So being broken is not how I imagine it
Firstly this is not how I really imagined ever hurting myself, but I should have had an idea when my professor talked often of going to therapy for his shoulder. Though I am not hurt quite like he is, it's still related to the same motions.
I have .... I am honestly not sure what the technical term for it is. The doctor didn't bother with it, and just told me that the muscle in my neck were compressing on my spinal disc in my neck. I did not really even know this, until long after it had happened.
See, I got home Tuesday night before last, after a long night of pushing a blasted red cart, and lifting change drawers and pushing carts and other madness, and I took my right shoe off. Sitting down, on the bed. Really. And I fell down face first in the bed sobbing from the pain in my right shoulder. I didn't really understand it, so I just.. thought I pulled a muscle. Because it just hurt and it passed.
I went to class the next day and I attempted to paint as I needed to for four hours, and my arm twinged every time I tried to lift it above my shoulder, but nothing that hurt that bad.
Then I went to work Thursday. That was when it got bad. I was lifting things, and moving things, and pushing carts, and I called my dad during a break because I was experiencing tingling and numbness in my hand the day before, and it was spreading into my other hand and it was generally freaking me out. Pain is one thing, tingling and losing of sensation is another. So I went home, feeling shitty for going home. Because I'm a workaholic.
I tried again the next day, after having Matthew stretch out my shoulders and arms, and I went to work, with the right arm in a sling, and tried again this time trying to not aggravate the arm. (Matthew had found what felt like a knot on a nerve in my underarm and I was still thinking it was that.) It just got worse as the day went by. My manager yelled at me for being at work, for not being able to do my job, and ... I don't even know. She was right, I was incapable of doing my job and I shouldn't have been there, but it had been impressed on me that I was _needed_ because it was very difficult to cover my shifts.
Through the course of the day, I asked the HR person what to do if being at work was making me worse. And she told me to file a leave of absence, and to put it in my department supervisor's box for her to approve. As I did it, my other manager convinced me that I'd have the full support of the store if I could just work my non-manager manager shifts and try to not do anything strenous. And I said yes, because it was a rough time for our team and I felt just standing around and closing registers would not be too much for me.
It was. By Tuesday night of this week, I could not stand through my entire shift. I had to ask a coworker who had had my position before me to help me close registers because I was in too much pain to move fast enough to finish anything. I filed for a leave of absence again, with the head of HR. On this paper, is seriously just my signature, hers and my supervisor's. It allows you to circle school or health as a reason.
Evidently it was denied. My supervisor claims it's an entirely HR thing. I smell a rat. I am not.. happy. I'm not sure what's going on, but I am disappointed that this is happening where I work, because I really did believe I worked for a company that would take care of these things when they happened to their employees. I didn't require paid time off, I didn't file for worker's comp, I just asked for time to heal. And evidently I was denied that. This is to their detriment as well, because if I'd been granted it, they could have proactively covered my shifts. As it stands, I have to call every day and let them know, guess what fuckheads, I'm not coming today either. Because I _can't_ be there, I have a _doctor's note_ saying I cannot return to work until at least Tuesday. Even then, I am going to the doctor on Monday, to re-evaluate everything and I might not be ready to work even then.
My school also pulled this shit, but I am somehow managing to finish the rest of my work with a mouse without too much harm. I still get twinges in my hands, and elbows. Putting ice on the compressed area sends threads of pain down my arms and back. But I am no longer rolling out horrible knots of pain out of my back with the foam roller the doctor had me buy, and I can lift my arm above my shoulder again. I went and bought a pair of Skecher shape ups( which are orthopedic shoes in disguise as fitness shoes), and walking in them is helping my back immensely. I just can't do much of anything though. I am not cleaning, or vacuuming, or able to cut brownies, or put clothes on my kid without triggering pain so I can't do anything I am used to being very easy for me.
It sucks. I'm not the kind of person to just stop and not do things because it hurts, but this isn't hurting this is freaky losing of sensation in my fingers to the point that I couldn't type very well last week. Where I started dropping things I was holding.
Life is really really sortof awful right now, but I'm pulling through somehow. Half because kiddo crawls into bed with me and tells me he loves me every day, and half because my husband who is swamped with chores and finals and grading his students papers takes time twice or three times a day to work out my shoulders and back so I can get a little better each day.
