I work 12 hour night shifts as an ICU nurse. 36 hours a week. I started back to work 14 weeks after my accident. Ive been back for 2 months now and my symptoms are just getting worse and worse. My headaches are pretty much constant and i have no energy to do anything on my days off. Unfortunately, i gotta keep going and feel like crap every day or there will be no job and no health insurance. I deal with the most extreme form of stress on a daily basis at my job...trying to save someones life.

Self employed. Have my own website design business. For the past 14 months doctors have limited me to 10 hours a week (split up between at least 5 days). I can't even do 10 hours a week; 3-4 hours a week allows me to still function throughout the week.

99% of my job is working alone at home when I am at my best. Occasionally I have to actually meet a client in person.

Before the "m"TBI I was doing two jobs from home from 6:30 AM to 9 PM or even later. Nannying (between 4 1/2 to 6 hours a day), and game art/animation (as many hours til bed at 10PM or so).

After, not much has changed, though I take many weekends off.

My boss is my housemate. He knows I have a TBI, but has cursed me out, threatened and insulted me for occassional mistakes.

We are both Christian & end an intense discussion on a good note.

My only symptom from my TBI is pain, increased by stress or additional injury.

I was in debt from the ER/MRI bill, am not any more thanks to a finished project, but am living off savings & have no insurance.

I take on tasks as often as I can. I need to be able to walk away from the task when I notice brain fatigue. My wife notices that I am slower and working more deliberately. I do this because if I work to fast or impulsively, my brain will fart and mess things up.

I am a high school English teacher. I missed an entire semester last year after my concussion.

I am currently working 5 hours per day, and I am not in a whole-group instruction setting. I'm working in a program where I work one-to-one with kids. I still get headaches if I have to sit through a day of meetings with the whole staff, so I'm pretty sure whole-group instruction would still be too much sensory input.

But the current arrangement seems to be working out well. I'm grateful to have an option that allows me to ease back in slowly.

4 hours desk work each weekday, which most days I can barely manage and some days I don't get much useful done at all (though some days I do).

This was supposed to be a transition plan for me on returning to work 2 months ago, but I have been unable to increase my hours as I haven't improved as expected.

Really sorry to hear about this nightnurse, sounds horrible.

So what happens in the USA if someone gets too sick to work and isn't rich enough to live without working? You just get left to starve?

I never stopped working. I have my own web development business. I hit my head on a Friday and worked as usual on Monday. I really shouldn't have. I really don't know when to quit. I was SUPER slow and who knows really what kind of mistakes I made those days. I'm surprised I even knew who I was. Work was very difficult for the first month. Very difficult. I could barely speak.

Almost. Hopefully you could elect short and long term disability from a private insurance carrier when you hired onto your job. In the mean time a payroll deduction is taken (mandatory) for SSI. If all goes well you never use it, good for you, very good for them.This is reassuring until you need it. You file on the private carrier and hopefully they pay. Then you usually spend a couple of years (usually 2) trying to get Federal SSI (disability) while the private insurance pays you (all provided your doctor will agree to your incapacity), SSI/SSD will usually deny benefits which involves turn downs, appeals, etc. In the mean time the insurance company you paid all those years harrasses you, denies getting information, wants more information, calls and tries to get you to say something they can use to deny benefits, etc. If that isn't good enough they send someone to "tail" you and take photos of you going to the grocery, walking, spending time with family, etc and claim you aren't disabled and cut you off. (I have to say this doesn't happen to everyone, but what if you are the one.) If denied due to this the insurance company is the one you have to appeal to and they make the decision (sounds fair to them, can probably thank our politicians and contributions). I'm terrified all the time, afraid to even take out trash.....google this subject, its amazing.
Mike

Probably not. There are food stamps. My answer as a responsible citizen however, is a gut reaction of yes, but I hope it's not the real answer. I've been wondering about this lately as I've lost some of the zest I used to have to work. It's not like me at all. I was an extremely driven person. Now I just really would like to take at LEAST a year off and just stay in a funk by myself in a cave.