Hi everyone ! I am so nervous I put a post up not too long ago and I had 1 reply but I need more help! I've been getting more episodes lately and I only work as on-call but I don't want to quit my job what are my options? I want to be regulated before I go back but I am affraid that if I tell my boss what is going on she will discrimate me and let me go. I am going through invitro this summer and I will also need some time off but even there I don't know what to tell work? Please help!
Mindy

Can't help you with the invitro time off. I would say to do a search on American with Disabilities info on seizure accomodations and see what you find. The boss should be able to allow some things for you due to the seizure diagnosis. (time and place to recover if you have a seizure in work, more flexible hours possibly, )


Hang in there. Hoping more will reply.

Thank you for your reply I need as much input as I can get I appreciate you replying.
Mindy

For starters get yourself down to your neurologist and get a full work up tell him your having sz maybe it's time for a medication change or an adjustment.

I think it boils down to can you trust the company. If you give full disclosure of your medical condition will they call you in less, promote you less, or treat you differently. The answer only you know or are in a position to find out. How do they treat your peers? Some companies are employee focused and you might do ok with telling them you just been diagnosed with E. Dont have them think you had it and didn't say anything when you were hired. If you tell them know going in to that meeting what you want. A quite place to lay down if the room starts to spin. Are you still driving? If not, maybe a carpool to help you get there. The sky the limit. In any event, everyone has something good companies recognize this many are willing to help. If they won't, look for yourself a company that will. If you decide to share remeber you are going to have to teach them about E it's still very scary for the unimformed.

What do you do for a living? I does kind of depend on the job.

Keep us posted

good luck

Live well

Yolo

Hi Yolo! I work at 2 different places, first off I am working in the school setting as a teacher and Educational Assistant and my secong job is in the group homes! I am keeping in contact with my Neuro over my fax machine and he has upped my dosage by 10 mg I am just waiting to fax him back next week to tell him nothing has changed. I guess you are right if I tell the company and they discriminate me maybe it wasn't meant for me to work there. But thanks for your opinion I never thought of what you said telling them that I was just diagnosed, that's a good idea thanks a bunch I will let you know what happens if I keep getting these seizures ok?

Mindy

Hi!
I can add to the invitro part only, as I have had 2 invitro's.... The down time after the invitro is 2 days, and after that they advise no lifting until the pregnancy test either 14 days for day 3 embryos or 9 days for 5 day blastacyst embryos. I have had both. Invitro is straight forward itself, the egg retreival is a little more involved, but even with that it's downtime at most 2 days. I worked a high stress job the first invitro, and actually the time off I needed for blood tests, and sono's were classified under the FMLA guidelines as removing of eggs is considered a surgery!

Not sure what other Q's you have pertainig to invitro, on the other issue I have no knowledge. :(. I would be happy to answer any Q's on invitro that you may have.. Good luck with all, and I will pray for you. Take care~

Legally, in the US, you CANNOT be fired for a medical condition nor can you be discrimanated against, same as for religion, sex, race, all that. However it's alot harder to prove it happened than you would think. Also, employers are required to make reasonable nessecarry accomadtions for you to do your job. Now it you have something like hearing loss and your job is listening to things, then they are required to find you a diff job you can do. I know all this cause I went through this a few years ago, I am pretty sure it is the same in all states. Anyway, my company "laid" me off, rather than firing me. It wasnt' E related, but for something else, I had missed a few days, came in and said, I might need to sit down every little bit and rest, and they said, you are laid off. So, I went through all the proper channels, but it was just to hard to prove. And I have talked to alot of other people who have the same problem. I think, that if I had it to do again, I wouldn't have said anything to them. Now, if I did have an understanding boss, like at the last job I worked at they were great about it. If you work at a large company, like Wal-Mart or somthing, where bad publicity would hurt them, they will be less likely to do it.
Good luck!

Hi everyone ! I am so nervous I put a post up not too long ago and I had 1 reply but I need more help! I've been getting more episodes lately and I only work as on-call but I don't want to quit my job what are my options? I want to be regulated before I go back but I am affraid that if I tell my boss what is going on she will discrimate me and let me go. I am going through invitro this summer and I will also need some time off but even there I don't know what to tell work? Please help!
Mindy

Hi
I dont know what country your in but all major countries, UK, USA, Germany etc. all have some form of a 'Disability Discrimination Act'. Although Epilepsy isnt a disability (it a condition) it is covered in this act. This means that your boss cannot fire you but, you do have to inform her. It also states that she must keep this information confidential unless you state otherwise.She does have the right to send you to see an occupational health doctor at her/the companies expense but even then they'll find it hard to fire you. Just hold you head up, dont be ashamed or afraid and go for it.

You said you work as a teacher. . . are you a union member? If you have union representation call the union before you do anything, they should be able to tell you what to do.

If not, everybody else is right, ADA says they can't fire you for having epilepsy. I'm not sure you need to tell them you just got it, they can't ask you about diseases when they hire you and unless it interferes with your job it's none of their business, so there's not really a reason they would have needed to know before now. So unless it makes you really uncomfortable you would probably be ok just to say that you have had this, it was fine but it has recently gotten worse and you need some accomodations. They didn't need to know about it before because it wasn't affecting anything. Laws are written to protect you the worker, and I believe (not positive on finer points of disability law) even if you have AIDS or something equally serious you have no need to tell your boss unless it affects how you do your job (in that case, if you were a Dr. for example). You only need to tell them to make yourself feel better/more comfortable in the environment.

You only need to tell them, if you do something like drive a truck or machinery, that you could cause damage to yourself, others or property. LIkewise, if you have hepatatis and work in the food service industry, you have to disclose that.