me struggle. It felt horrible to try and deal with PD and think that my employer was "out to get me". The final straw came for me when my last job-performance evaluation came up. The typical evaluation is 1-2 pages, mine was 10 pages long! My immediate boss kept telling me that my PD was considered as a seperate item from my job performance (when all of you with PD know how foolish that statement is!). I contacted the EEOC in San Francisco and was contacting a lawyer to sue this employer for harrassment and job discrimination when...guess what? The next day after I made the call, the Assistant City Manager called me and asked me to come meet with him about the possibility of retiring early on long-term disability. I signed papers saying that I would never work for them again (fat chance anyway!) or sue them any time in the futue regarding my PD or my employment with them. They, in turn said they'd pay for 29 months of continued medical coverage , provide me $____/month till age 65 and provide a service to help me obtain Social Security Disability money...which they did. To my friend (you know who you are!), my wish is that you utilize the ADA laws to make your life easier. It seems futile to me for you to try and keep performing at the same levels when you're sacrificing your free time and digging a hole for yourself which could ultimately be an early grave. And I hope that everyone who reads this knows that this law is a "godsend" for folks with PD. I've "been there" and did the "trial by fire" and hope that none of you will ever have to experience anything that rough. I could've sued instead and maybe gotten more money, but the time involved and the stress of continuing to defend my rights might have been my physical and emotional downfall. Many people with PD get fired and have nothing to show for it but bitter memories and financial hardship. -David Boots (exhausted from typing!)