Tanisha is a single mom with three children between the ages of seven and 21. She has worked part-time in a doctor’s office for nearly 20 years. She suffers from sickle cell anemia, a lifelong illness with no cure, with symptoms including migraines and bleeding behind her eyes. She has had her spleen, pituitary gland, and a cranial tumor removed; and suffered a silent stroke. When the disability assistance she had received since 2003 was suddenly terminated in 2018, Tanisha didn’t know where to turn. SSA had determined that her hospitalizations were not frequent enough to prevent full-time work, despite the advice of her hematologist to work no more than 12 hours a week.

Fortunately, Tanisha’s nurse practitioner referred her to LSNJ’s Legal Assistance to Medical Patients (LAMP) project. LAMP advocates represented her through three appeals before finally winning the case.

“I was tired of fighting, to be honest,” she says. There were times she wanted to give up, but her lawyer encouraged her to appeal one more time. When she got the favorable notice, Tanisha says, “All I could do was cry and praise the Lord.” After six years of trying to survive on just her part-time income, Tanisha looks forward to catching up on bills and using her retroactive check to purchase a more reliable vehicle.

“I’m very happy for Legal Services.”