Dear Reader,

In 1978, after years of increasing fatigue and illness, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I thought that was the bad news. I was wrong.

The bad news was that I wasn't independently wealthy and had to apply for Social Security disability-insurance benefits. I had private disability insurance, but it only kicked in if I had exhausted all appeals within the Social Security system, and the maximum payout was $592 a month.

So, I applied for benefits, and two years and one husband later, I finally got them. One year later, my claim for benefits was "reviewed."

"America's War On The Disabled..." is the story of seventeen years of my life. The first three were spent in frantic attempts to get a diagnosis and treatment for symptoms that would make it impossible for me to work. As a result, my next fourteen years were spent fighting the Social Security Administration, or emotionally paralyzed by my dealings with it.

I remember that time as being very like having been sentenced to a term of "rehabilitation" in Siberia. In complete isolation from my peers, I later realized I hadn't seen a new movie or play, read a new book, bought or listened to a new music tape in more than a decade.

Under Social Security regulations, you can lose your benefits for engaging in "an activity," even if it doesn't make money. Under that definition, nursing a baby is "work," sitting is "work," getting up in the morning is "work." But I needed something to fill the empty hours, so I continued to write what, in its final form, is "America's War On The Disabled..."

It's the story of an intellectual and academically trained woman - reduced to scavenging through the trash for newspapers - who coped with this change of fortune in the only way she knew how, by documenting (and finally researching) it.

I spent fifteen years writing "America's War..." and when I was finished, I found the world had passed me by.

I studied writing, but today's sales oriented world requires writers to be good salespeople too. I'm not. Even this letter to my readers proves it. It violates the tenet that all my text's "keywords" should appear in this page's first paragraph.

I spent my time "in Siberia" learning how to write well, but other writers of my generation also spent their time pursuing connections, networking, and learning the ropes of formula category publishing.

When I finally re-entered society, my 60's politics made me an intellectual dinosaur, and my insistence that my story needed to be told this way made me a crackpot. True life medical stories are different from expert accounts are different from research texts are different from feminist tracts, and just what particular group is my reading audience anyway?

As soon as I said "the disabled(?)" my book was dead in the water.

America is as indifferent to the twenty million or so people who have become disabled since my story began as it is to this book. Still, I continue to believe it's a good book, and that it ought to be available for people to read if they want to. It ought to be your choice.

So, I offer my personal journey free to you. Just click on the book link below. You can read or store the book in manageable sections, but don't neglect the Bibliography. I have a filing drawer full of every communication ever sent me by Social Security, and a photocopy of every article cited, but people still don't believe the disability reviews of the 1980's happened. If you're going to talk about them, you'll need proof.

BEST of POD