Sep 14 2007
Week 7 of 6?
This week is my 7th week off of work, due to my back injury. Originally, I was told I would be off 4-6 weeks.
By all accounts, a herniated disc should take 6 weeks to heal. I know that this number isn’t set in stone, and magically on the last day I’ll feel better but I am not doing well at all. This morning, I woke up with the same kind of pain I had on Week 2. I don’t seem to be healing. In fact, the only way I seem to be functional at all during the day is through a combination of Tylenol 3, Advil, vitamins, exercise, and a lot of lying down.
To be honest, I think that I’m going to be off work for a considerable amount of time still. I suspect that my CT Scan results, that I’ll get on Monday, are going to suggest back surgery, which obviously means a lot more time off work. My problem with this is that I don’t have unlimited amounts of savings, and Pacific Blue Cross is slow to pay anything out, and it’s only about 33% of my usual net pay.
On a slightly brighter side, my wife was talking to someone who works at Worker’s Compension, and it seems that I still may be able to have a WCB claim, even though the initial injury happened over 2 years ago, and I never reported the inital injury. If this flies, I’ll be:
a) Impressed if this pans out
b) Relieved! WCB will pay considerably more, meaning I don’t need to stress out about money for a while.
We will see! If my doctor doesn’t file a claim for me though, I’m approximately 4 weeks away from having no choice to return to work with, hopefully, some really good painkillers until I can afford more time off work.