So What Next???

A couple of weeks ago here in Iowa, Mother Nature decided that it might be fun to see how many eggs she could fry sunny side up. The temps went up into the 90's and the humidity followed it almost as quickly. The heat was stifling during the day, and was bringing in big storms, some of which were even spawning a way to close tornado, come evening.

The combination started to play havoc on my back, but this had happened a couple of times previously over the last couple of years and I was able to get relief utilizing a lidoderm patch. I made my doctor's appointment, got all my medical records together, showed up and told this very charismatic doctor my problem, showed him the empty wrapper from my previously used patches, and bing, bang, boom.......I was in and out of there within 15 minutes with my prescription. Problem solved, or so I thought.

Unfortunately, my insurance company denied payment for the patch, stating that they would only approve this patch for a "shingles" diagnosis. To buy it myself would have cost $450.00 for a months supply. Of course the courteous client representative told me exactly how to appeal the decision and even encouraged me to do so, since this medication had helped me in the past.
I followed that recommendation, recontacted the doctor to tell him what was going on and he gave me another prescription which worked for the pain, but put me to sleep, not allowing me to work the hours I was being scheduled for. I was restricted to a 5 hour work day for the next two weeks to get this resolved.

Okay, so this still was not the end of the world. Others working in my area, (I am in the park bank this year), worked shorter hours due to other jobs, family obligations, dates, etc......and it was only two weeks. When I had originally started out, I had put in 7 days a week and worked double shifts to help them out, I was sure it would be tit for tat. Oh was I wrong.

I was immediately hauled down to the human resource office to meet with the Manager as well as my immediate supervisor. She was obviously mad, stating within the same sentence, that she could not change her schedules for me, but that she probably wouldn't even replace me on the schedule. WHAT???? Then she stated that had she known that I had a back problem, she would never had hired me....... Has she never heard of the AMERICANS WITH A DISABILITY ACT? So I turned to the HR Manager in total disbelief (As that last statement alone would have been enough to file a discrimination suit on), and told him, "Look, I'm not filing a work comp suit here!" I was totally shocked with the response, "Well we don't want it to get to that point." WHAT???? Another totally inappropriate response.

Now this is a large employer, maybe upwards of 5-600 employees. Maybe as a Vocational Counselor in my previous life, and having the appropriate training and experience, I am a little overly sensitive to such blatant no-no's in this field, but I really had a hard time believing that they had never had any training along this line. I mentioned the ADA at this time, and obviously someone checked into something, as I was called that afternoon, requesting that I come back to work for the five hours.

To make a long story short, a couple other things happened that I would have fought like hell over in my younger years, but this was suppose to be a "fun" job, making less then minimum wage. I have resolved the problem with my insurance company, had my two weeks off to get into my new trailer, tract my family ancestry back to 'The Stingy Halfdan' of Sweden somewhere in the first century after Christ, and started this blog. I also had a great visit with my daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The temperature and humidity have gone down and are managable. I go back to work on Sunday.

This too shall pass. I just have to remember not to get excited!

Until next time........