A Nightmare of Clutter

I missed a lot of blogging time last winter.  My work got crazy and I just had no time.  Unfortunately, what started as a dream job turned into a nightmare culminating in 12 hour work days.  A few actually stretched out longer than that.  Try as I might (and I tried hard), I could not get my work-load adjusted.  The result was that long days at a desk led to a repetitive stress injury -- in both my left and right arms.  I developed ulnar neuropathy along with some carpal tunnel thrown in.  The nerve irritation triggered problems in my neck, shoulder and upper back.  Early in December, I had to stop working for three weeks so that the nerves could calm down.  I worked part time until mid January, and am now back to full-time.

My employer offers very good benefits.  I have quality health insurance and 100% paid Short Term Disability.  However, when you are hurt at work, you must go through worker's comp -- which my employer insisted I do.  The problem with that, is that the comp carriers like to deny claims, which is what they did to me -- claiming my injury was not work related.

The short of it is that I am now in litigation -- which is never a fun place to be.  Between dealing with lots of bills, I have to deal with legal forms and papers.  The result is my dining room table is a mess.   My employer has refused to step in and demand the company pay.  On the other hand, my supervisor (not the same one I worked for in the fall that was responsible for my workload), has been as sympathetic and is as pissed as I am.  I have a good attorney and a bunch of doctors supporting my claim. It just galls me that I have to go through this.  What I hate as much as the stress of the situation, is the mess it's making in my house.

When I had surgeries last year, my table was a mess of bills as well.  I'm thinking I have to do something to keep away from doctors an attorneys if I ever want to have a clear dining room table I can eat on!  As for my legal woes, I expect to win my case and rattle some cages at the corporate level once it's over.