Looking Around

how is this possible?

Ok, here I am out of work... sort of. I am wondering just how legal this is? My boss, the owner of a small company (less than 7 people) located in Georgia informed me that I am now on unpaid medical leave for two months. I have not asked for this. I have not even decided on being in a drug study... at least for sure. When it happened, I was not even in the drug study and didn't even have a set screening interview appointment. I was in limbo.

In case you care, and didn't know, I have primary myleofibrosis, a chronic condition of the bone marrow that sometimes is an entry condition into leukemia. I have lived with this longer than I thought I would ( an longer than my initial hematologist thought I would). But, here I am, and lately, my presentation seems to be ramping up a notch- ie, more fatigue, more itching, more brain fog, more spleen... that sort of thing. Yeah, the spleen is what gave it away for me 28 years ago. I woke up in pain, right over my spleen. When I woke up the second day with the same sharp pain, I went to a doctor. It wasn't gas, or infection, or acid reflux. He sent me right away to a hematologist. I kind knew I might have something serious when my doc's second question to me was something along the lines of, "How good is your insurance?"

Now here I am 28 years later, getting kind of worse for wear and not doing so well in a semi-high pressure job of database quality control for geographic systems. So, with pressure from my wife and my boss, I headed to the medical community. One thing lead to another and here I am being invited into a drug study for an experimental drug in development. I made the "mistake" of sharing this information with my boss. I say mistake in quotes, because it was really none of her business on one level. On another level, she just finished treatment for breast cancer and kept me (and other employees) posted on what was happening to her. So, I felt safe to clue her in on the possible drug study and potential consequences.

I am now, not so sure that was the wisest move. I won't mention the drug or the study, as yet, I am only in the beginning stages of being accepted into the trial. What the potential risks is that for a short time, I will get worse, my platelets, already kind of low, will get lower, resulting in more anemia, more susceptibility to infection and disease, and less productivity. So, as she put it, I am to go on Medical leave until I an cured and more able to think clearly. Basically, when I am smart again, come back... until then, no work, no pay and no unemployment benefits because technically you still work here.

To be fair to her, I had made mistakes in a delivery that could not be billed until it was sorted out and fixed. That took time, and she was very angry about it... and let me know in very clear, emotion-laden terms how angry she was with me. Her new "wonder-kid" was having trouble wrangling the data into acceptable form, which only made her seem more hostile towards me, as delivery slipped further and further into the future. And, now that I consider it, there has been a kind of pattern to the office over the last few years. One person in the office is the "cool" kid, able to leap tall buildings, etc. The other person, especially, if it was a male, was the goat, unable to grasp simple concepts that for some reason were never explained well. My old job was the "good kid", my new job was the goat...and now, I am not there anymore ( just like the old not "good kids" that used to work there).

And, now, here I am in limbo, not fired, not laid off, not being paid with the order to get well under a severe financial pinch so I can go back to work "smart". I am not sure how this is supposed to work out, so I am open to suggestions. Until then, who knows? Georgia is a "Right to Work" state, I am sure to find something to do for a couple of months.