Workers' Compensation
The reason that I created this blog is to ask anyone that is willing, to help me in a difficult time. I had had an injury at work on June 12, 2007. I went to the emergency room that night and they took an x-ray and said that I had a pulled muscle. They told me to rest and take it easy for a few days and I would be fine. Well a few days went by and I was not getting any better. I went to my regular Physician and he ordered and MRI. The MRI showed a herniated disc. They tried therapy and some steroid epidural injections and nothing was working. I wanted to avoid surgery, but since nothing was working, I ened up having surgery in October 2007. They did a discectomy. About a month after surgery, they put me in physical therapy and I was doing pretty good. Shortly before I was going to return to work, I woke up one morning and could hardly walk. I called the Doctor and they ordered another MRI. It showed that the disc had re-herniated. My Neurosurgeon said that it was not uncommon for this to happen. They had me do more of the steroid injections, but again they failed to help. They did another surgery of the same thing in February 2008. After this surgery I had developed chronic back pain. They tried several more steroid injections of different types and again nothing worked. I ended up having to have a fusion. I had this done on August 6, 2008. This whole time that I have been off of work, workers' compensation has been taking care of my medical bills and paying me a weekly benefit. Well, on September 19, 2008, I received a letter from my workers' compensation insurance company and they had their own Doctor review my medical history on this injury. According to him the injury is not work related, therefore they are denying responsiblity for this injury. So they have quit paying me my weekly benefit and all of my medical bills. I have been working for Dirks Heating & Cooling since August 3, 2005, almost two years before the injury with no problems at all and the injury happened while I was working, but they are denying it. It doesn't make any sense to me how they can deny it when it happened while I was working. I thought that workers' compensation was for the American worker when they get injured while on the job. On top of all this, Dirks are supposed to be good christian people, they are Mennonites, but yet they do this to a person. That doesn't seem very christian to me. I have worked hard for Dirks Heating & Cooling and this is how they repay me. As a service technician I was on call one week of every month and whenever someone didn't want to be on call, I took it for them and I also worked all of the overtime that they needed me to. It just goes to show you how much they appreciate their employees. Workers' compensation is my only source of income because my wife cannot work due to arthritis and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Now that this has been cut out, I don't know what I am going to do. I have a lawyer and he said we have get a hearing to get this straightened out, but he also says that getting a hearing can take moons. So by the time they get this straightened out, I will be homeless and starving. I have been working full-time since the day I graduated high school. I also have worked two jobs at times, one time for about a year I worked two jobs. From 2003 to 2005, I worked full-time at night and went to school full-time during the day. I can't remember ever using workers' compensation before this injury. I know that there are people out there that take advantage of benefits that they do not deserve, but I have never taken advantage of something that I wasn't entitled to. I don't have much, but what I do have, I worked hard for. I don't want to lose everything that I do have and that is the reason for this blog. I am asking anyone who is willing for donations so I can buy groceries and not lose my home. Or if there is anything else that you can help me with, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much for reading my post and thank you for any help thatyou may give.
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