So there was one thing that happened in my October car accident that I hadn’t talked about before now because it made me extremely mad for quite awhile, actually.

I had received my disabled placard only a few weeks before the accident.  I took me a while to work up the nerve to ask my doctor about how to obtain it or what was involved in obtaining one.  I probably should have tried for one back in April when I first started using oxygen. Honestly, it never crossed my mind until July when I couldn’t work anymore & getting around was tougher because my breathing continued to get progressively worse. Then for a few months, I just forgot.

At any rate, my lung doctor signs off on one for me when I asked her about it. I get the form notarized, send it in certified mail to the DMV (call me paranoid about such forms getting lost in the mail).   I’m going about my business and it finally comes.

The day of my car accident, I see it in laying on someone’s lawn. It must have flown out of my car with the force of the head-on impact to the driver’s side.  I ask the good samaritan to kindly pick it up and put in my car through the passenger side window. They oblige.  Just a few minutes later the EMTs are extracting me so I don’t have time to put it in my purse.  I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t…

I was still hospitalized when the insurance adjuster comes to survey the damage.  My friends end up cleaning out my car. I told them where to look for the placard.  Well, guess what….not there.

That’s right, some jerk swiped it out my car while in impound or while it was being towed.   I was livid.  I couldn’t believe it.  Then again, nothing should surprise me anymore.

I had to wait until I was discharged from the nursing home to do anything (this was about 2-3 weeks after)  & luckily my primary care doctor signed off on another form for me once I told him what happened.  He was the first doctor I saw after my accident otherwise it could have been longer I would have had to go on without it.

I reported it lost and/or stolen & went back to the notary to have the form notarized to send in, yet again, for a replacement.

The notary told me that she heard about these stories all the time (she was sympathetic).  At least one person comes into her office weekly with a story like mine.

I have to say, that time I had to wait for my replacement I really noticed how much I’d come to rely on it. How much easier it was for me to get around, especially with my new concentrator or using heavier & bulkier tanks.   It felt like a much longer time waiting for my replacement than what it actually was.

I told some of my other friends what happened.  A few of them had stories where post transplant they still need one because they have issues or damage that the transplant couldn’t restore or reverse.

People had the nerve to ask them why they still needed one since they had a transplant.  If they were still “technically” disabled or considered themselves as such… WTH?

What gives people the nerve to make assumptions like that in the first place?  Obviously, even those of us with invisible illnesses (that may not fully become outwardly apparent at some point) need a doctor’s sign off to get this placard in the first place. To assume any of us (with any serious medical condition) are “gold bricking” is incredibly rude & presumptive.

But then again it doesn’t surprise me, nor the lengths people will sink to either, with this whole placard replacement mess.

I don’t spend a whole bunch of time dwelling on it, but things like that do have a habit of making me wonder what the hell is wrong with some people?   What kind of chip do you have to have missing to sink to these low levels to question the “legitimacy” of someone’s illness or to jack their permit?

It’s a rhetorical question….I already know the answer.

It’s not a competition. “Mr. or Mrs. So & So” off the street playing armchair medical authority, judge, & jury should just mind their own business.

Doctors don’t dole these permits out to people like appointment reminder cards.