My story of being discriminated against for having diabetes didn’t stop after earning my Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy or changing United States Coast Guard regulations to allow me to go out to sea on merchant ships.
The next chapter sounds more like a Ben Affleck movie in the underbelly of Boston.
I had traded working in engine rooms on tugboats in the Gulf of Mexico and oil tankers in the Gulf of Alaska for a state job shoreside at a wastewater treatment plant near Boston. Eighteen months into the job, I got bumped from the 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm shift to the swing shift.
At the time, I was on the Minimed 640g with Humulin insulin, testing my blood sugars 6-8 times a day, and following a strict meal plan. I was writing everything down with a four-colored pen in a paper log book to review with my endocrinologist every 6 weeks.
It was the 1990s. The first DCCT report had recently been released, documenting the benefits of intensive diabetes management. Less than 1% of people with T1D were using insulin pump therapy. Analog insulin was about to change diabetes management in unfathomable ways. It would still be another 15 years before diabetes would be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
My A1c went from 8.0 to 12.4 in three months of the new schedule. I could not keep doing this.
My union and the State would not work with me on my schedule. Rules were rules. A more senior union member had the ‘right’ to bump me off my shift. And they did.
When I could no longer do my job due to uncontrolled diabetes, they ‘laid me off.’ My endocrinologist and I advocated for a consistent schedule, any consistent schedule, to be able to maintain my health and do my job. My union and the State would not bend. I was stuck at this plant on the swing shift.
They effectively made me sick, then fired me for it. I hired a lawyer.
I thought I wanted my job back. I was willing to work any shift except swing shift at any facility in the State. This should have been doable.
Their lawyers wanted me to sign a form stating I had a disability. I absolutely refused. By 1990s standards, I did not have a disability and was not protected by the recently enacted Americans with Disabilities Act. Signing this form would follow me and could have significant negative repercussions throughout the rest of my life.
The lawyers found a compromise. I would work the 11-7 shift at another site on a trial basis. This I could do. The guys on that shift didn’t like it. I bumped their buddy to the swing shift. They tried, and succeeded, in getting me to reject the compromise. It was the dead rodent on the hood of my car the second morning that did me in.
We went before a judge. My father, lawyer, and I were seated across from State and union lawyers at a white eight-foot table in a windowless conference room with the judge in jeans and a button-down shirt at the head of the table. The judge suggested we figure this out amongst ourselves and excused himself.
Their lawyers turned and threatened me. Leaning across the table, their lawyers promised to drag this on in the courts for decades and cost me, and my parents, everything we had.
I did the hardest thing for me to do. I walked away from a fight. I had changed State school policy, United States Coast Guard regulations, and went to sea as a merchant marine. This fight was different, and I went as far as I could. I hoped I had paved the way enough for the next person with diabetes to win the fight.
