Tag short term disability

Mercury is Still in Retrograde, right? Report card from the doctor and a toilet explosion

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Today is a big day.

It is the final day of my short-term disability leave.

I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. thinking it would be good practice for returning to work tomorrow.

By some strange circumstance, I woke naturally at 4:15 a.m., the same time I normally get up for work. I cuddled with Louise briefly and got out of bed before 4:30 a.m. I had the lovely vision of writing more of my upcoming novel.

But I heard water.

And it was more than a drip.

So I checked the bathroom, sloshing through several inches of water. I threw down some towels and organized some buckets and bowls.

But when I went downstairs, I saw several heavy drips pouring through the ceiling. And tiles started falling like hail.

I went back upstairs and turned off the water to the toilet. And I called the insurance company.

All before coffee, all before 5 a.m.

I went to my family doctor and he not only released me from my short-term disability leave but told me I’d made good use of my time— going to the gym three times a week and working with a personal trainer, visiting my therapist, resuming my SSRI in an attempt to lower my blood pressure, ease my emotions and hopefully that will help my balance. I went to the dentist, bought new floss and renewed my prescription for fluoride toothpaste. And I rested. I updated my vitamin regimen, added Flonase to my allergy regime, and bought a weekly pill dispenser to keep them all straight.

And that’s when I told him I had also done my follow up bloodwork. That made him, in his words, a happy medical provider.

From there, I went to Apex Training for my session with Andrew. We did a great mix of strength and core and challenging my posture and my mobility in ways that made me feel amazing. I left covered in sweat.

And the plumber came before I had a chance to shower.

We now have a new toilet— the old one was probably 60 years old. And pink. The teenager is upset I didn’t keep the old one. She thinks it would make a great planter next to the rose bush.

And she hates the new toilet.

Which, interestingly, the plumber does, too.

Mallet finger update: my doctor is a good one

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

If you haven’t heard my saga of rupturing a tendon taking off my socks, you can catch up here:

Today I went to see my family doctor as I am concerned about the interaction of my mallet finger and my list of comorbidities from cerebral palsy. My crooked gait makes me a fall risk and the last five years or so— more or less since I entered my forties— have included broken bones, SI joint pain, back pain and hip pain.

All of this have led to a more-than-one-year journey to understand my body and how cerebral palsy impacts it.

I have visited doctors and specialists and neurologists trying to understand what I can do to minimize further issues as I age.

And it has worked!!!! My pain levels and chronic issues have dropped from daily pain of 5-8 to pain levels.

So I had a long visit with my primary care physician and told him not only about my injury, but also updated him on my fitness and improvements. I explained how I have been learning how muscles are supposed to work with my friends at Apex Training. I also told him I fell onto the brick wall of my house yesterday. I showed him the abrasions on my left arm.

Then I pointed out that traditionally my left side has been my anchor and by removing that from the anchor position, my walk has become more asymmetrical (according to my iPhone) and my hip is out of whack and uncomfortable all of the time and it’s only getting worse in these conditions.

Unlike the specialist— he filled out the paperwork himself and in front of me requesting that I have an FMLA leave until he sees me again after my specialist.

On top of all of that attention, he then gave me a full physical.

It was very hard for me to be vulnerable and ask for help, and my doctor and his staff made me feel heard, valued, and as if they truly cared about me.

I brought the paperwork home and started the claim process to initiate a short-term disability leave. It took about an hour and I realized my doctor missed one of the pages and on another he misread the questions. (So I added post-it notes.)

And if I’m 100% honest, despite everything I deal with, I still harbor feelings of guilt for asking for this time— much of which I intend to use doing work with my personal trainer and chiropractor to strengthen this hip and improve my walk so I can return to my warehouse job with a strong core and a better understanding of how normal legs work. I’m going to try to teach them. But, with my femoral anteversion, I know there is only so much I can do.

I deserve a chance to make myself strong and healthy.

The latest in the saga

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

So I spent a good deal of today dealing with paperwork for my mallet finger— trying to get the info I need to return to work since my specialist doesn’t think I need short-term disability for my finger to heal. That I just need to not use the finger.

For info on my injury:

The original blog post on the incident is here.

And the follow-up medical stuff is here.

I had filed a FMLA leave request, which I thought would lead to at least a week or so of short-term disability since Patient First told me to anticipate potential surgery and eight weeks of healing time.

But the doctor avoided both of those with a cast.

I’m stuck in limbo between waiting for the specialist’s office to fill out the forms to release me from my FMLA leave and the accommodation form for Stitch Fix, and I never quite reached the point of short-term disability but had started a claim.

I called the medical forms office at my specialist, and it took a chunk of the day to verify that they won’t have my forms ready until potentially next week— which of course intensifies my need for short-term disability which is a different set of paperwork a doctor needs to sign.

With my work week starting on Sunday, even if my release form arrived Monday morning and Stitch Fix could work everything out for me to return Tuesday, at that point I’ve already missed 1.5 weeks of work.

And I’ve used a lot of my paid time off recently while I was accepting voluntary time off— so when this occurred I only had 20 hours of sick time.

I’m not complaining, but I am trying to plan my household finances.

And then my supervisor said to come to work Sunday and we’ll see what we can figure out.

The ups-and-downs of navigating this system where medicine has become such a business that everything is so complex even for someone as organized as I am is exhausting.

But luckily the teenager puts reminders like this on my iPad. “Have a good day and don’t kill anyone.”

As compensation for my draining day, the teenager and I went to Aldi in our pajamas planning to buy chips, get gas, and stop at Arby’s to try their new boneless wings. The commercial got me. Because I hate celery. Watch it here to understand.

But when we got to Aldi, and bought our chips, the car wouldn’t start.

So I got to call AAA. Or in my case, text AAA. The teenager was very excited because she never witnessed a AAA call before. Because she doesn’t remember when I locked the keys in the trunk when she was 2.

It was the battery, which George from AAA replaced. We left Aldi 30 minutes after we called. It was all super fast.

And then we met George again at Wawa for gas.

The teenager loved the whole process and wants to learn more about cars and car repair even more than she did a few months ago.

As for the winds, for six dollars I was pleased but the teenager noted they were all spice and no flavor. I enjoyed them but they were over-sauced and the two flavors did taste extremely similar.