UNIWORLD

Author notes

Issue 1: Page 6

Torrie

on Feb. 20, 2011

Happy (belated) Valentines day folks!
This was supposed to auto-upload on Feb 14th but it didn't.
I should have checked, but this past week has been unusually difficult because apparently, despite all these "disability discrimination act" laws, nowhere will hire you if you can't walk or lift a 2kg bag of sugar, and are in constant pain which stops you sleeping. And the NHS won't pay for the treatment I need. My doctor won't even try and find a painkiller that actually takes my pain away, or acknowledge the fact that the painkillers they keep prescribing me are making me violently sick, which makes my back even worse. They told me they were referring me to an orthopaedic consultant in December. They still haven't.
So I need to find the £1,000 or so for treatment, while I can't work, and guess what? The Benefits office won't give me any money either because I'm not a pregnant 16 year old. Apparently, to be eligible for Disability allowance you need to have been totally incapacitated for 6 months. Your employer should pay you sick pay for those 6 months. Mine didn't want to, as I'd only been there a month, so they sacked me for being off sick. Because I didn't have an employment contract I don't have a leg to stand on. I should therefore be eligible for jobseeker's allowance, but I'm not, because I am incapable of working at the moment, so am not a jobseeker (despite the fact I apply for about 20 jobs a week, which is more than most people on jobseeker's bother to do).
I have another two months to go before I'm eligible for Disability.
And all this time I've been depending on my boyfriend, who has been fantastic about everything and so helpful, even when he has better things to do or is feeling a bit low himself, and I hate having to ask him to do things for me, because really I should be running around after him not the other way around, and the situation just conspired to make me feel useless and a waste of space last week, so all I did was learn AS level Biology from the internet to cheer myself up, because if I get better I can go back to uni and do my Master's degree in bioarch, and I need to know enough Biology first.
Which is why I never got round to checking if this had uploaded. :( Sorry everyone.