Driver's License Photo Has NJ Cancer Patient Fighting 2 Battles
By Jan Carabeo
FREEHOLD, N.J. (CBS) - A cancer patient went to renew her driver's license in New Jersey and ended up in tears.
Joanne Jodry asked if she could use her previous picture on file so she won't have to have a constant reminder of her illness, but she was told no. She now hopes her story will change state law and the DMV's policy.
For the time being, however, as she fights stage two breast cancer, she's also dealing with an emotional scar that she fears will remain years after the cancer is gone.
"I started to cry, and I'm crying in the picture," she says.
This isn't how Jodry wants to be identified -- as someone in the midst of a fight of her life.
But it is her new driver's license and the difference is striking. The old photo shows her bright-eyed and healthy. The new photo is a woman diagnosed with cancer undergoing chemo.
"I don't want to have a picture of myself, sick, for the next four years," Jodry says.
She visited the motor vehicle office in Freehold, Monmouth County to renew her license. They told her she had to take a new picture.
"I said 'clearly I have cancer and I'm doing chemotherapy,' and (the employee) said, 'that was a policy and that was it'."
At first Jodry says workers wouldn't even let the her wear a scarf to cover her bald head:
"The picture's not going to look like me for identification purposes anyway in a few months without hair, and (the employee) said, 'I'm making an accommodation for you, I'm letting you wear a scarf'."
A spokesperson for the DMV says they follow New Jersey state law, and that requires drivers to refresh their photos every eight years. Jodry wants to change that, so no one else has to go through what she and her ten year-old daughter experienced that day.
"Usually when my mom starts to cry I'll tart to cry," Jodry's daughter says. "It was weird that day, I started to get mad."
They want the DMV to make an exception for people fighting cancer. Until then, Jodry will continue her fight to survive:
"I have a little girl, so defeat is not an option."
Jodry is a therapist, professor and single mom. She was diagnosed in April and expects to finish treatment by January, but she fears this will likely haunt her for years to come.
After she's in remission and her hair grows back, however, she can go back to the DMV to get a new picture taken for $11.
