Dear Editor:

Most campus employees may not be aware there is a resource on campus, the Catastrophic Leave Sharing Program, which allows an employee to donate accrued vacation to support a colleague who has exhausted his or her paid leave due to a catastrophic illness.

Recently I found myself afflicted with a degenerative disk in my neck, which was found to be pressing on my spinal cord and restricting the flow of spinal fluid. From my first major complaints last October, it took my doctors six months to find it, and then I was immediately placed on medical leave. It took another six weeks to decide to operate, remove it, and fuse the vertebrae. In the meantime, I had exhausted my vacation and sick leave. Then my new management services officer, Mary Dixon, along with our departmental financial officer, Mary Jane Miller, came to me with an explanation of the Catastrophic Leave program. I'd never heard of such a thing, but let me tell you, it became my lifesaver.

To cut this story short, I hope that you would allow me to take this opportunity to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to the hundreds of staff members all across the UC Davis campus who contributed their time towards my recovery. Since the donations are anonymous, I will never be able to thank them properly, but they all know who they are, and I am and forever will be, eternally grateful.

Delores D'Amico

undergraduate staff adviser

Department of Sociology

Helen Robinson

contracts and grants analyst

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