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Edited on Thu Apr-02-09 03:50 PM by Lorien
My friend "Jane" (not her real name) is 60 years old and has worked in the motion picture industry since she was a teenager, leaving it for only a few years to work as a prominent fashion model in the early 70's. Throughout her career she has worked as an animator on many well known films including "The Empire strikes back" "E.T. " "Indiana Jones" and many others, including a list of well known animated features .The hand drawn animation was tough on her body. Over the years she developed severe carpel tunnel syndrome, but the studio she worked for would not let her slow down or take time away from work to recover. She developed spinal problems and arthritis, so the company rigged up a pulley system to the ceiling of her office to keep her drawing while she sat there in a back, neck and arm brace. Finally she was so crippled that she HAD to have surgery. The day after her surgery her boss, "Rita", called and insisted that she get back to work. Jane returned to the studio with a note from her surgeon telling her boss that she was not to draw for several weeks, and then she was to return to drawing slowly, only four hours a day. Rita gave Jane an enormous scene to do on day one, and only gave her one assistant to help her with it (she usually had four). Jane protested, but Rita said that if she didn't complete the scene on time she would be in jeopardy of losing her job. So Jane got to work; 12-18 hours a day for the next two weeks. The work cost her the use of her right arm AND her job.
Jane has been living on disability since then. Her retirement savings were stolen by an unscrupulous stockbroker who fled the country years ago. Jane has gone to court many times in an effort to keep her health insurance and disability. The studio she worked for for decades insists that her disability is from the polio she had as a child, not the absurd amount of work she was given after surgery. Today she called me, hysterical, because she had just returned from the hospital. Her doctor wanted her to have a CAT scan, but when he called her insurer they said she was no longer covered. She later discovered that her lawyer had had her sign a document that said that her coverage would end after the insurer had paid out a maximum of 35k in benefits. She had not read the document carefully enough herself (would not have mattered if she did; half the time she's totally zoned out on pain medications) before she signed it. Now she's completely panicked and is talking about suicide as her only option. Are there any CA DUers out there who know of any programs or organizations who might be able to help her?
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