Life is an adventure, so live it to the fullest.
Today I had to meet with a gal from Workman’s Comp for a vocational evaluation. This assessment was to see what my skills and limitations are. There were a lot of questions about my hobbies and activities before the fall and what of that I can do now. It is this lady’s job to take what learned from me today and the doctors notes and go out and look for me a job that I can do within those limitations. After an hour and a half I broke down and cried when telling her my frustration at not being able to do the things I did before and not being able to drive a truck anymore. Trying to explain to someone that has never driven a truck what it is like to do and then to loose it is not an easy task. I know many of you have heard and read me talk about how trucking in more than just a job, it is a way of life and a life style. The nomadic nature of drivers in ingrained in them so deep that it becomes part of who they are and of who I am. Over the last couple on months as I have started school and had to try to integrate myself into the “real world”, I have had days that I hate my life. I have had days that I am angry at the world. I have had days that I ask why me and want to crawl into a whole and hid from all these crazy people that just don’t get me. I try to hang on to that fact that now I am chasing another dream I have had for several years. If not for the fall I am not sure that I would have taken the step to go to school and try to start another career in radio. I remind myself that I am smart, personable, and that the only one holding me back from chasing this dream is me. But it doesn’t always work. Even though I am doing well in my classes, I think I have at least one A, several high B’s and a C, I get scared. I wonder if I can really do this. All of this came out when talking with this lady today. I think that this meeting is another slap in the face that this is really happening, I am not going to back to truck driving, and that hurts.
The thing that made it even worse was the meeting with my lawyer after the lady left the office. My doctor has give me a 6% medical impairment rating. To get a rough dollar number as to what that means for a settlement we have that the 200 weeks that are allowed for a scheduled member, multiply that by the 6% (which equal 12 weeks) and then multiply that result by what I am getting per week from AIG for workman’s comp. That comes to $4787 for each wrist. Shane, my lawyer, says that it what I can count on getting at the very least. But that total will be multiplied by 4 or 5 because of the impact the injury has had on my life. So if we go with the hopeful number of 5, that total is $23935 per wrist. That is a total of $47871. Does that seem fair for how much of my life has been impacted by this injury? These are just base figures. Shane say he is going to shoot for 100 week times what I am getting weekly to start off with. That still only comes out to be $39893 per wrist for a total of $79786. Of course, he gets 25% of what ever settlement I get. This news did not go over well with me. I was really expecting more. I don’t want enough money to live off of the rest of my life, I just want enough that I don’t have to worry about how I am going to live while I got to college the next four years. Shane told me that workman’s comp laws are really not set up to deal with severely injured people. they figure that if you are severely injured, you will be going on social security disability. when I asked him I qualified for that, he said that they really are not set up for a partial permanent disability. He says that I do have a winnable case, but it would be a fight to get it. When I asked him if a lawyer would even touch it is it was going to be such a fight, he said they would, but that I didn’t want to start that until after the workman’s comp case is done.
So, I sit in limbo once again, not knowing what is going to happen and how I am going to survive the next few years while I try ti finish college and start a new career. But as much as there are days that I really want to give up, I am just not that kind of person. I am a survivor and a fighter. One way or another, I will adapt and overcome!!
Even at my age, finding the right major is not an easy task! Maybe it in some ways it is much harder, or maybe it is just me. Heck, I don’t think I have ever fit into any kind of box that most people would think a woman should be in. No matter what I have done in my life, I always do it my way no matte what, good or bad. So I guess I should not be surprised that college would be any different!
Today I met with my program advisor. (Yes, this is one that I talked about in my post a few days ago.) It went rather well other then the fact that when I walked out of his office, I realized that being a Media Production major was not where I wanted to be. As he explained to me, the program entailed more in the video field. It only has one class for radio! So, I made my way to the guy that runs the campus radio station. I need to talk to him anyway. My professor for my film studies class sent me an email telling me that the radio station wanted to interview me. We talked about the interview and my working with the campus station.
I then went to my acting class, lunch and back to talk to the head of the Mass Comm Department, Dr Campbell. I felt I really needed to figure out what I needed to major in to get to where I want to be, but he wasn’t in. So, I stopped back by Mr Sanders’ office to talk about my working with the station. As we chatted I filled him in about my dilemma. He remembered talk to the people over in the Arts & Letters Department about the Interdisciplinary Studies. From what he understood of it, I could tailor my Bachelors degree to fit what I wanted and where I want to go.
