My reason for starting this petition!
Hello, my name is Katie and I am a 33-year-old wife, mother, grandmother (yes I am a YaYa!) daughter, aunt, and friend. My husband Tony and I have been married for thirteen years and have one son together as well as six stepchildren! On February 20th, 2010 I was diagnosed with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) and our world turned upside down.
Living with Multiple Sclerosis for nearly 10 years and having failed five medications, I was running out of time and options. It became increasingly more difficult for me to have the quality of life I and my family deserved. Over the past few years the Multiple Sclerosis has progressed in such a way that it caused me to suffer from extreme fatigue, numbness, tingling, heat intolerance, cognitive issues, memory loss, bladder issues, vision problems, vertigo, "MS hug", severe ice pick headaches, and tremors which made my day to day life difficult. I was transitioning to SPMS (Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis) I was fortunate enough to receive a treatment called HSCT (Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation) that is proven to halt/cure MS. I received this treatment in Chicago, this past March and April 2019.
I have been home recovering and have a blog on Facebook called Katie's Hope Journey to END her M.S. I share updates about myself, but I also share things about other people's journeys on my page as well. Recently I shared a post about a woman named Lisa. She was in her 30's when diagnosed with MS and her post was about a very cruel note that was left on her windshield for using her blue handicap placard. I wanted to share her post on my blog because something very similar had happened to me. After I posted Lisa's story, there was a comment left by one of my followers named Taylor. She stated that this happened to her very recently, however, her note was printed! This meant that the person who left the note on Taylor's windshield carries copies with them!
A few years back I went to Walmart and on this particular day, I was having a very bad "MS day". I was in extreme pain and fatigue, and knowing that I had to walk to the back of the store it was creating a lot of anxiety. I parked in the handicap spot and walked in with a cane. When returning to my car, I noticed a police car in the parking lot. I buckled my seat belt and started to pull out of the handicapped spot. It appeared that the policeman was following me, so I went up and down the isles just to make sure. I was waiting for him to turn his lights on to pull me over, but that didn't happen until I pulled onto the street. When he came up to my car I asked him why he took so long to pull me over, and what was the problem. He stated he was running my plates and that he noticed I was using a handicap placard and asked if I had a registration for it. I responded, "as a matter of fact, officer I do." So, after I handed him my licenses, registration for my handicapped placard, and proof of insurance, he said: "hold tight I'll be right back." After he confirmed that everything was legal, he asked, and I quote, "Why do you have this registered to you?" I then made him stand in the street and listen to my ENTIRE MS story, along with a brain tumor and breast cancer scare. He was embarrassed and apologized.
After reading Lisa, and Tayor's stories and hearing about many others as well as my personal experience with this issue, I realized how people, including law enforcement, can be uneducated about invisible diseases and disabilities. So I felt I needed to do something about it. I did some research and this is what I found. "The earliest law providing for “handicapped” parking was Delaware's 1955 Code 2134. After the passage of the 1968 Architectural Barriers Act, the federal government mandated parking spaces, signage, and curb cuts. The universal access symbol, closely associated with physical accessibility, also debuted that year." In August of 2019, there has been the "biggest shake-up" in the history of handicapped placards by now allowing people with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and the like to use a handicap placard. Even though this is great news for those who are suffering from these invisible diagnosis, I feel that this will create more issues for all of us now in this category. Also people like Eric Steven's with ALS that was recently on The Ellen DeGeneres show. Can you imagine him using a handicap placard and having a horrific note left on his windshield, or the police called him? This would be absolutely devastating. But these cruel acts are happening every day to people with invisible disabilities and diseases.
My idea is to create an orange handicap placard to be used for those that suffer from invisible diseases and disabilities. This placard would be designed with the color orange (due to the MS color being orange) so that when you see someone that may look young or may appear as though nothing is wrong with them, the orange handicap placard would distinguish that their diagnosis is invisible.
Thank you for the 1100 signature thus far! I will be working on contacting senators for my state first after the holiday's so I will know where we need to go from here. My goal is 100,000! So please keep sharing this petition on social media sites and simply spreading the word!