Arthritis Insight-Member Stories-Suzanne

Suzanne

My name is Suzanne and I am currently 43 years old

I have been living with hip pain which comes and goes for 20 years now

I have been to many doctors, chiropractors and taken all kinds of pills and
muscle relaxers and nothing takes away the pain except time

the doctors could not pinpoint what was wrong with me

well, on june 2002, I had another X-ray and this time the diagnosis was
bi-lateral mild degenerate arthritis

and now for the real pain of my story.........

I work in a building that has a second floor and no elevator for people
use, only a freight elevator

we were taken over about 4 years back by a sister company and the new
management insisted that I move upstairs

(I am a computer programmer) because that is where they decided to put the
programming department.......the programming

department and the computers are on the first floor and I had been working
here since 1991

I explained my problem to them and they insisted I get a doctor's note and
I did..............I told them that I cannot climb stairs

because doing so would aggravate my problem and the pain is really bad and
I can barely walk, much less climb stairs...

well, even with my doctor's note and my explanation, they still insisted
that it would be in my best interest to move upstairs

I have been fighting them for 4 years now.....they keep insisting I move
upstairs and since I keep saying no, I am mistreated

and discriminated against by just being treated very unfairly. I want to
be a part of the team but I don't want the quality of my

life to go down because I am in pain all the time. They say they can't
make the building handicap compliant because it is not

their building and they can't spend thousands of dollars to put in an
elevator just for one person....

I am so stressed out over this and I just don't know what to do
anymore.....................any suggestions??

thank you for listening