So I made my way over to the Arts & Letters building, went to the second floor, found the right office, had a brief chat with the ladies there, and set up an appointment to meet with them after my next class. As I explained that I wanted to eventually have a call-in talk radio show, about my book, blogs, fighting for civilian contractors for a couple of years, and the many emails and call I have gotten from women in abusive relationships that say that my story helped them get out of it, the many people that call about working in Iraq, the time I have spent supporting the military and dealing with PTSD, and so on and so forth, she said that I was in the right department. That made me feel good.
I still have to take all the core courses that every college student has to take, but I work with each department very closely to determine which classes I will take to get where I want to be. Here is the description from the USM Bachelors of Interdisciplinary Studies web site.
Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies
The Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (BIS) undergraduate program allows students to create interdisciplinary specialties in preparation for careers in a world where complex issues demand multi-faceted knowledge and skills. With the help of an Interdisciplinary Studies faculty advisor, students will select courses from two or more disciplines and focus their program on the basis of a unifying issue, theme, or topic as an area of concentration. Students will work closely with faculty from each selected discipline to design a program meeting their diverse educational and career goals.
Acceptance into the BIS program is determined by the following criteria:
- the student’s selection of a concentration area that does not reflect any existing major, linking clusters of courses and faculty where no structure or formal program exists;
- the student’s selection of a concentration area that integrates knowledge and skills from at least two fields and disciplines resulting in an individualized program that is historical, regional, thematic, or problem-based;
- the student’s selection of a concentration that is supported and approved by an BIS faculty advisor and associated program faculty. BIS students are required to cultivate relationships with assigned or designated faculty, taking initial responsibility in developing their individualized programs.
Interdisciplinary Studies students will develop individualized, coherent, intellectually challenging, cross-disciplinary academic plans, utilizing courses selected from departments at The University of Southern Mississippi.
After our chat, I filled out the paperwork to change my major. I hope Dr Campbell isn’t upset with me for changing my major, but I will still be a part of the Mass Comm department, just that it wont be my only focus.
I have completed my first week of college at USM! It has been an interesting week. Dealing with financial aid is driving me nuts! I had to have them do a re-evaluation which meant I had to bring in more paperwork. I have been to the office about 4 times now because one person will tell me I need this and that and when I take that in, the next person will tell me I need something else as well. But I do believe that I have finally got it all in to them and should receive my student loans soon.
The classes are far from boring and the instructors are likable. I have been asked to talk later in the semester about my book and how we received news while I was in Iraq in my Survey of Mass Communications class. In my Into to Film Studies, I have been asked to talk about the process of getting a screenplay written. Even though Eva Gardos is the one that wrote the script for the movie based on my book, I have been involved with it. I have made notes and spent many hours talking about what I did, how I felt and how things should look with her. I will be giving a small presentation next Wednesday night in the class. My Beginning acting class has not been to challenging yet, I am sure that before long it will become so. The 2 classes that are going to strain my baron are my Philosophy: Ethic’s and Good Living and the Media Writing Skills classes.
In the Philosophy class we are reading the philosophers and I am sure that you can understand why that would strain the brain. I don’t know if it is that I have lived more of life than my class mates, but I am not always getting out of the text what they are getting. Yea, some of what I get is similar, but than at times, I get something totally different or I don’t get what they get. I had a talk with the instructor about this Tuesday. He told me that I didn’t have to agree with his opinion, I just needed to get something out of what I was reading. He did say that he liked having me in the class because of how I see different things that the younger students. I told him my concern was not only getting something out of the class, but passing the class because I was not getting what the rest of the calls got. He said to not worry, it would be OK. So I will trudge along and hope that as time goes along and I get use to doing academic reading again, that it will get a little easier for me.
The Media writing Skills class is one that is a MUST to pass. We will be taking a test February 5th. If I pass that test with at least a 60%, then I will get a passing grade and not have to attend the class that rest of the semester. If I fail the test, then I have to go to the class the rest of the semester and take the test again at the end. If I pass then, then I am good to go, but if I fail again, I will get an incomplete and have to take the class again. This is a test that I HAVE to pass if I want to stay a major in Mass Communications. I can take the class 3 times, if I never pass the test, then I will be asked to change my major. The class is spelling, grammar, and punctuation the AP media way. So I guess we will see what happens on February 5th!
For now, I am still excited and nervous about being back in college. It has been a long time since I have had to study and do this kind of reading. I hope that as the semester progresses along, I will become more relaxed and settle into a routine of reading, studying, and play!
