NDEAM in action: How VR helped me advance my career

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), a time to recognize the contributions people with disabilities bring to Oregon’s workplaces and economy. With one in four adults reporting a disability in the U.S., it’s likely you work alongside people with disabilities. You may not even know it because many disabilities are invisible.

I’m among those in Oregon’s workforce who have an invisible disability.

I was born with Charcot Marie Tooth disease, also called CMT. It doesn’t have anything to do with my teeth, despite the name. It is a genetic disorder that causes nerve damage and muscle weakness below the elbows and knees. It effects one in 2,500 people, and there is no cure. I got it from my mother, who got it from her mother, who got it from her father. And so on.

Because of CMT, I have an accommodation to use Dragon Naturally Speaking. This voice recognition software allows me to dictate text and navigate around my computer.

I have been using Dragon since 2011, thanks to help from the Oregon Department of Human Services’ Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program. This is my story of how a brief intervention from VR allowed me to advance in my career and find my dream job at ODHS.

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I learned I had CMT in childhood, after my grandmother did some genetic testing. But I didn’t know that meant I had a disability and qualified for protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

So when CMT affected my ability to do my job as a newspaper reporter, I thought I had no choice but to quit.

After four years of furious notetaking and frantic typing to meet rigorous daily deadlines, I got tendonitis in both forearms. Nothing the doctors recommended helped. The pain started affecting my ability to take care of myself and my home; driving was painful. I realized CMT was affecting my hands the same way it had affected my grandmother’s — who had to quit her job as a piano teacher.

I didn’t know that I could ask for an accommodation, or even what an accommodation was. And this was 2008; workplace protections for people with disabilities had been in place since 1990.

My grandmother and mother didn’t refer to themselves as having a disability. I never saw examples of them advocating for themselves and their needs. Without information and support, and I didn’t know how or when to ask for help.

Thankfully, a referral from an occupational therapist led me to VR. My VR counselor introduced me to Dragon Naturally Speaking, a voice recognition software I could use not only to type, but to navigate around my computer. I was unemployed with no income, and so I qualified for VR to purchase the equipment and training for me to learn to use it.

For those of you who use Dragon, you will know this latter part is huge. Learning Dragon is like learning another language. I used it to start a blog, strengthen my LinkedIn profile and update my resume. I was ready to re-enter the workforce.

I applied for a communications job at State Parks and got an interview. As I prepared for the interview, I debated when I should bring up my accommodation needs. I was terrified. I lost sleep and worried they would regret hiring me. I also worried I wouldn’t get the tools I needed in time to start work, that I wouldn’t be able to provide value to the organization.

Thanks to our state’s support for the ADA and people with disabilities, all of my fears were unfounded. In fact, I was promoted within the first year.

Seven years later, I applied for my current job as a communications officer for ODHS. And this time I wasn’t afraid to disclose my disability. The new job came with a promotion, and the privilege of helping others connect with VR and other employment supports for people with disabilities.

There was a dark time for me when I feared I wouldn’t be able to work and support myself. I applied for social security benefits, thinking I had no other option.

But I was willing to do anything, including learning a completely new way of working, to be able to contribute to my community. With a small hand up from VR, I was able to propel my career.

My story demonstrates that with the right tools and supports, people with disabilities can excel and bring value to their workplaces and communities. I am just one of hundreds of examples in Oregon of why disability inclusion matters, during NDEAM and every month of the year.