Vocational Rehab

I had my first appointment for vocational rehabilitation services today. It was weird. Nothing came of it, they won't make a decision until they have more stuff from my doctors, but emotionally it was weird to be asking for help. It's hard to accept that it takes more than usual amounts of support for me to manage.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, voc. rehab is a state program that provides assistance to people with disabilities to allow them to get or keep jobs. The assistance varies from fairly little things, like the computer I'm requesting, to lift vans to vocational training, and all sorts of other things.

I toured the facility in the county where I went to school twice in a few months period, and mainly registered it as not what I was interested in doing, back in grad school. I had no idea that 7 years later I'd be a consumer.

It just felt sort of unreal to be there, like there was no way that this was for me. It's weird to read what my doctors are being asked to fill out and see that in some fundamental areas I'm going to be less than fully functional. And that I actually need them to emphasize the negatives in a way this time.

One helpful thing is knowing that if this job doesn't work out I can re-open my case and they will assist me in finding another job that meets what I need. That is a good deal although I can't imagine how hard that would be as giving up my current specialization would be so painful.

Now we'll just have to see I guess....