my story

I became an MT at 28 when I responded to a Recycler ad for Colette's medical transcription service. Previous work summarizing medical records as an insurance defense paralegal gave me enough familiarity with op reports to stumble through the test Colette gave me. I starred at 7 cents/line and grossed $30 the first month. Patient coworkers listened to my blanks. Colette didn't care much about quality so I got a good education. I started wfh when Colette gave me bags of tapes to do at home. For the next couple years I subcontracted work from several local women. Steve did my pickups and deliveries.

I went digital with digital dictation inc in Sarasota Florida. in 1992. After a weekend training session in Sacramento I settled into rhythm of working from 9pm to 6am, I got premium pay for doing stats on graveyard shift. Using text expanders and a library of normals for frequent dictators I produced 450 65-chasracter lines/hour when industry standard was 200.

I became addicted to the solitary life of transcription. Earning $1000/week let us indulge in 27 grateful dead shows, rent far more house than we needed {I regret that extravagance}, and spawn two kids whose medical needs impoverished us for decades.

We spawned children. Nonbinary first-born {k} was a robustly healthy baby, breast fed easily, content in a baby sling on my chest while i wfh as medical transcriptionist.

They had hip dysplasia. needed 3 surgeries starting at 14 months and spent their childhood encased in hip spica casts. I can't estimate the total cost of treatment or how much income i lost.

Second kid arrived at 27 weeks after a LEEP for CIS-II to III made my cervix incompetent..D was septic after we picked up a nosocomial pneumonia from a hacking phlebot during a week of bedrest and mag sulfate tocolysis. D's birth and ten weeks of NICU care cost $1/4 million.

transition to oregon

stroke

life since