A Differently-Abled Slant on Being Disabled
In March, when the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic really took root in the United States and started spreading like wildfire, I became a professional casualty of the virus. My employer had rather dragged its feet through a very long process to secure additional funding, and when the pandemic hit, the funding dried up.
Almost instantly.
It was probably the worst time ever to be in a business with a first name of – literally – retail. [Note: the company’s name is RetailNext, and its software rather acts like Google Analytics for brick-and-mortar stores.]
No funding meant the need to make cuts for a retrenching business, and I had one of those positions eliminated. So, here I am, thrust into the job market, seeking new opportunities to grow my career.
The application process can be a very eye-opening, introspective experience, if you allow it. I always find creating a resume and associated cover letters to be an anxious period, one filled with self-doubt as to whether I’m telling the best stories, the ones that will seize the attention span of both recruiter and hiring manager, and present myself as a candidate that just has to be spoken with during their processes.
Each call back I don’t receive has me wondering what I can do to improve upon my story.
There, there’s the demographic questions at the end of most every online application – gender affiliation, ethnicity and race, veteran status and, a new one for me, personally, disability.
Disabilities are listed as one or more of the following:
- Blindness
- Deafness
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Epilepsy
- Autism
- Cerebral palsy
- HIV/AIDS
- Schizophrenia
- Muscular dystrophy
- Bipolar disorder
- Major depression
- Multiple sclerosis (MS)
- Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Impairments requiring the use of a wheelchair
- Intellectual disability (previously called mental retardation)
There I am, clocking in at number three on the list – cancer. With my multiple myeloma, my selection to the question is now, “Yes, I have (or have had) a disability.”
Kind of a strange word, disability. It’s a noun, defined as “a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities; a disadvantage or handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law.”
Now, I know I’m a bit late to this party. People have been fighting the stigma of “disabled” forever. And, I’ve learned over the years to think of many as being “differently-abled” as opposed to “disabled.” They have abilities. It’s just sometimes some of them have to do things differently.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of my own situation. Consider the following:
- I’m 56-years old
- I’m stand 6’1” tall and I weigh about 186 lbs., plus or minus one
- I have a resting pulse of 58, and that’s not my pulse when I wake up in the morning, but rather my pulse when I’m sitting in a chair at the infusion center having my vital signs taken
- My blood pressure is one teen something over mid-sixties
- I walk or hike between three and five miles every day. And, I mean every day – I’m writing this on July 5, and the last day I didn’t walk or hike was April 5, exactly three months ago. And, when I walk, it’s usually at a pretty good clip too, between 15 and 16 minutes per mile (On June 26, I walked 4.26 miles in 1:03:56, a 15-minute per mile pace.
- In addition to walking, I do a variety of strength and flexibility exercises, and my first set at the pullup bar is 9 or 10 reps.
- And, oh yeah, I have multiple myeloma
If I didn’t have cancer, I’d be one of the more healthy individuals in any workplace. But, I do, and my health requires some reasonable accommodations. I need to visit my infusion center every two weeks for a Velcade injection in my abdomen. And, I have other doctor’s appointments from time to time, although a great many of them are now going to be video visits for the foreseeable future.
But, disabled? I don’t feel disabled in the slightest. I feel quite comfortable stacking up what I can do with anybody, any age, any time, any place, in any and every thing I have a right to stick my nose into and compete. I mean, I’m not going to out-engineer an engineer, but I sure as heck will out-market a marketer.
So, “I have (or have had) a disability,” but I’m not disabled. Far from it. I’m fully-abled and I kick ass every day. After all, I have cancer, and that’s what we do.
