Sure, I may have acquiesced to standing at work, but I didn’t exactly suffer in silence. I can pour more eloquence into describing the pain in my knees, calves, feet, and heels, than I could into a love letter. But yesterday I learned I had something to be grateful for – at least nobody’s going to die because I’m uncomfortable. That isn’t necessarily true for nurses assisting in surgical procedures. It’s not like they can just pop out of a delicate operation and lay down because their feet got tired. And if their exhaustion gets the better of the them…
Category: Sitting Disabilities
It’s the Middle of the Night, and the Pain Is Still Here
As people tend to do when they are awake because of pain, I ruminate about the pain.
Sitting Disabilities and the Curse of Boring
Before I developed one, I never realized how quickly sitting disabilities (or any disability, really) could make you a pariah. Sure, there are obvious reasons. If you can’t drive, it’s pretty hard to meet up with people outside your house. And if you can’t sit down, movies, restaurants, museums, and other public places are automatically less fun. But when I got my sitting disability, I realized there was another reason I was now no fun to hang out with: I became a boring person. I used to have plenty of hobbies and interests. I was a drama nut, and I…
Sitting Disabilities and Insurance Fights: Even When You Win, You Lose
While researching the legal background for my Sitting Disabilities: A Primer page, I spent quite a bit of time researching court cases and legal decisions related to sitting disabilities. So far, I have only been able to find one court case that directly addresses whether sitting disabilities are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). However, I did find several cases from the lower courts that dealt with sitting disabilities indirectly through workplace insurance battles. In each of these cases, the court concluded that the disabled person was, in fact, disabled, and could collect disability insurance money. Still, together…
Linda’s Trick for a Happy Flight
As I’ve mentioned, people come to the “sitting disabilities” camp from many different directions. A fellow upright, Linda V., alerted me to this blog post, which she wrote in 2015. I’m impressed by the creative solution she found to the anxiety-inducing ordeal that is air travel. She put herself to work. This might be my own insecurities speaking, but when I’m in public places I often worry about how my weird behaviors will come across. When I stand to avoid pain or beg flight attendants for a spot in their prep area, I often worry about coming across as demanding…