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Doctors Excuses, Sleep Apnea and call outs

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Backslider

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama


I am under tremendous pressure at work to come out on call outs on my job. I have sleep apnea and i cant hear the phone ring at night when im sleeping. I'm wondering would a Doctors Excuse from my doctor help me with my situation any at all? Does the company have to honor an excuse from my doctor? Is a doctors excuse really worth the paper its written on? Understand im not trying to get out of work. However i dont feel that i should be treated the same as someone without sleep apnea.
 


cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Actually, within certain limits, the law says you MUST be treated exactly the same as someone without sleep apnea.

As I stated in your first post, a doctor's note has no force in law outside of FMLA.

IF you want to self-identify yourself as disabled by virtue of the sleep apnea AND your doctor is willing to corroborate that, you would be entitled to a "reasonable" accomodation under the ADA. However, note that the ADA does not require that you be excused from performing any of the essential functions of your position and does not require your employer to accept a lower standard from you than they would from a non-disabled employee. The ADA's intent is not give you special privileges but simply to level the playing field.

What would and would not be considered reasonable is something that only you, your employer and possibly your doctor can decide. It is not something that a message board can establish. We can only tell you what the rules say.
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Sleep apnea means you wake up frequently throughout the night (I know this because I have it) - how does that prevent you from answering a ringing phone? (It certainly doesn't prevent me from doing so.)
 

Backslider

Junior Member
Sleep apnea means you wake up frequently throughout the night (I know this because I have it) - how does that prevent you from answering a ringing phone? (It certainly doesn't prevent me from doing so.)
No thats no correct. The Greek word "apnea" literally means "without breath."

I go into a deep sleep and i just dont hear the phone.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
I'm not telling you to keep your mouth shut. It's not for me to tell you to discuss it with your employer or not to do so. I'm telling you that having sleep apnea does not give you any special privileges although it *may* entitle you to a REASONABLE accomodation, and that reasonable does not mean excusing you from taking night calls if taking night calls is an essential function of your position.

Whether to talk to your employer or not is your decision.
 

eerelations

Senior Member
No thats no correct. The Greek word "apnea" literally means "without breath."

I go into a deep sleep and i just dont hear the phone.
I am correct - the reason I wake up frequently is because I stop breathing for a moment and my struggling lungs send a shot of adrenalin through me to get them going again, and the shot of adrenalin wakes the rest of me up.

Sleep apnea is not a deep sleep. If your sleep is so deep you can't hear the phone ringing, it's not sleep apnea that's causing it, it's something else. And if your doctor told you that deep sleep = sleep apnea, better get a new doctor.
 
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Backslider

Junior Member
I am correct - the reason I wake up frequently is because I stop breathing for a moment and my struggling lungs send a shot of adrenalin through me to get them going again, and the shot of adrenalin wakes the rest of me up.

Sleep apnea is not a deep sleep. If your sleep is so deep you can't hear the phone ringing, it's not sleep apnea that's causing it, it's something else. And if your doctor told you that deep sleep = sleep apnea, better get a new doctor.
Your case dont hold water.
 

>Charlotte<

Lurker
From the American Sleep Apnea Association:

With each apnea event, the brain briefly arouses people with sleep apnea in order for them to resume breathing, but consequently sleep is extremely fragmented and of poor quality.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Is the definition of sleep apnea really germane to the legal question involved?
 

eerelations

Senior Member
And you are an idiot.

Before you continue to argue with me (and trust me, it's a lost cause), do a little research on sleep apnea. Five minutes on the internet and you'll see that without a doubt what I've been saying about sleep apnea is absolutely, unarguably correct.

There are actual - and fairly common - physical ailments that cause people to sleep so deeply that they can't hear ringing telephones. It's just that sleep apnea ain't one of 'em. And no matter how many times you tell me I'm wrong, it ain't gonna become one of 'em.

If sleep apnea were causing you to sleep so deeply you couldn't hear a ringing phone, you'd be dead by now - this is a medical fact. You aren't dead, so ergo, it isn't sleep apnea that's causing your deep sleep. Period.

I think you and your bogus doctor better start searching for a different medical term to describe your obvious insubordination.
 

Backslider

Junior Member
From the American Sleep Apnea Association:

With each apnea event, the brain briefly arouses people with sleep apnea in order for them to resume breathing, but consequently sleep is extremely fragmented and of poor quality.
The Greek word "apnea" literally means "without breath." There are three types of apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed; of the three, obstructive is the most common. Despite the difference in the root cause of each type, in all three, people with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night and often for a minute or longer.
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Is the definition of sleep apnea really germane to the legal question involved?
I think so - I think the OP is really trying to find out if he fakes a disability, will he be able to refuse his employer's callouts and still keep his job. I don't know the direct answer to that, but I do know that he needs to at least fake a different disability, and that's what I'm trying to tell him.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
I repeat, is this really relevant?

As far as your legal question goes, it doesn't matter what you call it. You can call it sleep apnea, you can call it a dishwasher, you can call it Algernon. What matters is not the name of the condition, but whether it meets the definition of a disability under the ADA and whether or not a reasonable accomodation as defined by the ADA can be established.
 
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