I have .... I am honestly not sure what the technical term for it is. The doctor didn't bother with it, and just told me that the muscle in my neck were compressing on my spinal disc in my neck. I did not really even know this, until long after it had happened.
See, I got home Tuesday night before last, after a long night of pushing a blasted red cart, and lifting change drawers and pushing carts and other madness, and I took my right shoe off. Sitting down, on the bed. Really. And I fell down face first in the bed sobbing from the pain in my right shoulder. I didn't really understand it, so I just.. thought I pulled a muscle. Because it just hurt and it passed.
I went to class the next day and I attempted to paint as I needed to for four hours, and my arm twinged every time I tried to lift it above my shoulder, but nothing that hurt that bad.
Then I went to work Thursday. That was when it got bad. I was lifting things, and moving things, and pushing carts, and I called my dad during a break because I was experiencing tingling and numbness in my hand the day before, and it was spreading into my other hand and it was generally freaking me out. Pain is one thing, tingling and losing of sensation is another. So I went home, feeling shitty for going home. Because I'm a workaholic.
I tried again the next day, after having Matthew stretch out my shoulders and arms, and I went to work, with the right arm in a sling, and tried again this time trying to not aggravate the arm. (Matthew had found what felt like a knot on a nerve in my underarm and I was still thinking it was that.) It just got worse as the day went by. My manager yelled at me for being at work, for not being able to do my job, and ... I don't even know. She was right, I was incapable of doing my job and I shouldn't have been there, but it had been impressed on me that I was _needed_ because it was very difficult to cover my shifts.
Through the course of the day, I asked the HR person what to do if being at work was making me worse. And she told me to file a leave of absence, and to put it in my department supervisor's box for her to approve. As I did it, my other manager convinced me that I'd have the full support of the store if I could just work my non-manager manager shifts and try to not do anything strenous. And I said yes, because it was a rough time for our team and I felt just standing around and closing registers would not be too much for me.
It was. By Tuesday night of this week, I could not stand through my entire shift. I had to ask a coworker who had had my position before me to help me close registers because I was in too much pain to move fast enough to finish anything. I filed for a leave of absence again, with the head of HR. On this paper, is seriously just my signature, hers and my supervisor's. It allows you to circle school or health as a reason.
Evidently it was denied. My supervisor claims it's an entirely HR thing. I smell a rat. I am not.. happy. I'm not sure what's going on, but I am disappointed that this is happening where I work, because I really did believe I worked for a company that would take care of these things when they happened to their employees. I didn't require paid time off, I didn't file for worker's comp, I just asked for time to heal. And evidently I was denied that. This is to their detriment as well, because if I'd been granted it, they could have proactively covered my shifts. As it stands, I have to call every day and let them know, guess what fuckheads, I'm not coming today either. Because I _can't_ be there, I have a _doctor's note_ saying I cannot return to work until at least Tuesday. Even then, I am going to the doctor on Monday, to re-evaluate everything and I might not be ready to work even then.
My school also pulled this shit, but I am somehow managing to finish the rest of my work with a mouse without too much harm. I still get twinges in my hands, and elbows. Putting ice on the compressed area sends threads of pain down my arms and back. But I am no longer rolling out horrible knots of pain out of my back with the foam roller the doctor had me buy, and I can lift my arm above my shoulder again. I went and bought a pair of Skecher shape ups( which are orthopedic shoes in disguise as fitness shoes), and walking in them is helping my back immensely. I just can't do much of anything though. I am not cleaning, or vacuuming, or able to cut brownies, or put clothes on my kid without triggering pain so I can't do anything I am used to being very easy for me.
It sucks. I'm not the kind of person to just stop and not do things because it hurts, but this isn't hurting this is freaky losing of sensation in my fingers to the point that I couldn't type very well last week. Where I started dropping things I was holding.
Life is really really sortof awful right now, but I'm pulling through somehow. Half because kiddo crawls into bed with me and tells me he loves me every day, and half because my husband who is swamped with chores and finals and grading his students papers takes time twice or three times a day to work out my shoulders and back so I can get a little better each day.