The MS Wire

News, info and tips for living with multiple sclerosis

Tag: ADA

Help making tough disability disclosure decisions

Two people at a desk

Telling your family and friends you have a disability can be tough. Telling your employer can be much tougher. When it comes to disclosing their disability, or requesting an accommodation, many people with multiple sclerosis (MS) worry that they’re damned if they do, but might be damned if they don’t. I’ve seen this problem from both sides. When I was first diagnosed with MS, I was working in the news…Continue Reading

Judy Huemann is someone you should know

wheelchair symbol

You may not have heard of Judy Heumann, who died March 4 at the age of 75. Although she’s not directly connected to the multiple sclerosis community, you should know about her. Everyone who lives with a disability owes her a great deal. Heumann was just 18 months old when she became ill in the 1949 polio epidemic. According to her website, doctors told her parents that she would never…Continue Reading

She Told the Recruiter About Her Chronic Illness and She Got the Job

chronic illness disclosure

It’s a decision most of us with a chronic illness have to make sooner or later: When do we disclose our illness, and to whom, and how do we do it? Thirty-one-year-old Katie Coleman faced that decision not long ago. Coleman has stage 4 kidney cancer and, in April, she was being interviewed for a software developer’s job she wanted. To tell or not to tell, that was the question.…Continue Reading