For the last 14 months I have been recovering from my fall, I have thought about what I was going to do if my wrists did not heal well enough for me to continue being a truck driver. When the doctor finally told me that my worst fear was reality, I was devastated! With the limitations I have on my wrists, I did not know how I was going to be able to support myself. If I did find a job I could physically do, would I enjoy it. Then I talked to the Mississippi Vocational Rehabilitation people and found that they would pay for me to go to college.
I has been over 25 years since I have attended any school, well, I did go to truck driving school in 1990, but that doesn’t count. At the age of 44, going back to school is a scary thing to do. Deciding what I wanted to study was not an easy task. Doing all the stuff I have been privileged to do in conjunction with my book, I found that the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) has a Mass Communication department and offers a BA in Radio & Television Broadcasting. I have sat in the studio with Chris and Meredith, host of Sirius’ Road Dog Trucking channel’s show “Freewheelin” as well as Carl P. Mayfield & The P Team on several occasions. I found it very interesting, fun and something I though I might enjoy. So this is what I have decided to study.
Today was what the calls Preview. Basically it is an orientation and registration day. They tell you a little about the school, get your student ID, talk to finical aid, meet an academic advisor, register for classes and deal with any other issues you need to for attendance. I tried to get all of that done today, but was not successful. I didn’t have time to get my student ID, talk to finical aid or talk to the Office of Disability Assessment (OSD). Those were not a big deal and didn’t have to be done today. I can do that next Wednesday when I start classes. Since my tuition and books are paid by the Mississippi Vocational Rehab Department, I really don’t have to worry about the finical aid, but if there is any thing out there that can help with any other cost, it would be nice to know.
USM campus is a small campus of 1 square mile, so it does not long to get from one building to another. The day went smooth till I got to the Mass Communication building and started to sign up for classes. Starting college at the spring term can be a bit frustrating because all the students that attended the fall semester have already singed up for the classes they want. So you are kind of reduced to their left-overs.
Mississippi Vocational Rehab requires me to take a minimum of 12 hours. Going in as an adult non-traditional student, the school restricts me to only being able to take 12 hours. I have looked at the open classes on-line and researched which ones I wanted to take over the last month. I thought I had a good idea of what I could and could not get. I was wrong. Out of the classes that I had on my list, I got one of them, PHI 171 – Ethics & Good Living. Three other classes that I need for my major and that I wanted, were closed when I looked at them last night. They were still closed today, but the advisors opened them for a few of us today, MCJ 101 – Survey of Mass Communication, MCJ 103 – Literacy Skills, and FLM 170 – Intro Film Studies. Those classes gave me 10 credit hours, I needed two more. With the restrictions that USM had on me because I am a probationary student and what MS Voc Rehab for them to pay for it, I needed two more hours. I could not find a two hour class that was open on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I needed all my classes to be on those days so I would not have to make the hour long drive 5 times a week. So I tried to find any class that I thought I would like, even if it the credit hours would not count toward my degree. I found THE 110 – Non Theater Majors Beginning Acting, a 3 credit hour class. When I tried to add it to my class list, it was kicked. I was restricted to 12 hours, not 13. So my advisors said they would take care of it. They went into the system and changed how many hours I could take. Now I have the Acting class.
I am very happy with the classes I got with the exception that Wednesdays are going to be very long days. The Intro Film Studies class is a 3 hours night class. But I will deal with it since it keeps me from having to make that drive on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All in all, I think that I should be able to handle these classes even though I have had such a long break since I was in school.
So now I am officially a college student and will start classes next Wednesday. I am nervous and excited at the same time, I am sure that it will be another great adventure in my life!
Once you get past the fact that you have had a sever on the job injury and that you are going to be out of work for a long time, you then have to face dealing with Workman’s Comp. Even if they give you most everything you need medically, the amount of time you spend making sure that you get your weekly checks on time, the prescriptions filled, keep track of your millage and so on can be a bit frustrating.
AIG was the workman’s comp insurer for F & H Trucking when I fell November 19, 2008. Having been a civilian contractor in Iraq for KBR in 2003/2004, I have seen how this company has treated some of the people I know when they were injured overseas. Some they took care of but many have had the fight of their life to be medically taken care of. My driver, Robert Rowe, on the night on August 21, 2004 was shot in the knee and until earlier this year, has been fighting with AIG to get the medical care he has needed. His fight started with being sent home to heal, going back before he was totally healed for fear of loosing his job, to AIG saying he needed to prove to them that he was shot in Iraq. Still walking around with several pieces of shrapnel in his knee, he has never gotten the physical therapy ordered in his settlement and received only a “few thousand dollars”.
