I remember the day they took me off work completely. Like you we had just bought our home and my husband and I weren’t even married yet. Talk about stress. It was a very difficult time.
Steve (my husband) told me that I had needed to see an attorney. I was sick to my stomach. How could I go to an attorney? This company would do right by me. I was concerned that the company that I had worked so hard for was going to be furious with me. I had worked there for 11 years at the time and now I was in the process of suing them or I should say there insurance company for my injury. Blah.. LOL… Boy did I learn later... I was just another warm body showing up to do my job. They could have cared less about me. Prior to seeing an attorney, I had been told I had minor problems. Mainly what they were telling me was to rub some dirt on it and walk it off so to speak.
I had then found an attorney but the process took a little time. Things were tight and Steve picked up the slack. My attorney found a Dr for me to see and things started to happen. My Dr found that I had herniated disks in my cervical spine and I had needed fusions. That had taken place and the insurance company started to pay me my wages.
Things began to go better. But I had to say goodbye to my job as I could no longer perform required duties. Now what do I do... I was once again depressed and sickened and I cried day and night. I lost the job I loved so much and worked so hard to get. I then was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, DDD, neuropathy, carpal tunnel, chronic neck pain… etc... I won't even get into how I found out I had TOS, thats another long story.
Steve was wonderful but I knew this was very hard on him. To this day he still has a hard time talking to me about a lot of my medical problems. The day I was diagnosed with TOS he had no clue as to what it was or what it entailed... I don’t think he really understood until we had a TOS meeting with some of the TOS'ers from the So Cal area. It really helped him to understand what I had been going thru and dealing with. But it is very frustrating because we look great on the outside and we feel so torn up on the inside. For example when people hear that someone has cancer they treat them differently because they know of the disease. But with TOS they have no clue and don’t believe the pain and weakness we experience.
My Cervical spine was W/C. But my TOS is not and like Shelly I have spent so much money on medical bills I probley have put a down payment on a new home or purchased 2 new luxury cars. I joke with Shelley and tell her I should be the poster child for our surgeon as we share the same surgeon.
I have been thru the 5 stages of Grief and I think at times I go thru them over and over again.
This is such a tough thing to go thru. Personally, financially, physically, emotionally you name it, it’s hard...
Hang in there. Times will be rough but your health is important and you can see yourself thru this. Give your husband a little time; maybe he just doesn’t know what to think or how to deal with this. As Shelley said maybe you can sit down and have a heart to heart. It may be very hard for him to see you in such pain. My husband has a very hard time seeing me when I am in a lot of pain or very depressed. It affects him emotionally too. Our husbands aren’t always the tough guys they try to portray.
Good Luck to you... You’re in my thoughts... I see a lot of what you’re going thru now and it brings back a lot of memories for me.
I could go on and on but I think I need to start wrapping this up...
Many Big Gentle Hugs
Dawn