Tam,

Thanks for the post.

I am an employee, but also an independent contractor. I'm employed by a church as an organist/choir director. Good salary, no benefits. I'm also employed by a school district as an accompanist. Crappy salary, pretty good health benefits. Independently, I don't make alot of money, but I do spend alot of time, and what I make goes for the fun things in life like my kids' college tuitions!

I was a passenger in my own car that was rear-ended. There is presently a lawsuit going on. However, I understand that I'm pretty much limited to the other driver's policy limits. The other driver is a college kid.

I do plan to make a trip to Denver one of these days, but the timing is the tough part of that. I think the best thing for me would be to go right about now so that if they did do surgery I'd have the rest of the school year plus the summer to recover, limiting the sick days used in my school job.

But, there are those other jobs -

The church really likes me to be around during the Easter season, and the choir sings through May. The church only gives me 6 weeks of Sundays off, although they were very good to me the last time I had surgery, and paid for a sub for me for much longer than that. I don't like to take advantage, tho!

I'm starting rehearsals in April for a musical that will run through the end of June. (I'm music directing) If I wait until then to have surgery, I'm sure I wouldn't be ready to go back to work at the school in August!

Sometimes the logistics of all this paralyze me!

Sue