To date, my dealings with workman’s comp and AIG/Chartis has been rather positive. Within the first two weeks of being released from the hospital, I was contacted by Arnissa, my workman’s comp adjuster. We talked about the fact that Dr. Waguespack’s office was 2 1/2 hours away from where I lived and I requested to find a hand specialist closer to home. Arnissa informed me that workman’s comp would rather I stay with the doctor that did my surgery in the hospital and that they would pay me millage for traveling back and forth. She said she would get in touch with Angela, a workman’s comp field nurse for the New Orleans area, for my medical care in the state of Louisiana and Debbie, the field nurse for the Mississippi Gulf Coast, for a doctor to fix my broken nose.
Arnissa asked me about my wages with F & H Trucking. The compensation rate for the state of Mississippi is 2/3 the Average Weekly Wage subject to the minimum and maximum in effect on the date of injury. Two-thirds of my income from F & H Trucking was more than the $398.93 maximum a week allowed for injuries in November 2008 and the millage pay was $0.585 per mile. This was a drastic cut in income for me. Arnissa got my mailing address and said she would send me the forms to keep track and get payment for all my millage.
Angela met me at my first appointment with Dr Waguespack two weeks after my release from the hospital. She sat in on my visit with the doctor, took notes, and told me to let her know if I needed anything. Even though it took me about an hour to bathe myself, I could not wash my hair and I needed help at home with personal hygiene at the very least. She said that she would get in touch with Debbie to get a Home Health Care Nurse in to help me a couple times a week.
It took about 2 weeks for my Workman’s Comp checks to get started. For the most part they have come every week, but once in a while they will be a week late. So far AIG/Chartis has not missed a week, but the inconsistency that the checks arrive can be a bit frustrating. For a few months they arrived at the house on Thursdays, then they started arriving on Tuesdays. Then, in the last few months, they have arrived any where from Tuesday to Friday and a couple of times not until the following Monday.
Getting millage pay is a bit complicated. I run the route on Google Maps or Map Quest to get the millage, they do not pay actual miles. I have to keep up with every time I go to the doctor. The form asks for the date, address of my house and the doctor’s office, what was the purpose of the visit and how many miles it was round trip. In the beginning, keeping track of all that was not a big deal other than I could not write, I had to get my Dad to fill out the form. I don’t sent this off every month, I usually wait till the amount of reimbursement is up around $700 to $800. Once I started Occupational Therapy (OT), it was a lot to keep up with. In stead of trying to write out every day that I went to OT, I would get the rehab center to write out a list of dates of visits and attach that to the millage form from AIG/Chartis. Once I mailed that form I am supposed to get the reimbursement check in 30 days. I have yet to get one in that amount of time, it usually takes about 45 days and I have to call Arnissa and get a bit nasty in the message I leave on her voice mail to get it then.
One of the biggest frustrations I have is getting Arnissa to return my phone calls in a timely manner. Usually it will take 2 or 3 voice messages left before she will call be back. Angela is almost as bad. I send her text messages through my cell phone because it is easier to get her to answer them, than it is to get her on the phone, but it can still take her 24 hours or more to answer those. Debbie is real good about answering my calls or text messages in a timely manner.
Getting prescriptions filled in the beginning was a bit of a pain. The doctor would write the prescription, I would take it to the pharmacy and it would be about 3 days before I could pick it up. It took the pharmacy that long to get approval from AIG/Chartis. This was the process for refills as well. A few months back, without any notice, AIG/Chartis switched to PMSI to handle prescriptions. I received a phone call out of the blue telling me who they were and what they were doing. They mailed my refills and 2 weeks before I was due for another refill, I would get an automated phone call asking me if I wanted to reorder the prescription. This was good. Now I no longer had to drive into town, drop off the prescription, wait 3 days to get approval and drive back into town to get my prescriptions refilled, they would be delivered through the mail to the house.
That was great till I messed up on reordering once or had a new prescription. There is no option to delay reordering the medication. You either reorder, or you cancel. A few months agoI still had plenty of the Vicodin and didn’t need to reorder so I choose to cancel the order at that time. The next time I saw Dr Waguespack, she gave me a new prescription for Celebrex along with a few samples of the drug to tide me over till I got my prescription filled. When I got home I called PMSI, punched buttons till I got a real person and told her I had a new prescription, and asked how do I get it filled. I was told to “put it in the mail”! When I told her that I needed the medication sooner than that, she told me to have the doctor cancel the written prescription, and fax them a new one, ordering the Celebrex. I asked if they could call Dr Waguespack’s office and get it, I was told “no, they could not”. This frustrated me and I hung up the phone. I sent Angela a text message telling her the problem with getting the prescription filled. The next day I got a text from her saying she would get a copy of it from Dr Waguespack and send it to PMSI for me. It was two weeks before I got the first bottle of Celebrex. Celeberex is a medication that you have to take for 2 weeks before it has any effect. So the samples Dr Waguespack had given me and that I had used up a week before I received the prescription in the mail, were of no use.
At that last doctor appointment I still had some of the Vicodin and didn’t get a new prescription for it. A month later when I did need to reorder, I jumped through the hoops of the automated system but I could not figure out to reorder them. Again, I sent Angela a text message. When she didn’t text me back within 24 hours, I called Dr Waguespack’s office, told them what I needed and asked if they could help. They told me to get Angela to come get the prescription for me and fax it in. I sent Angela another text message and tried to call her. No answer. I needed the pain medication so I called PMSI again. I went through the automated system again till I got a live person. I explained the situation. She told me I was talking to the wrong department, but that she would help me anyway. She got Dr Waguespack’s phone number from me and said that they would have the medication to me in about 2 weeks. Angela finally sent me a text message back that afternoon saying she would talk to the doctor’s office. I text her back informing her that I had gotten it taken care of myself.
Now, when PMSI’s automated system calls saying it is time to reorder my medication, I just reorder it weather I really need it yet or not. Since I try not to take the Vicodin unless the pain in my wrists get to the point that I just can’t stand it any more, I am building a rather nice stockpile of Vicodin. Since medication will keep for an extended amount of time, I guess this will be less I have to pay for out of my own pocket, later on, when they cut me off.
In my last post about dealing with Workman’s Comp, two weeks after seeing Dr George, I was still waiting for Arnissa to approve the work hardening therapy. Again, I took matters into my own hands and called Arnissa and left a rather tart message. Amazingly, she called me back that same day. She told me that she had just gotten the orders a few days before and had approved them. I thanked her for calling me back so quick this time and called the Rehab Center to set up my first session.
At the date of writing this story, I have been to 7 sessions, a little over 2 weeks , of the ordered 8 weeks and will not be going to any more. The mission of work hardening is to work a patient up from 2 hours of therapy, 3 times a week to 8 hours of therapy each visit. They take a description of what your job physically requires and your therapy is based on that. Even though 3 doctors have told me that with the injuries I sustained to both my wrists I will never pull a flatbed and never drive a truck again, my therapist has to go by that guideline and try to get me to where I can do the job I was doing when I was injured. I have had pain with every therapy session. Some of the pain was muscle pain from a year of non-use, but some was injury pain. My last therapy session was to be for 4 hours. I was sent home after just 1 hour due to the pain in my wrists. The head of the therapy department told me to call my doctor and see what she wanted to do, either not be so aggressive, or stop the therapy. Dr Waguespack’s assistant called me that afternoon and told me that therapy should not hurt like that and I should stop. I have now exhausted every means to get more use out of my wrists.
I have an appointment with Dr Waguespack on January 18, 2010. At that time I will give her the letter from the Rehab Center. It states that I could only lift 10lbs instead of the 20lbs that we thought I could do before and all other limitations they have seen though the work hardening therapy. At that time Dr Waguespack should give me a disability rating with my limitations and we will move to the settlement phase. With this milestone comes a whole other set of problems. AIG/Chartis could cut off my weekly checks, no longer send me medication, and refuse to pay for the doctor visits I will need for future pain management.
The Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission has a web site that gives all the information a person could need about the laws and regulations for the state. After spending hours and hours reading the laws governing Workman’s Comp for the state of Mississippi, I have hired a Workman’s Comp Attorney. I know I have had a much easier time dealing with Workman’s Comp and AIG/Chartis than many others have had, but the laws are very hard to decode and understand without some legal knowledge. In the next installment I will try to decode the law a little so you can understand what I am facing in trying to get a settlement out of AIG/Chartis on my Workman’s Comp case. It is very possible that even with the very low limitations on the use of my wrists, I could get less than $50,000. That settlement would include future medical visits due to this injury, future medications, and a lifetime compensation for the disability.
